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[joziel]

Gilla, I know - I keep seeing so many women on FB and forums with itching and histamine issues and I just think the estrogen-histamine connection really isn't known about or understood.

Here is a really good interview with Tina Peers who is great with histamine intolerance issues - she is a doctor whose own daughter has it (badly) and she had to figure it out: https://lizearlewellbeing.com/podcasts-videos/histamine-intolerance-with-dr-tina-peers/

[CrispyChick]

Gilla. There are also some histamine block tablets out there... I haven't done much research. But they do exist. So might be worth a look.

[joziel]

It's not really a 'block' it is a DAO supplement, which is basically taking the thing which your body doesn't have enough of, to break down the histamine. (DAO.)

But they are incredibly expensive, about £1 a capsule, and you need to take them about 15mins before you eat foods containing histamine. So whilst they are good if you need to eat out on an occasional basis or want to eat something with histamine occasionally, they are not much good on a regular basis because you'd need to take so many so often - it wouldn't be cost effective.

It is best initially to follow a low histamine diet to diagnose whether this is actually the cause of things - then you can experiment to find out exactly what you can eat and which supplements can help you further.

[CrispyChick]

Ah yes, I see that. Dao. That's it. I just read the news on leaflet.

Yes, very very expensive. But perhaps worth trying to identify the issue.

Interesting reading that. I'm very allergic... Got lots of problems, but had them all my life. However, peri has been hell for me - makes, me wonder if indeed it is a histamine issue, rather than purely an imbalance of estrogen causing me problems. 

[Marchlove]

Hi All

This is a very good article by Dr Lam regarding histamine intolerance.

https://www.drlamcoaching.com/adrenal-fatigue/complications/histamines-and-afs/

One of the main causes is having a leaky gut, which we were talking about before.

Yes cutting down in high histamine foods is a good idea but it doesn’t actually address the root cause.

Gilla- I’ll get back to you when I can find that long covid article again! X

[Marchlove]

Hi Gilla

Here is the article from The Guardian, not the actual study I’m afraid.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/jun/28/are-pockets-of-covid-in-the-gut-causing-long-term-symptoms

Yes I was diagnosed with it about 5 years ago. It came about as a result of taking heavy antibiotics to treat Lyme disease bacteria. Of course no mention from them Infectious Diseases expert about the effect it would have on my gut!!

I thought I’d got mainly on top of it all but since getting covid in May it’s come back big time! I think my gut will always be susceptible and I should have been more proactive.

I’m terms of constipation, Estrogen speeds up gut motility and progesterone slows it down, so balancing the two is quite tricky in terms of IBS-c and IBS-d.

Well done for ordering the cortisol Dhea test. It might be fine but at least that’s something you can cross off the list. Will be interesting to hear the results.

X

[joziel]

I totally agree about estrogen speeding up the gut motility and progesterone slowing it. It was like clockwork every month when I was cycling off hormones - constipation just before a period and then the opposite when I got my period. I actually mentioned it to my GP at the time and I remember them saying "No, never heard of that before - never heard of hormones affecting digestion". Honestly, the ignorance of doctors is baffling sometimes. I sometimes think a multiple choice questionnaire on a computer would be about as good as most GPs are at diagnosing things.

Here is a good link explaining the connection more between estrogen and histamine: http://integrative-medicine.ca/why-are-women-more-sensitive-to-histamine/

And here is one by the same doctor talking about night time and why you often get insomnia and early waking etc: https://integrative-medicine.ca/is-histamine-affecting-your-sleep-cycle/

Maybe we should all try a low histamine diet for 2 weeks and start a thread about it 

[Gilla999]

I find this all so interesting - Marchlove I have some symptoms of leaky gut so really interested in the connection between that and histamine - I should know if it's relevant to me when I get my stool test results this coming week. Thanks for sharing the link will have a good read!

Joziel interestingly it is the opposite for me - it is Estrogen which slows down my gut motility (there have been some studies showing it to be the case - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3823955 https://www.mindbodygreen.com/articles/the-connection-between-estrogen-and-constipation/ /). Remember that Estrogen is also high in the second half of your cycle and also plummets when your period arrives - your issues are the same timeline as for my mine but Estrogen is definitely the cause for me - it started when I went on to HRT and was the same prior to Peri in the last half of my cycle when my Estrogen soared.

I have just returned from Waitrose and spent a small fortune    Along with gluten and dairy free which I've been doing for the last week, I am essentially eating twigs and leaves for the foreseeable future! Would love anyone else to join me in my misery 

Joziel your "multiple choice" comment made me chuckle - recently I had a GP sit and read the NICE guidelines about something on his computer in front of me... that I'd already read and knew... and that was basically the limit of him diagnosing my problem. GPs I encounter seem to be SO sensitive to us mere mortals researching and educating ourselves - I have been told on more than one occasion not to do it, even when I make an effort to say something in a way to the GP which isn't "telling" but mentioning I've read something and asking their opinion. Too many I have encountered have a God complex!

[Marchlove]

Thanks joziel

There was an interesting link on one of the about probiotics for histamine intolerance.
So thought I’d put the link here

https://www.optibacprobiotics.com/uk/professionals/latest-research/general-health/which-probiotic-for-histamine-intolerance

It’s very important not to take the wrong probiotic as some actually increase histamine release.

Know what you mean about God complex Gilla! It’s like walking in egg shells!

I’m sort of 90% gluten and dairy free. Can’t quite cut it out completely though, but it certainly helps.
X

[joziel]

Yes I’m going to be quite strict with my 2 week low histamine diet because I want to either diagnose it or rule it out and move on. So I need to avoid anything controversial even if I’m going to be eating very boringly for the next 2 weeks. No probiotics either.

If I discover I have this then I will figure out how to fix the leaky gut and safe probiotics etc, but these 2 weeks are about diagnosis for me.

I eat a lot of yoghurt and kefir so to substitute for that I’ve ordered some coconut milk and cream - the coyo yoghurts that are for sale have probiotics added so im going to mix my own coconut stuff up and use that instead. And whilst chia is okay, leaving it overnight in the fridge is a no, so I’ll just let it soak for 10mins and then eat.

Remember you can’t eat leftovers from the fridge either - the longer food sits around, the more it ages (decays) and builds up histamine. You can freeze stuff to eat later but not refridge…

[Gilla999]

That's helpful to know, thanks Joziel. Wishing you the best of luck with it, keep me posted! On the dairy and gluten thing, the only exception for me is I'm having a splash of milk in my tea. I'm having Almond milk with coffee and everything else (glad to see Louise Newsom says this is ok!) but I can't find anything that tastes even half decent in tea and I can't cope without a cuppa!

Interesting link Marchlove and really usefyl to know. I'll see what my test results come back as this week before taking anything.

[joziel]

Gilla, tea and coffee are a no-no for a low histamine diet. You might want to check out the list of foods and be sure only to eat foods that score zero/green for at least 2 weeks: https://www.mastzellaktivierung.info/downloads/foodlist/21_FoodList_EN_alphabetic_withCateg.pdf

Peppermint and chamomile tea is okay. That's about all...

Milk is fine, as is any fresh dairy - including soft cheese, ricotta, mozzarella, mascarpone - but no mature cheese or any other cheese really. It will be a lot if you want to rule out gluten, dairy and be low histamine all at once - but possible!

With nut milks, almond scores a 1 on the histamine chart so should be excluded for the 2 weeks as well. Not sure if any dairy free milks are also low histamine, you'd need to look that up.

It has taken me a week to learn about what I can and can't eat, I haven't even been shopping for it all yet. It is a very restricted diet if only eating 0 scoring foods, but I think that is necessary to get an accurate diagnosis... If you feel much better you can then experiment to find out what your threshold is and how much of what you can eat and be a bit more experimental. I know some people drink coffee for eg, and are okay - as long as they don't also at the same time eat other high histamine foods. It will all take some practice, but IMO diagnosis accurately is the most important thing to start with and to do that you need to be pretty strict.

[Gilla999]

Noooo I'll do everything else but there's absolutely no way I can give up tea and coffee!! I don't drink, smoke, have a sex life, eat gluten, eat dairy... tea and coffee are all I have  I honestly think I would rather have the monthly immuno suppressant injections from my allergy specialist in a couple of weeks time to get rid of the Urticaria than give up tea and coffee  . But I'll cut out everything else which I'm sure can only help (if it is the problem) as well as switching back to Lenzetto and see how I get on. I'm also planning to increase my Progesterone this cycle via the BHRT lozenges on top of the 1 Utro vaginally and see how I get on with that (as I know Prog balances E).

Keep me posted on how you go Joziel!

[Marchlove]

Hi Gilla

Don’t dismiss the article that I posted previously about progesterone hypersensitivity. It does say in the article that the allergy skin test for it is unproven.

https://www.verywellhealth.com/hormone-allergy-82663

I know you started by seeing some sort of cycle with it but then that got blurred as time went on, which of course confuses things somewhat.

I recalled today a lady I used to work with had a similar reaction and she was told it was from the progesterone and given immune suppressant injections.

I’m not saying it is the progesterone but don’t dismiss the idea because it didn’t come up on the allergy test.

I hope this hasn’t thrown a spanner in your plan but just wanted to flag it up. xx

[joziel]

Well I can understand not wanting to give up tea and coffee, seeing I am basically continually drinking both (decaf coffee!) every day.

But even I am going to give them up for 2 weeks and switch to peppermint tea. I think we can do anything for 2 weeks and it will just muddy the waters with a diagnosis otherwise. If I improve, then I will have to figure something out - like how much I can have and whether I need a DAO supplement to be able to have it and so on. But we'll cross that bridge later. For now I just need to know what's going on...