Can you (I) travel with histamine intolerance?

Short answer: probably. Longer answer: but bring snacks.

There were two things that really struck me when I was first figuring out that I had histamine intolerance (more on that in the archives), both fairly identity-injurious.

Not tasting everything

Firstly, I would not be able to taste all the tastes. Now, in all honesty I’ve been pescatarian-vegetarian-vegan (one or the other, obviously not all three) for decades, so I was generally not tasting all the things anyway. But the idea of smelling something that appealed to me or seeing it available and saying an obligatory “no thanks” when I really wanted to say “yes please,” was a blow. We have talked about this.

Not traveling

Secondly, when you are a person who pretty much has to cook all of her own food, or know all of the ingredients and how it was prepared/stored/kept warm (looking at you perfectly innocent seeming restaurant quiche which was made two days ago and which could bring me a world of woe), you cannot easily travel.

I have made a few trips here and there, resigning myself to a pocketful of a safe granola bar, nuts I can eat (almonds for me, maybe yours are walnuts or pecans?) and an apple. And being not entirely satisfied in the food department. Visiting friends and family or staying in an apartment is always fine, because there’s a kitchen available, or if I have a supermarket with a salad bar (eat cold because histamines in the kept-warm protein) is fine. But what about going into the larger world?

Last year I bit the bullet and went on a baby trip. Just four days, to the north of Chile, where there was an included breakfast. I ate light, I ate a few things that weren’t really right for me, and more wheat than I would normally eat, and I survived. I also found a place with a freshly made vegan soup, topped up with safe-to-me potato chips and arrived back home safe and sound, if a bit hungry and over salted.

Confidence was built.

Many people tried to get me to go to Antarctica

A photographer friend sent me a link for a good deal for a shortish trip to Antarctica in November.

Antarctica has been someplace I’ve dreamed of going, but many things have always prevented me from going, which were mainly budget and the fact that even talking about the open ocean makes me a little seasick.

I’m sure you can relate on the budget. But what about the seasickness? Chances are, if you have histamine intolerance, you know allll about it. Because they are not unrelated. In fact, if you look at your package of bonine or dramamine or mareamin (in Chile), you will find that the active ingredients? are antihistamines. But more on this later.

So I thought and I hemmed and hawed and thought about being seasick and how I would deal with foods in a place where I was not allowed to bring almonds or apples and how surely ten days at sea would deplete me of every will to live, and I sadly said no.

So later that year, when a travel agent friend asked me if I would consider going to Antarctica with her on an even better deal with a much fancier ship and more food choices, and having had more time to consider this, I swallowed a metric magnum of nervous bile and said yes. The budget thing was dealable (helped by the fact that I live a short flight from Buenos Aires). The seasickness? Well I was just throwing caution into the wind. And as for food, well, I was going to make of it what I could and hope that between the seasickness and the novelty, my hunger could take a back seat to my excitement.

So how did it go?

First of all, holy everything, I got to go to Antarctica. I was agog, truly floored, marveling nearly every second of our super long days and sunsets. I was too excited to read, to write, to paint (did you know I paint? maybe not). I stood outside in the whipping wind and went back inside a million times. I tasted the ice that forms atop the ocean (salty) and jumped in the drink with a rope around my waist so they could fish me out (I swam back unassisted) and saw so many shades of blue that I am still reeling (oh! and the penguins, of course the penguins, multiple kinds, and seals and sealions and so. many. whales.).

I was also seasick. They say there is the Drake Shake and the Drake Lake. This refers to the crossing of the Drake passage, a notoriously turbulent part of the ocean. We got lake, which is what you want. Even so, I was green at the gills for a few days. There were some trainings and info sessions that you had to go to if you wanted to do some optional activities like kayaking, and I had to get special permission to sit outside the auditorium along with a family I referred to as the “seasick family” for the rest of the trip, and go in just to do the physical test. The water was wavy, up and downy, and my body was having none of it.

Seasickness meds are antihistamines

This brings me to your bonine/dramamine/mareamin. There are different families of antihistamines, and my Mareamin (Chilean brand) overlapped with the Zyrtec I occasionally take, so I had to switch out the Zyrtec for something else in case I needed to take it for a histamine reaction when I was already antihistamined to the gods. I did not need to be seasick and also poisoned, thank you very much.

For the seasickness I took ever-decreasing doses of my anti-seasickness medicine every six hours until we were through the turbulent section, and found my maintenance dose was 1/4 of a tablet every six hours, and then I was fine, if groggy. Yes, I wore the pressure bands, yes I drank the ginger drinks on offer and ate the ginger candy. I kept hydrated and slow and ate light and looked at the horizon and exchanged feeble encouragement with the seasick family, and I an excellent seasicker despite all of this. Truly extraordinary. Fun fact: one of my histamine reactions has always felt to me like motion sickness. The clues were always there.

What about the food?

(pictured: mushroom something, maybe strogranoff?, my emergency savior meal, and many sweets)

This is a two-parter. Buffet and served meals. Well, maybe a three-parter, also snackbar snacks.

Buffets

The ship (you are not supposed to call it a boat, I don’t know why) had a buffet breakfast and lunch. Breakfast was easy, I ate oats and nuts and fruit and milk, and this is a good breakfast for me. Occasionally there was a hash brown or other salty thing, some cheese, etc that I would add on. I will not eat eggs from a buffet because I don’t know when they were made, and being kept warm, they will be higher in histamines and no thank you. There were of course Iberian ham (Portuguese ship) and cold cuts and breakfast bakes and a honeycomb (so pretty!) and bread of many descriptions, and I think you could get eggs cooked for you, but I did not, and at the beginning berries and delicate items and as the trip when on it was more like a bowl of apples and pears because where are you going to get berries in the middle of the ocean, I ask you.

Lunch was usually a world of salads, a little grain and a few other things I can eat, like cheese or rice, or cooked vegetables, often some kind of cooked potatoes. So long as there was buffet food available, everything was fine, if a little low in protein for me. I steered clear of the dressings because I didn’t know what was in them, but there was always olive oil and lemons and this suits me just fine.

Menu meals

Dinner was trickier, as it was from a menu. One night I explained that I needed to eat fish that had been just cooked, not kept warm, and was suspicious, but figured I’d throw caution into the wind and give it a try. Once. I did this once. I know what else I ate that day and know how I felt after and the next morning and can tell you without a doubt that even a fancy ship with dedicated waiters who speak both of your languages and don’t want you to get sick cannot save you from getting histamined with fish that was precooked and kept warm. Applied antihistamines and such, drank more nettle tea, and eventually recovered.

A few times for dinner I just asked for hard boiled eggs and vegetables and potatoes, if the menu had nothing at all I could eat (miso glazed everything, fermented everything, yogurt sauce everything, eggplant and tomato, balsamic reduction etc), and there were a few times I was either not satisfied or really looked to the dessert to top me up for the day.

Snacks

There were also some cereal bars made on board that were at the coffee bar that were tasty, and there were other assorted pastries and snacks and juice shots and such, and while none of these were meals, probably no one is going to perish from eating snacks instead of dinner. I also brought some granola bars with me, but this is the most boring of snacks, and I would seldom choose them, especially when there were so many other options.

Getting my brain around it

I spent a lot of time being incredulous at the fact that I had made the decision to go, knowing how much anxiety having histamine intolerance gives me, and knowing that once I was on the ship, I was on the ship, and nothing short of a true medical emergency would get me off of it. I felt chuffed. Even proud. Because you know. It’s hard.

In summation

I gambled, and I think I won. Though honestly, since a lot of cruising to Antarctica is waiting for your group to be called to disembark (if you are on a small ship, we disembarked 2x a day, with occasional extra trips like kayaking or sleeping out on the ice, which I did not do), so there was a lot of time to rest and keep hydrated and have a bathroom nearby, and you can choose your level of exertion or whether or not to participate in almost all of the activities, and there were bartenders plying me with ginger syrup in bubbly water (ginger is an antihistamine and also good for motion sickness, surprise surprise), in a way, it was a great “starter” trip for me. I also really enjoyed the pool, the ridiculousness of a hot tub while getting pelted with sleet (this only happened once) and the dry sauna, all of which I believe are good for me. Especially the sleet.

Surprise hit

Also, though I am super unlikely to become a cold plunge enthusiast for I love being comfortable and it truly is not, I could feel how much my body enjoyed the shock and how uninflamed and non-reactioney I seemed in the coming days after the Antarctic plunge.

The takeaway

It’s been a long seven (or eight?) years, but I wanted to broadcast back to you that not all is lost, it is worth taking measured risks to do things that are important to you, and also please keep finding beauty in this crazy world, whatever that means to you. It won’t decrease your histamines, but it will probably increase your enjoyment of this one crazy life.