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Histamine Intolerance

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Posted 11/10/2014 1:17 PM (GMT 0)
Thought I'd post to say a big thanks to garylouisville for the tip off about Histamine intolerance.

I was driving myself crazy trying to piece together a reason for seemingly random foods that were causing issues. Now I've tested it and it's definitely related to the histamine content of the food, the more there is, the more of a bad effect I get. For the first time I feel totally in control of my diet, and it's a good feeling, so many thanks again.

Problem foods were things like shellfish, certain cheeses (some cheddars, Swiss and most Italian cheeses), smoked fish, unpasteurized honey, tomatoes, red wine and many more. If this rings a bell for some people then I suggest you look into histamine intolerance as a possible cause.

Bought the DAOsin product, but annoyingly the product itself seems to cause irritation (although nothing serious).

What I have discovered though is that eating Pea Shoots has a similar effect. A serving of raw Pea Shoots eaten before, during or even after a meal and I don't see any problems. Read about it on the 'Low Histamine Chef' site, apparently they naturally contain Diamine Oxidase. I'd recommend anyone to give it a shot if they suspect they've got similar issues.
Posted 11/10/2014 1:53 PM (GMT 0)
You're welcome. Thanks for the tip on the Pea shoots. I didn't know that. I suspect that a lot of people have problems with histamine and are actually blaming something else such as gluten, which has similarities to histamine intolerance but is actually different. Lately I have been investigating other histamine related UC angles including taking Allegra and might one day ask my GI for a prescription for Gastrocom.
Posted 11/10/2014 2:07 PM (GMT 0)
so then mr cot, would you surmise that you never really in fact had ulcerative proctitis, but instead, just had a histamine intolerance ?
Posted 11/10/2014 2:19 PM (GMT 0)

exilescot said...
Problem foods were things like shellfish, certain cheeses (some cheddars, Swiss and most Italian cheeses), smoked fish, unpasteurized honey, tomatoes, red wine


garylouville said...
I suspect that a lot of people have problems with histamine and are actually blaming something else such as gluten

Why would anyone want to blame gluten if the problem foods are shellfish, cheese, fish, honey, red wine, and tomatoes?
Posted 11/10/2014 2:34 PM (GMT 0)
whaaaaaaa ? tomatoes are full of gluten babe - where have you been ?
Posted 11/10/2014 3:37 PM (GMT 0)

soystud said...
would you surmise that you never really in fact had ulcerative proctitis, but instead, just had a histamine intolerance ?

I wish it were that simple. Histamine intolerance was unfortunately just the last/latest piece of the puzzle. I had already excluded all complex carbs, as well as anything which doesn't break down easily in the gut, like fruit skins, seeds etc, all of which cause problems.

I haven't retried red meat yet to see if it's the histamine or it's hard-to-digest nature that is the problem, that's still on the to-do list.

In essence I'm acting almost as if my colon isn't there, by not eating substances that get processed there, like disaccharides, polysaccharides, histamine, undigested lumps of food etc.
Posted 11/10/2014 5:37 PM (GMT 0)
IamCurious: Of course everyone eats and likes and doesn't like different foods. Yeasts are high in histamines and there are several things containing yeasts that also contain gluten. These people might not eat the other foods which are high in histamines (like seafood, for example). I have noticed a few people posting here who listed specific foods that bothered them (things containing yeasts) and decided to go gluten free and got better. My point is that the people who fall into this category might be thinking it was the gluten that was bothering them because when they quit eating it they got better, when it fact it was actually the histamines that were actually bothering them and not the gluten at all. Now if that makes them happy then so be it but, if it were me, I would want to find out the true culprit. I have literally no idea how many of these people actually have a gluten problem or are just blaming the gluten when they rally have a histamine intolerance. For all I know, most of them could have really had a gluten problem. Again, my only point is that if it were me I would want to know the truth and not just blame something because I felt better after quitting it. I don't eat several of the things that the OP talked about and yet we still both share the histamine intolerance problem. I considered several things for my problem before finally figuring out the histamine intolerance. Like the OP, I had a list of several seemingly unrelated foods which were causing me problems and after much investigation I discovered there was only one thing that was common to them all - histamine.
Posted 11/10/2014 8:54 PM (GMT 0)

garylouisville said...
I have literally no idea how many of these people actually have a gluten problem or are just blaming the gluten when they rally have a histamine intolerance. For all I know, most of them could have really had a gluten problem.

I think most of these people really do have a gluten problem and not a histamine intolerance. A histamine intolerance would manifest with eating other histamine foods such as shellfish, cheese, fish, honey, red wine, and tomatoes. Most, if not all the people on this forum who get relief by avoiding wheat have no problem eating other histamine foods.

Histamine intolerance appears to be relatively rare. Thank you for sharing your experience since apparently it has helped the OP, maybe a few others in the future, but DAO deficiency doesn't seem to be epidemic.

On the other hand while the gluten intolerance of full-blown Celiac is relatively rare, it is becoming more obvious that gluten sensitivity is much more common. Conservative estimates are 18 million Americans but other estimates are much higher. The problem is that there is no reliable test for gluten sensitivity other than avoiding it for a while to see if symptoms lessen.

I have been allergic to shellfish most of my life, but noticed a sensitivity to gluten only in recent years. But after reading your previous posts, just to be on the safe side, I tried eating some verboten foods while taking DAO in Histame. No relief, in fact it seemed to make my symptoms worse.
Posted 11/10/2014 10:16 PM (GMT 0)
I have been GF for 3.5 years now and have no plans to go back.

I complained on this forum about the sad development of being completely unable to drink red wine without getting a splitting headache within 15 minutes, and Gary suggested I try DAO. I did, and it worked. Red wine never gave me diarrhea like gluten did, but I'd prefer no headache just as much as I enjoy no diarrhea.

Certain kinds of fish have bothered me for decades. If I eat shrimp, monkfish or any firm ocean-going fish (orange roughy was the last one I tried), I will get nauseated pretty fast and have to stop eating well before anything like a normal serving size is consumed. I just quit eating that kind of fish to solve this problem and I have no plans to go back to it. Nausea is one of those experiences that just never leave your mind, KWIM?

I love cheese, and chocolate, and these things don't bother me. Maybe my positive experience with red wine was just a placebo effect, but I'll take it.

And thanks, OP, for the pea shoots idea. I'd rather not get my DAO from dessicated pig kidneys if I don't have to.
Posted 11/11/2014 1:19 AM (GMT 0)
Thanks for this thread and confirming my suspicion about pea shoots.

You mention about the 'issues'. Can you give few pointers about what did you exactly face?

Do you mind explaining how did you grow those pea shoots? Regular sprouting or any other method?
Posted 11/11/2014 1:54 AM (GMT 0)
ya, i like the idea of the pea shooter thing too -
Posted 11/11/2014 3:18 AM (GMT 0)
After reading a little about pea shoots I second Delta's question. It seems that not all pea shoots are created equal. They only seem to have dao only under certain conditions.
Posted 11/11/2014 3:48 AM (GMT 0)
I tried this DAO - but I don't think my systems liked what's in the pills or the additives to the pills - not the DAO itself... not sure. Could have easily just been the food I tried it with back then. So I can't say either way.

I might get up the nerve to give it a go again soon - I'm chicken because I'm just about perfect at the moment for some crazy lucky reason. Thankful for this.

My niece what to try it though so I will give her mine for now and see what happens with her.
Posted 11/11/2014 5:01 PM (GMT 0)

deltaforce said...
Do you mind explaining how did you grow those pea shoots? Regular sprouting or any other method?

I was lazy and just bought mine from the supermarket (Waitrose in the UK to be precise). They're not widely available, but some supermarkets do stock them. They're very popular in China apparently, so maybe someone specialising in oriental foods would have them.

I will try to grow some at some stage. I was reading that if you grow them in the dark, they produce much more DAO, so I will try that. I can confirm that they're pretty tasty as well, although I'm not generally a salad man.

deltaforce said...
You mention about the 'issues'. Can you give few pointers about what did you exactly face?

My experiment went something like this (making sure that the rest of my diet was stable)

- Tried Pea Shoots on their own to see if they causes issues themselves, but was fine
- Bought cheese that I knew caused issues
- Ate half
- Saw lots of blood and had constipation about 24 hours later.
- Waited a few days (till recovered) and ate the other half with about half a bag of Pea Shoots (30g maybe?)
- This time no problems, normal stool, in morning as usual

Repeated experiment using raw honey instead of cheese, same steps, same results.

Then tried eating honey but adding the Pea Shoots 4 hours afterwards, to see if I could retrospectively recover if I was out somewhere (I'm a software engineer by trade, so like to methodically cover all the bases). This worked in terms of no blood, but with slight inflammation, sp partial success.

Tried alfalfa sprouts as an alternative but they caused problems eating them raw, for unknown reason, so dropped them.
Posted 11/11/2014 5:25 PM (GMT 0)
exilescot you are awesome.
Posted 11/11/2014 8:09 PM (GMT 0)
Thanks exilescot.

Next time you get those pea shoots, do you mind taking a picture and posting it.
Thanks in advance.
Posted 11/11/2014 11:25 PM (GMT 0)
Thanks Gary,

Your posts inspired me to buy a bottle of Histame last summer. My girlfriend has been enduring chronic migraines since she was 12 years old. Last August Kazbern posted on the migraine forum that DAO prevented headaches from red wine.
www.healingwell.com/community/default.aspx?f=31&m=3156465

Unfortunately DAO did not help my girlfriend's migraines. I found it ineffective as far as helping me tolerate gluten or cruciferous. But after exilescot's post yesterday I decided to give DAO another chance. This time I ate a large portion of shellfish for dinner last night. Ordinarily scallops would have caused me serious symptoms by now. But so far – nothing.

Apparently taking DAO allows me to tolerate shellfish. Thanks again.
Posted 11/12/2014 1:30 AM (GMT 0)
While I realize that part of UC, even for me, is to make diet adjustments I find it saddening when people just start elimating a whole bunch of things, some of them unnecessarily. If I accomplish anything from being a member here I hope it is inspiring people to find ways to eat some of the things we love without having any UC issues. Sadly i'm aware that that isn't the case for many.
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