Some people experience allergy type symptoms including respiratory, asthma type symptoms, allergy type symptoms, headache, rash and others...often to go unexplained and undiagnosed. Many feel frustrated with this lack of diagnosis, understanding, knowing what to do, or treatments that are effective.
For these people, it can be a frustrating round of appointments, doctor visits, pharmaceuticals that don't make a dent, and continuing to deal with unexplainable symptoms.
The answer can be as simple as looking no further than what the cells are doing with what you bring in. As a student of food and cellular biochemistry (what makes up the cell, how its nourished, and what the cells do with everything you bring in) the answer can simply come down to how the body metabolizes not only your food by digesting it into tiny pieces for use, but also how the cells metabolize the chemistry the food becomes. In poor metabolism, this food chemistry can be the root cause of the body's outward responses. I have found these phenolic food intolerances create distortions in neurotransmitters and can be the root imbalance leading to all kinds of strange unexplainable symptoms, including skin rashes, fogginess, persistent weight gain, headaches, chronic fatigue, achiness and joint pain and so many more. Improving the cellular metabolism, nourishment, bioavailability and waste removal processes are all part of the process.
Histamine is only ONE of theses food chemicals called phenolics. We know them better as "neurotransmitters", that send messages from one neuron to another. If these message pathways are distorted, or the cells are creating impedance or inflammation due to poor metabolism, one can end up feeling all kinds of imbalances and the symptoms these imbalances bring.
While it's not common for clinicians to be aware of Histamine Intolerance, yet, I believe it is slated to become a quite talked about phenomenon, as the world of understanding metabolism and "food allergies" grows, the common practice to classify runny noses, headaches, and rashes up to "allergies", will be looked into more deeply. Currently it's not that simple because "intolerances" or an "impedance" don't show up on an IgE allergy-mediated response test, and these sufferers end up going on without explanation.
In his recent article, Dr. Axe says, "Like many other conditions, histamine intolerance is only considered relatively rare simply because medical professionals don’t recognize the condition. An untold number of cases are currently undiagnosed, and considering the diversity of symptoms, that particular oversight is entirely understandable!"
What is Histamine Intolerance?
Though many people associate histamine only with allergic responses, it, in it's original form, is a neurotransmitter: a messenger that passes signals from one neuron to another. It helps break food down in the stomach. And it is a defense mechanism of the body, creating an inflammatory response by dilating blood vessels.
Innately, the body knows what to do, and these histamine actions are necessary and absolute in the body, however, like anything that gets out of balance or metabolized improperly, the end results can lead to strange, difficult, and unexplainable symptoms.
Histamine Intolerance Symptoms
Some of these include:
- Hives
- Skin Rashes
- Flushing of skin
- Hair loss
- Racing heart, or palpitations
- Itchy skin
- Respiratory symptoms
- Inflammation
- Water retention
- Sinus congestion
- Mucous production
- and more!
- Because of the improper metabolism associated with histamine intolerance, many gastrointestinal diseases can also result in symptoms of histamine intolerance. Gluten sensitivity, leaky gut, Crohn's and IBD are all some of these
Because of the wide range of symptoms, people can be diagnosed with any number of conditions, without histamine being considered. The condition can also be worsened because a person doesn't make the changes to diet that would be necessary to restore the necessary balance.
What to Do
I'm sure it will not be a big surprise to you, since I always discuss FOOD as your greatest toolkit in your health and wellness toolbox, but here it is again.
1. Changing your diet to the functional diet: Food Fx can help by:
* Bringing in enough enzyme rich foods to be catalysts for the metabolic actions that must take place for all digestion of use of food
* Bringing in enough Eliminator function foods to help the body's cells push out waste
* Balance the ph of the typically Ph acidic foods of the standard American diet
* Reduce histamine rich foods
* Restore the body's ability to balance neurotransmitters
* Improve metabolism of food and it's responses to the tiny particles and chemistry it becomes
2. Take digestive enzymes. These can help break down the food you are taking in.
3. Work with a practitioner, often this will be an alternative medicine practitioner, that understands non IgE allergy mediated responses.
4. For those that DO understand Histamine Intolerance, a "low histamine diet" and "foods to avoid" is common protocol, however, I would work to restore permanent and consistent change by addressing the root distortion: that of how the body is metabolizing and responding. I would look into Phenolic Therapy and Phenolic Adjustments, like we do at our offices of The Natural Source WellClinics. This is common practice in our office and we know how to restore balance. Using Food Fx, proper metabolism techniques, enzymes, and Phenolic Therapy and Phenolic Adjustments, we work to help the body metabolize better, not only breaking the food into small enough pieces to make use of, but also in metabolizing the CHEMISTRY the food breaks down into!
Want to learn more about phenolics and get back in control of your health? Learn Food Function, a huge part of your body's capability of breaking down phenolics. This link will get you to free tips, free tools like our Food FX chart and tally chart.
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Amanda Plevell, PhD, CNHP is a Certified Natural Health Practitioner, Researcher in Cellular Biochemistry, author and educator. She holds 2 doctorates in Natural Medicine and is the founder of The Natural Source Companies including Community WellClinics and the creator of Food Fx, the functional eating nourishment plan. Get more free tips and free resources by following her here.