My Histamine Issues

As many of you may know, I have a condition called Urticaria Pigmentosa (aka…UP).  I was diagnosed with UP at the age of 30 by a dermatologist in Charlotte and they did a number of test to make sure it wasn't systemic and sent me on my way.   The underlying cause of UP is that I have too much histamine in my body.  Lucky for me, it went to my skin and not my organs. So, other than the constant spots and itching on my trunk, legs, back and arms, I haven't really been bothered by it much over the years. I have always had GI issues, so I thought it was normal to have them after eating certain foods.  I had nightmares since I was a kid from eating pizza at night before bed.  I love nothing more than a pepperoni pizza, so I continued to eat it and knew what my reaction was going to be.

Over the years, I have had my fair share of depression, anxiety and reactions to certain medications I've taken for the cold or sinus infections, but I got used to that struggle and moved on with my life.  In other words, I found ways to justify what I was going through and thought it was just a normal part of life.  Doesn't everyone get an upset stomach after eating spicy foods?  Evidently not…

When Kurt and I moved to Chicago, we like to have "date night" every Friday night.  This was a continuation of something we started in Charlotte. We would order a pizza, drink a bottle (or two) of wine and watch a few movies.  It's something we looked forward to all week until we noticed how bad I felt of Saturday mornings.  Either I would wake up with a stuffy nose and headache or I would be the biggest BITCH!   When we started to notice the routine, we analyzed what was different and discovered it had something to do with restaurant foods.  I felt "fine" if I had cooked at home, but horrible if we ate out.  Even if eating "out" was someone delivering us a pizza.  So, we got more selective about restaurants and only started eating at places where everything was made "in house" and the food was fresh.

As time passed, I started to notice more migraines, GI issues, dizziness, depression (it's winter in Chicago, I should be depressed), anxiety, weight gain and a few other things I can't recall at the moment.  He put me on an antidepressant, told me I should see a GI doctor and told me there was nothing he could do about the dizziness. He also did some blood work and didn't find anything out of the ordinary so, he sent me on my way.  

When we first moved to Chicago, I started noticing my eyes were burning and watering. I have always suspected a cat allergy and since Kurt has two, I just thought it was from being around them. However, it would happen in restaurants or just walking down the street. Again, I made an excuse and just thought it was the dirty city or dirty air conditioning vents in buildings. After a few years, this got worse and I started to notice the tears coming from my eyes were burning my eyelids. Strange right? Well, this past February, I was suffering from insomnia a lot and one night about 2am I was in bed with my iPad and did a Google search about my eyelids.  A story I found said it could be caused by too much histamine in the body.  Hallelujah!!!  That's the first time I had thought about that word in years.  It made perfect sense to me…After searching even further, I ran across a low-histamine/elimination diet. I started that a few days later and felt so much better. Not perfect, but much better.

The diet lasted 3 weeks and after that, I was to add a food into my diet and see how my body reacted to it.  The first thing I tried was bread (a bagel to be exact) and within 30 minutes, I was flushed, lethargic and sick to my stomach.  That would point to a wheat allergy and I knew I had to be gluten-free.  Several months prior to that, I started an on-line bakery and baked scones for a living. Good scones too!  I also noticed that every food I added back into my diet was an issue.  Tomatoes were causing me to have sores on my mouth, garlic upset my stomach and olives were burning my lips.

After a short time, I was able to add some of these foods back in and just live with the consequences. However, the GI issues were not going away and seemed if possible to be getting worse.  I tried my hand at making gourmet marshmallows, but the made me sick. I made homemade jam, but that made me sick. A simple meal of steak frittes (I love french food) even made me sick. WTF?????

I had basically taken everything out of my diet except turkey, grapes, watermelon, chicken, potatoes (sweet and russet). I was eating a low-histamine, gluten-free, dairy-free (with a few exceptions) diet and was still suffering along with not feeling healthy.  I was eating limited vegetables, salads were gone and my weight was still fluctuating on a daily basis.  Also, every time I would start an elimination diet, I would spend several days vomiting and having diarrhea.  I'm sick of this stuff!