Histamine Intolerance, part 2

This is an old post written in 2015 that I decided to publish. Read part 1 first...

For the last couple of months, I've been experimenting with and fine-tuning my diet. The Facebook groups have been most helpful - full of people who are willing to share their experiences and give you ideas for treating symptoms. None of the doctors I've mentioned it to (or my chiropractor) have experience treating it. Since I was very young, I showed the signs of having this disorder (it is technically a mast cell disorder), but it is one of those things that is just starting to really be studied.

My mom will tell you that I woke up sneezing every morning since I was born. I've always craved salt (hence the olive addiction), and I still don't really know why, but sea salt is helping me lately when I have a histamine headache. I used to get sinus headaches that only went away with Tylenol Sinus, which contains a nasal decongestant. I had seasonal allergies and started taking antihistamines regularly when I was a teenagers. Exercise always made me wheezy. The week after my first baby was born, over six years ago. I went out to breakfast on New Year's Day with my dad and my new baby. I ate a giant puffy omelette with sharp cheddar and bacon. Egg whites, aged cheese, cured meat. I felt nauseated for days and had those symptoms that remain unmentioned. I thought I had food poisoning. Histamine Intolerance is often triggered or amplified by a medical trauma - including childbirth.

Back in those days, I got my diet advice from Cooking Light and the Today Show; I still ate whatever I wanted, and I definitely didn't do crazy things like eat naturally fermented sauerkraut. My reactions weren't consistent enough to think my body was trying to tell me something. I got my first real migraine when my firstborn was six months old. That was around the time I was trying soy milk for the first time since he was sensitive to dairy in my breastmilk. I felt healthy and ignored those common bodily dysfunctions that you think everybody else has. (Hint: just because it happens to a lot of people doesn't make it normal or healthy!)

When I had my Real Food Awakening (cheesy is my middle name) in the Fall of 2011, a year after baby #2 was born, I was not feeling good. I didn't realize it, but my thyroid was not well. I was tired, irritable, and my moods were up and down. My postpartum hair loss hadn't stopped. I read a book about fat being good for you and read some Weston A. Price material posted on Facebook by a friend. It all clicked. I started by switching to sea salt and then I tried cutting out sugar (I've always been a sugar-holic). I cut out caffeine for a short time and I started drinking raw milk (I had been getting lactose intolerance type symptoms from pasteurized dairy since my second baby was born). My mood improved and I started trying to incorporate probiotics and fermented foods into my diet, decrease grains or at least properly prepare them, and eat as much butter as I could.

When I found out I was pregnant with baby #3, my doctor wanted to ultrasound my thyroid because he thought it looked enlarged. It was, but my test numbers were good. My pregnancy was good, easy, happy (as the previous two had been), and I looked forward to my first Real Food baby. What I have learned recently is that when you're pregnant, the histamine-degrading enzyme, DAO (diamine oxidase), gets produced in massive amounts - this article says 500 times more than usual! It is basically like being on an awesome anti-histamine for your whole pregnancy. No wonder why I love being pregnant! I feel so good!

Stay tuned for part 3...