How do you deal with flare-ups?/Has anyone developed MCAS or histamine intolerance following Covid?

I have only been having MCAS symptoms for last 6 months so this is all new to me and i still have not had a diagnosis so i am muddling through on my own. Was starting to feel better on a low histamine diet and some supplements but recently had a reaction to a supplement so was already experiencing a flare up. Then yesterday my husband (who is an engineer) was cleaning something in the kitchen with a machinery spray cleaner with volatile chemicals and he didn't think about how i am now so sensitive to everything. Anyway i walked into the room and the vapours were so overwehlmingly strong. Even though i opened the window and patio doors to get rid of the smell/vapours, last night i was so sick and with so much pain and inflammation. What do you do if that happens? I took an antihistamine and quercetin and D-flam (herbal anti-inflammatory). I am a bit better this morning but not great. I never had problems until 6 months ago. So many things have happened that i think it created the perfect storm and so have developed the condition. Stress, candida, parasites, mold toxicity and then covid. My main symptoms are food-related, intolerances to many different high histamine foods. An aquaintance said they got covid and then started to have histamine intolerance. Has anyone else expereinced that?

[Jess-UKMasto Partner]

Hi. That's a good question. As a charity, we have received a good number of emails and calls from people who have experienced new "allergies" (reactions that could be true allergy or perhaps mast cells triggered not through the usual IgE pathway) after having had COVID. We don't know yet whether these reactions will persist or resolve after some months and whether they will go on to look like the MCAS we're coming to know (though what we call MCAS can have a diverse set of symptoms). In today's Guardian in an article about Long COVID there was mention of a range of symptoms including new allergies and symptoms that look a lot like dysautonomia. We can't give medical advice as we aren't medics. What I will say from a personal perspective as a mastocytosis patient is that when I'm exposed to airborne chemicals I don't get on with I remove myself from the situation as quickly as possible and ask that the space be thoroughly ventilated (and the source of the chemical be removed if possible). Sometimes my regular H1 and H2 blockers help with airborne exposures and sometimes they don't.

[Hidden in reply to Jess-UKMasto]

Thanks Jess, need to contact doctor to get some H1 and H2 blockers as don't quite know what they are, i presume you have to have a prescription. The antihistamine i have is one you can buy over the counter- piriton.

[Jess-UKMasto Partner in reply to Hidden]

Sorry for using shorthand! H1 blockers are antihistamines (that's the name of the receptors in the body that they block). Piroton is one, as are the less sedating cetirizine, fexofenadine and loratidine, which are common ones prescribed. Ketotifen is sometimes used as well and is an H1 blocker, but usually the other (less expensive and more common) ones are prescribed first. H2 blockers are approved for stomach acid reduction but also block a type of histamine receptor called an H2 receptor. The one most of us used to be on was ranitidine but that's off the market now and we're scrambling to get the alternatives in the category, famotadine, nizatidine and cimetidine. Thanks for asking me to clarify!! x

[Hidden in reply to Jess-UKMasto]

Great, thanks for clarifying!