Alcohol

Hi guys, hope your all doing well - I know this has been discussed many times before but today I was feeling pretty symptom free went for a long walk and my partner was having a glass of wine so I said I’d have a small half glass too - arghhh minutes after drinking it I felt like I was going to pass out my nervous system feels on fire and I feel so sleepy and tired and all over the place - I am currently not on medication or herbs so no it’s not a reaction to this - I have also had one or two drinks much earlier on in my treatment and felt ok - anyone have any ideas Is just the way I am now? To add it was definitely an allergic reaction of sorts , I had crazy tingling in my throat and tongue and I have a sore throat as well - I took two antihistamine and feel ok now although fairly shaken .. I have been reading about mast cell - I’m wondering if this is the issue.. can you recover from lyme and still have this ? All very confusing and concerning

Post Edited (tashmash) : 3/14/2020 3:31:09 PM (GMT-6)

thank you for the reply - I have done a lot of reading this evening and I am quite convinced this is what I have now too - it may be the reason for not being able to quite get over the last hump of being well - I would be very interested if anyone could direct me where I could find further info in regards to mast cell activation in particular related to lyme - I would quite like to treat naturally at the moment too so will try your suggestion of curcumin and quercetin thank you

Hi, tashmash. Sorry you're still feeling some symptoms. They will pass, but your body responds like it would to an allergen, so it can be scary!

Lots of things for MCAS:

- A low-histamine diet can be huge, and for some people it's all they need to do. Experiment with the lists you find online, as some people react more strongly to some things than others. The items excluded tend to include anything aged or fermented, leftovers, vinegar, citrus, and over-ripe fruit.

- Identifying and managing other triggers that might keep your mast cells oh high alert (mold, heat, cold, stress, exercise, showers, pollen, pet allergies, dust, laundry detergent, cleaning products, etc.).

- Herbs and supplements, such as quercetin, curcumin, bromelain, stinging nettles.

- Prescriptions, such as cromolyn sodium and ketotifen.

- OTC drugs such as antihistamines and PPIs.

- Some find help with treatment that regulates the nervous system, such as DNRS limbic system retraining and meditation.

Neil Nathan's book Toxic is a great resource for MCAS.

Good luck!

Usually the effect goes away for people within a few hours, but sometimes it can last a long time. I had a friend who had a mast cell activation flare for over a month due to poison ivy! But her case is unusual. For her, even water would cause symptoms to intensify slightly because the act of ingesting anything triggered the revved-up mast cells, but the first things she could tolerate were sweet potatoes and seaweed, and then white rice. It really should pass soon for you! But if you have any of the remedies I mentioned above, or Benadryl, that might help.

Not to nitpick, but it's important to distinguish between an anti-inflammatory diet and a low-histamine diet, in this case. You want the latter, or both. There are many very healthy foods that are high in histamine - kefir, sauerkraut, kimchi, kombucha, yogurt, tempeh, miso, many probiotic supplements, anything containing vinegar, tamari, fruit that can be eaten very ripe (like raspberries and bananas), nutritional yeast, citrus fruits, tomatoes, leftovers, mustard, pickles, and more. You will find that not everything affects you, though. A sip of wine or miso would zonk me out for days, but I can eat citrus and tomatoes with no issues.

I get it. Our bodies doing incomprehensible things is deeply unsettling. Really try to find your center however you can. Maybe CBD?

I was wondering how things were progressing for you. It WILL get better, I promise.

A few words about the tests: The tryptase will only be elevated when it's drawn within 12 hours of a trigger, and histamine tests are hit-or-miss as well, so those tests can be clues if positive but they don't rule anything out if negative. A CBC can be helpful because it tells you the number of eosinophils, a type of white blood cell that sometimes is elevated during a mast cell reaction.

My advice would be not to push through reactions in order to vary your diet. Do you have access to elemental diet ingredients or a "medical food" powder such as UltraInflammeX by Metagenics? Are your electrolytes okay, i.e. are you getting enough salt to maintain your blood volume? (For me, fainting is a blood volume thing from POTS, rather than a blood sugar thing.) The act of eating can be a trigger when MCAS is flaring badly, so a liquid supplement might be best if you can pinpoint a nutrient you think is low. I probably mentioned this already, but sweet potatoes, seaweed, and white rice were the first things my friend with the severe reaction was able to eat as she recovered.

Wish I had more advice that was a quick fix.

Thank you so much Saraeli, It means a lot to hear that I am calmer but I still have a lot of worry -that is useful information regarding bloods - I prob should of researched that a bit before I went, I suppose I was kind of expecting her to know a bit more - you’d think I’d have learnt that lesson 😅 I just didn’t have it in me to push my doctor today. I will try and stick to eating what I know I don’t react too - a lot of my symptoms have gone now , my numb face tingling in my lips, burning and random waves of panic 🥴 in between eating I don’t feel terrible just weak - and then if I eat something like the broccoli It hits me within a couple of minutes not to the same degree but enough.
I don’t know if I have access to medical food can you buy it online anywhere I’m in Ireland as far as I know anything like that would go through a doctor but it’s a good idea too and something I didn’t think of! Salt as well can I add salt to my rice for example ? Is salt a possible trigger - I will google that anyway !but yes I prob do need more salt. I put the fainting down to drawing blood today as it was immediately after however I have suspected POTS for a while I have never been diagnosed but I definitely have many symptoms.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart for checking with your friend- I will try a few of those recommendations I saw cherries are rated high in many low histamine lists so I hopefully can get my hands on some - kind of tricky to get here but I’ll try. Good news I just successfully ate a child’s packet of sun maid raisins and I’m ok ! Another possible food for the list !
Saraeli I hope your doing ok too - thank you again for taking the time to respond to me

Thank you Aerose ! Ok I’ll try slowly upping my quercetin and see what happens - I will look into getting the other bits and bobs too - I found it hard to locate quercetin that has no fillers or doesn’t contain vit c but managed to get the pure brand - will check them out for the other stuff too! I had a bit of a flare in the end last night - the raisins .. just burning and waves of heat and panic 😰 so will try and stick to the rice for another while I also added salt and seems fine and makes it that more tastier too ! Tried a few H1