Feel free to discuss any topic of general interest, so long as nothing you post here is likely to be interpreted as insulting, and/or inflammatory, nor clearly designed to provoke any individual or group. Please be considerate of others feelings, and they will be considerate of yours.
Giving up red wine for now is a bummer - it was my only safe "treat".
I am probably in denial, but still have not given up wine (or cider). Particularly in Asian business socializing, people raise their eyebrows at all my food intolerance. I regain "street cred. respect" when I say "but I can still drink wine"....such is life (and of course I am finding excuses to do what I like).
I hear ya and understand completely. But I know Mary Beth gave it up until she was in full remission and has resumed drinking it! So all may not be lost. The social/work issue sure complicates things, doesn't it?
Love,
Polly
Blessed are they who can laugh at themselves, for they shall never cease to be amused.
This is very interesting. I had the pathologist restain for excessive mast cells and they said the numbers were normal, but now I'm thinking that the nerves may be closer to the mast cells. I did have a very bad reaction to a recent attempt to introduce chocolate, and I think that has a lot of histamine?
Mary Beth thinks that probably only few of us have excessive mast cells, but that many of us may have normal numbers of mast cells that granulate at the drop of a hat. IOW, they may be much more apt to granulate when exposed to triggers. I think I am in that category, and I also believe that I probably have nerves very close to my gut mast cells. Yes, chocolate is one of the no-nos. Have you tried an antihistamine to see if it makes a difference?
Take Care,
Polly
Blessed are they who can laugh at themselves, for they shall never cease to be amused.
Not yet. I'm a chicken. What if it doesn't work--dashing my hopes? I think I'll try it when this current chocolate flare calms down. It seems like being fairly calm otherwise might give a better chance of success? By eating to avoid all my sensitivities (and I can see from your list of intolerances, Polly, that you know how hard that is)--I can keep things reasonable, but I never get back to the old normal. Maybe the antihistamine could take it the last step and give me a real remission rather than just "good enough." Here's hoping.
Question, now that you have had this big break through, are you going to allow yourself to eat more widely?
Are you a GI doctor?
One of the problems is that I am still arduously testing food by food. Maybe if I could connect to histamine, I could avoid foods that are practically sure fire failures.
Mary Beth thinks that probably only few of us have excessive mast cells, but that many of us may have normal numbers of mast cells that granulate at the drop of a hat. IOW, they may be much more apt to granulate when exposed to triggers. I think I am in that category, and I also believe that I probably have nerves very close to my gut mast cells. Yes, chocolate is one of the no-nos. Have you tried an antihistamine to see if it makes a difference?
Take Care,
Polly
Polly and T,
I am wondering what you mean by having nerves very close to gut mast cells.
One more question: What time of day should one take Claritin? I have heard it's non-drowsy, but still sometimes causes drowsiness. Is it best to take it in the morning so that it can work against the histamine in food all day?
I am following up this conversation (which I find interesting) but like Polly who didn't think that this had anything to do with her, I am confused about all of of this since I am just beginning to understand how this condition affects me.
I am still in the stages of trying to understand what I can eat, if anything, and I am more sick than healthy most of the time. So far, I've had like 1-2 days a week when I feel normal, the rest I am miserable even though I have reduced my food to pretty much nothing. My misery consists of nausea and heaviness (like indigestion). I have ordered the Enterolab test yesterday which should narrow things down for me. I do acupuncture everyday which helped with the nausea, still working on the indigestion. No D, no C.
However, reading about histamine, I noticed when I went GF, my lifelong hay fever-type misery faded to almost nothing.
I have suffered all of my life from it, never being caught dead without a kleenex for more than 5 minutes lest I suffer an anxiety attack :-) I have been allergic to other things as well, like dust and seasonal allergies.
Since I am an ignoramus when it comes to understanding the role of histamine, I am going to rely on all of your enlightened and detective minds to explain to me if I am suppose to consider histamine (and treating it) in my own detective work.
Thank you for your generosity. I am blessed to have you all in my life. I am humbled by it.
Love,
Monique
Diagnosed 2011 with LC. Currently on Low Dose Naltrexone (LDN)
Hi Monique,
Yep I'm about as new as you are and spend hours a day going through posts old and new to try and learn as much about this forum as you. However, I do know that I have so much confidence in this team of PP folks and that their hard earned life lessons and input is always worth trying and looking into. I'm still learning the GF diet thing and am trying many different recipes and foods. I haven't gone 100% DF or SF yet because it really isn't much in my diet anyway. When I started reading these blogs about histamines I, of course, began to wonder about that because I have had 2 previous sinus surgeries and have been taking Zyrtec for years. I'm gonna try the switch to Claritin just because while on the Zyrtec.....I don't see much difference. I also found something in one of the blogs about their nose running after eating a meal. I would get that all the time and would comment.....aaahhhh a sign of a good meal is when my nose starts running!!! Now only to realize I probably just ate something that I had allergies too!!! See how much I know.......stick with these folks.......I think they know best.
This discussion is really interesting. I take a Zyrtec and 3 mg of melatonin every night. For the first time in years I've been sleeping like a baby. However, I am so fatigued during the day that it is an effort to get off my backside in the morning. Could this be from the Zyrtec??? I have Claritin in the house and will try that instead of Zyrtec.
Anyone else have issues with Zyrtec?
Sheila W
To get something you never had, you have to do something you never did.
A person who never made a mistake never tried something new. Einstein
I don't take any anti-histamine but from what i understand they come in the regular (which will make you drowsy) and the non-drowsy type. If you take the drowsy one, it would explain your daytime sleepiness.
Monique
Diagnosed 2011 with LC. Currently on Low Dose Naltrexone (LDN)
If you have any pollen or mold allergies, it's always more effective to take an antihistamine fairly early in the day, because as the day unfolds, the antigen levels increase, and as you breathe them in, they will cause mast cells to degranulate and release histamine. If the histamine gets to your histamine receptors before you take an antihistamine, your antihistamine will arrive too late to do any good, because all the receptors will have already bonded to histamine, and the reaction will be a done deal.
Likewise, if you're taking an antihistamine to counter reactions caused by a meal, be sure to take the antihistamine soon enough before the meal so that the antihistamine can attach to the histamine receptors, and make them unavailable to the histamine that will come with the meal.
Monique and Cathy,
In general, if we show any of the signs of a classic allergy reaction within about 15 or 20 minutes after beginning a meal, that suggests a histamine-based reaction, and an H1 type antihistamine should be beneficial. If we have been faithfully following a meticulous diet for over a year without any significant improvement, or if we have been following a sparse diet for years, but can't seem to completely eliminate all our symptoms, we might have a mast cell activation disorder, and an antihistamine (or Histame) might be the missing ingredient needed to take us to total remission.
An antihistamine is also helpful when terminating a treatment regimen with budesonide, in order to minimize the risks due to the rebound effect of increased mast cell production as the residual budesonide slowly exits the body.
Sheila,
I have no idea whether zyrtec might cause drowsiess/fatigue — I've never taken it.
Tex
It is suspected that some of the hardest material known to science can be found in the skulls of GI specialists who insist that diet has nothing to do with the treatment of microscopic colitis.
As far as the time of day to take these meds, for me taking them at night, usually before dinner seems to work the best as its later in the day that I seem to deal with GI issues and it seems at tonight no matter what I eat that my sinuses tend to become congested. This also works better with the Allegra which can cause a bit of drowsiness for me.
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