I want to share my recent experience with anxiety, heart palpitations, high blood pressure, headaches, dizziness - to inform and to find out if anyone can relate.
4 weeks ago I had an infection. Not sure if it was bacterial or viral. It felt more like covid than the flu. Two weeks into fighting this infection, I'm 2 days away from getting my period.
I start to feel a little off, like my body's working faster than usual. My mind is racing with thoughts. I feel very ADHD like! I'm used to feeling off before I bleed, I put it down to hormonal changes. But the symptoms stop the second menstruation occurs.
HOWEVER, I start my period and my body goes haywire! Heart palpitations CONSTANTLY night and day. Anxiety is through the roof. High blood pressure, where I start to get headaches and feel dizzy. I'm not coherent at all. This goes on for TWO WEEKS!
I see my GP, he confirms high blood pressure and runs blood tests. All are normal, except for my white blood cell markers - my levels for infection/ inflammation are high. Doc says "that's normal" given I had an infection 4 weeks ago... He doesn't seem at all bothered by my other symptoms! SO I go digging...
I believe my immune and nervous system were majorly triggered because of HISTAMINE. After reading into the effects of high histamine & histamine intolerance I've been led to conclude that I may have a histamine problem. Symptoms include: anxiety, headaches, palpitations, vertigo, changes in blood pressure, bladder symptoms... sound familiar?
Such symptoms can be triggered by INFECTION. AND such histamine problems have been linked with ENDOMETRIOSIS.
Moreover - I've been consuming more high histamine foods as of late for my gut health - sauerkraut, bone broth, probiotics.
Since I've cut them, I'm starting to feel better.
So, does any of the above resonate? Please share your stories
Background on me - I was diagnosed with endo 8 years ago via laparoscopy surgery. Not much was removed, if anything. I've since tried to manage my endo with the combined contraceptive pill. I've been through many brands!
Throughout the past 8 years I've been educating myself on endo and also managing my health holistically. I've reached the point where for the past 5 years I've not taken a single pain killer for my endo and for the past 2 years I've been hormone treatment free.
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LME5
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Hello, yep I went through something similar. I had a couple of bad urine infections last year & after the antibiotics I think I developed a histamine problem, but didn't realise it at first. I started having reactions to certain foods, like skin rashes around my mouth after I ate, sinus & digestion issues, abdo pain, bladder pain, excessive thirst and it would all be worse before & just after my period. I also had times when my blood pressure shot up, heart palpitations and I knew it was something physical making my body speed up, not anxiety, it was horrible. I went to A&E once because of it & they gave me IV fluid to bring my heart rate down. I had thyroid blood tests which were fine so GP dismissed it all as 'psychogenic' 😅.
Then I read about histamine (& also a group of foods/chemicals called salicylates, which I've also become intolerant to). I started a low histamine diet and taking some supplements and then I gradually got better and all the symptoms went away. I stopped taking probiotics, as they made my histamine problems worse. Now I can tolerate them again in small quantities. Hope you feel better soon! x
Thank you so much for your reply and for sharing your experience - I'm so grateful! It helps to not feel alone and to hear from women who have been through similar and in your case, found a way out. I've read about all the (many) symptoms histamine intolerance can cause, including bladder ones (as you mentioned) which I tend to experience because of my endo, by noticed they rarely occur now that I'm on a low histamine diet. With regards to skin symptoms where you mention rashes around your mouth - when I eat foods my body doesn't like (like cow's milk) my nose flares up and I get open wound-like sores in my nostrils! I also get sinus symptoms and have also found that probiotics make me feel worse. Crazy to see the similarities! Honestly, thank you so much for sharing ☺️ I'm yet to come across someone who shares such a similar experience.
A few women have mentioned that they believe they have mast cell activation syndrome, which isn't really recognised by the NHS. These are women whose symptoms were triggered after having an infection (most likely covid) like me. Some had crazy allergic reactions and were prescribed strong antihistamines. One was referred to a 'complex condition clinic' (formerly long covid clinic) after an ECG reported irregular heart rate & after seeing both an immunologist & cardiologist who didn't help at all.
Thank you for bringing my attention to salicylates - I will look into that for sure! May I ask, what supplements do you take that you find helpful?
Hi LME5, how are you doing? Sorry for taking a long time to reply. I definitely agree it's really important to share experiences, especially with something like histamine intolerance/ MCAS which is hardly recognised by mainstream medicine. Bizarrely, I also had sores in my nose when my symptoms were at their worst, I'd forgotten that!
The supplements I take are liquid Vitamin D by nutravita, vitamin B complex, zinc 15mg + a tiny dose of copper (apparently you can become deficient in copper if you take too much zinc!), iron bisglycinate (because my ferritin is low), digestive enzymes from TimeHealth on days when my gut is bad, and sometimes I take goldenseal root (it's quite powerful so not to be taken too often, but it helps my bladder) x
Thank you for your reply 🙂 I'm feeling much better. I do sometimes get heart palpitations, mainly at night, but I'm noticing that it occurs when I eat high histamine foods. So staying low histamine is definitely helping.
How crazy that you also had the nose sores! Thank you again for sharing your experience 🙏 and for sharing your supplements. That's good to know about copper. I've recently started to supplement with zinc, so it's good to know that it may affect my copper levels if taken for too long! I haven't heard of goldenseal root so I'll definitely google that. Thank you again! I've found that glutathione and omega 3 have helped with my inflammation a alot. I tend to take vitamin D and Bs and digestive enzymes which definitely help with bowel movements!
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