What is histamine intolerance?
Quick and dirty: if you want to jump to what was main component in my getting better, look up “high histamine foods” and “low histamine foods.” It’s a good place to start. There are two main lists, SIGHI and Alison Vickery (link to Alison’s website below). I chose the Vickery one, because I liked the format better. Pick one list and stick to it or you will make yourself dizzy. Make sure to read on below about the 72 hour cycle (in bold) before you think about dietary changes, if you think you have this issue.
You already know about histamines. They must be in the pollen or pet dander that causes sneezing and itching, and that’s why you take antihistamines, right? So can you just take them for histamine intolerance? Maybe. More on that later on, likey in issue #4 or 5.
First let’s talk about how histamines are related to allergies. In the case of pollen, for example, your body is exposed to proteins, which your body mistakes for invaders. In reaction, your body releases histamines, which cause the sneezing and itching. Your body is trying to create the histamine to destroy the protein that you are allergic to. Your nose and eyes (and maybe lungs, possibly skin) are the casualties. These histamines are released by your mast cells, which are a kind of white blood cell.
But histamines do not just cause allergies, and they are not only released in reaction to pollen, and they do not only affect things like sneezing, runny nose and itching. Your body has histamine receptors in the mucosa (eyes and ears and mouth and nose…) and whatever else is moist, genitals, etc), in the lungs, in the gut and skin. Also in the uterus, if you’ve got one, and in the brain. You can read about it from a more sciency perspective here.
Everyone’s mast cells release histamines. They are one of over 200 substances released when mast cells degranulate. The body has a system to deal with the histamines, an enzyme called DAO. When there are too many histamines for the body to handle (and this clearly differs from person to person), or the body cannot break them down fast enough because there are too many, or your DAO is depleted, that is where histamine intolerance may come into play. Symptoms are many and varied, and I do not have/have not had all of them. For me, it has been mainly stomach snafu (diarrhea), asthma, itching and terrible feelings of weakness, wooziness and dizziness, as though I were motion sick and had the flu. These sensations, when I was in the thick of things, could last days.
But common symptoms include:
-flushing
-nausea
-diarrhea
-itching skin
-burning skin
-swelling
-anxiety
-runny nose/congestion
-heart palpitations
-headaches
-dysautonomia
-and more
But you’re here because you want to know how this is related to food.
Food can
1. have histamines
2. cause the body to liberate histamines
3. block DAO.
If you have an excess of histamines in the body, and not enough DAO, the body is essentially poisoned, and will react accordingly (see symptoms).
But here’s one of the ways in which it gets complicated. If you had an immediate reaction to a food that “didn’t agree with you” you would probably figure it out, as with lactose intolerance, or shellfish intolerance. Other conditions like celiac can take longer to figure out, and require testing.
But histamines don’t just come and then go. They can accumulate. It is generaly accepted that the cycle lasts up to about 72 hours. Which means, now that I am substantially healed (more on that soon), I can eat one or two high-ish-in-histamine things here and there, but I have to keep my eye on that 72 hour cycle if I want to keep feeling right. Which is why, for example, you might see me eat tomatoes one day, but pass on them the next.
It’s also why when I was getting sick, and I was so sick, I could never figure out what the problem was. Because one day I could eat some avocado, yet if I ate avocado the next day, I’d be miserable (avocados, especially very ripe ones cause histamine release). Or I’d have some delicious fish, and it sat well, but I got sick eating the same meal the next day. (leftover protein is high in histamines) Friends and family who saw me during this time saw me go green in a matter of seconds. I would feel flushed and unwell, sometimes hot, and like my blood pressure had dropped (it hadn’t). Dizzy like a terrible seasickness. And my stomach would revolt. On occasion (strawberries the day after drinking wine, for example), I had what felt like a fast-moving migraine, went white as a sheet, ran home, threw up, took a freezing cold shower and shivered for two solid hours.
But things are better, so much better now, and I will tell you how I figure it out in the next missive.
Some of the websites you may find useful in the meantime:
1.Website by Australian naturopath Alison Vickery. This is her general website, you may want to hunt around. There is a lot of information. If you register, she will send you her low-histamine food list. Some of it works for me and some of it does not, precisely, but in general it has been a lifesaver.
2. This article on mast cell disorders by Jodi Ettenberg at Legal Nomads, which overlaps with histamine intolerance. Much more scientific and exacting than anything I’m saying or will say here. She has a recommended booklist, which I’m sure is spectacular, but I have not read it. In all transparency, Jodi is a good friend of mine, and I figured out my histamine intolerance just a few months before either she identified it or it became an issue for her, and it is something we talk about periodically, “can you eat this?” “I can eat that.”
3. Website by the late Yasmina Ykelenstam which has recipe and more information, including her personal story. Obviously not continually updated, but a real treaure trove, with recipes, articles, explanations, etc.
In the next edition, I’m going to tell you about my experience of how I figured this all out. I want to be clear, I am not a doctor, though I did see a few in trying to get to the bottom of this. What eventually worked was a guide who knew about histamine intolerance, which in my case was a local naturopath. I believe in western medicine and I also know from personal experience that it can tell you you are well even when you are spending 5/7 days in bed and are thoroughly undernourished and dropping weight like crazy, on an elimination diet of rice and broccoli. Thanks to friends and that one gastroenterologist who encouraged me to look beyond.
Be well, and click on some links. You will definitely learn something.
Leave questions or comments. We’re building a thing here.
Eileen