High Histamine & Mast Cell Activation Horrors

So I haven’t updated you guys on my healthy for the LONGEST time …. basically I was managing my Lyme Disease and Fibromyalgia really well using:

Journalling (to pace and manage my stress & emotions)
CBD oil (let me know if you want more info)
Healthy eating
Gentle Daily Exercise
My Lovely Naturopath and a few supplements

Then the sh*t hit the fan and my symptoms changed …. I started to have wafting pain flowing up my feet, through my legs, especially at night, a VERY upset tummy, very sore feet, and a hot/burning/itchy sensation in my feet.

Basically Mast Cell Activation Syndrome had hit ?

Now, I don’t think I am a naturally ‘histaminey’ type of person, so I don’t get hay fever or hives or skin issues.

So I think this was a perfect storm of ….

Terrible stress (business went into liquidation, business partner turned out to be a scam artist)
Locked in with the now soon to be ex-husband during covid
Less food deliveries – so food was less fresh
I’m a pescatarian – fish is high in histamine
Cooking one day and eating left overs the next – left overs are VERY high in histamine
Peri-menopause / Menopause hitting
ALL the healthy food I eat was high in histamine ??????
Swimming in the paddling pool every day – very cold

I’ll admit that I am not managing to get my head around it all, but here are a few pointers for you, that I don’t think are obvious (please note I am not a doctor, nurse, medical professional, nutritionist, naturopath etc – this is just my personal experience and you should always chat to a specialist, if you can find one):

There is a difference between inflammatory foods and high histamine – I was choosing inflammatory over histamine, as histamine produces pain for me (Inflammatory would be wheat, sugar and dairy).
There are 3 types of problematic histamine food can be (1) high in histamine, (2) stop the body dealing with histamine, or (3) encourage the body to release more histamine.
Anti-histamines: The first subtype is called H-1 receptor antagonists or H-1 blockers is used to treat allergy symptoms. The second subtype is called H-2 receptor antagonists or H-2 blockers and are used to treat gastrointestinal conditions, including gastroesophageal reflux disease [GERD] (also called acid reflux), peptic ulcers, gastritis, motion sickness, nausea and vomiting.

Histamine vs MAST Cells

There is a difference between high histamine and mast cell activation syndrome.
The Mast Cells ‘guard’ the body and can become over active – this is what happened to me
High Histamine means that your body can’t handle the amount of histamine in it ‘the load’
You can have both, or just High Histamine, but your mast cells are fine.
The body uses DAO and HNMT to handle histamine – which may not be as successful without a healthy gut, low zinc/B6/Copper/Vitamin C or if your methylation process isn’t working efficiently
I have MAST – I need to tackle more than just food (but there is a bit more to it) – it’s worth checking out the link below to see what you think is troubling you.
If you have just high histamine, you can probably managed it all with just food changes.

Causes of MAST

Mold
Gut Issues (Dysbiosis)
Chronic Inflammation
Viral Infections
Chronic Stress
Trauma & Abuse
You can even be genetically more prone to it

Things To Remember That Make It Worse

Exercise produces histamine
Extreme cold / heat e.g. ‘wild swimming’ or the ‘wim hof method’ or hot saunas
Stress makes histamine worse
Hormones make histamine worse

This is a ‘whole body approach’ or ‘histamine bucket’ approach, not just food:

Avoid chemicals in your cleaning products in order to lighten the load
Also avoid chemicals in your skin or hair care
Look out for mould in your house
Avoid broth, collagen, Kefir, Kambuchia or anything fermented
Avoid left overs (freeze and defrost instead)
Choose gentler exercise
Include rest time & meditation / relaxing hobbies
Avoid fish, unless caught and instantaneously frozen
Avoid citrus fruits, tomatoes, avocado, spinach & bananas (See full list below)
Be careful of vitamin / mineral mixes, as they may include ones you don’t want e.g Vitamin B9 / Folic Acid is considered bad for histamine
Vitamin C is often made from a citrus source (high histamine) and by growing mould on it (high histamine)
There is a wisdom in creating a schedule that you stick to every day, so that your body knows exactly what to expect
Prioritise sleep (but remember that you also need rest to heal, and that is different).

Mindset:

If you have always had histamine issues, this is likely to be a change that you make for life.
If you weren’t always, then you can probably focus on healing the things that kicked it off and seeing how you do after some healing time.
I strongly recommend looking at calming your nervous system as a help to reducing the amount of histamine in the body
But, whichever it is, focus on what you CAN eat and CAN do, (see my next blog post)
And consider it your body’s guidance system, instead of a restriction.

Supplements:
Now I haven’t spent a lot on supplements, because I found it too confusing, in fact, I dropped most of mine.

Quercetin – definitely helps me
CBD – definitely a priority for me and a good alternative to Vitamin C (See link below for more info)
DAO – should be good, doesn’t seem to help me
Vitamin C – I used to take, but only take now if my stomach is OK, don’t take the versions made from citrus
Magnesium – definitely good for my restless & painful legs
Probiotics – should help (I took a break from them)

Some More Information For You:

The Swiss Food List: This appears to be the best one: https://www.mastzellaktivierung.info/downloads/foodlist/21_FoodList_EN_alphabetic_withCateg.pdf

Histamine vs Mast Cell Activation:
https://mastcell360.com/histamine-intolerance-vs-mast-cell-activation-syndrome/

Really good overview site (I didn’t buy anything from here though):
https://histamineintolerance.net

And his food list:
https://histamineintolerance.net/foodlist

How To Choose CBD oil

My ‘What you can eat, that isn’t weird’ Blog post ??