While attempting to reset our son's histamine levels my husband and I have come across a few challenges. The first challenge was getting a diagnosis from a doctor. Following that, the second and more important challenge is finding out what direction to take medically and nutritionally. In America the idea that your nutrition is your health is assumed to be the focus of patchouli wearing people and not the sane. While I am not a patchouli wearer, per se, I must admit that over the years my life has become more crunchy than the average bear. We have become avid gardeners sought out non-GMO seeds and even have our own compost and rain barrel system. This list of things really shouldn't qualify us for any special "green" status but should instead be a normal thing...but that is my patchouli scented kumbaya world talking.
Getting a diagnosis. I went into that fiasco in an earlier post but as a little update I will continue it here.
Our allergist decided that our son did not have Chronic Urticaria and does indeed have Histamine Intolerance. I asked her if it was Histaminosis but she was so unfamiliar with the HIT diagnosis that she couldn't say. She did want to do lab work, which we are still waiting on the results of. I asked her to check his DAO, diamine oxidase levels but the lab technicians had never even heard of it. Not only had they never heard of it, they called dozens of labs around the country and none of them had either. So, how in the world do I get his DAO levels checked? Good question. This is the problem we seem to run into. It goes like this.
Our son has symptoms that they don't understand so they put him off to another doctor to deal with. That doctor has nothing so Mom (that is me!) gets to keep tweaking the diet until results appear. I also get to keep scouring the online medical journals and web sites until I find plausible explanations. Next step, bringing in medical journals to appointments with doctors who don't even take the time to look at them and simply stay narrow minded. Next step...well, the next step is the hardest part. Making our decision to move forward with "treatment" and continuing the search for either a great European doctor who happens to practice in North Carolina or one who is up on his international journals and is open minded.
Our treatment. Our treatment is to have a zero tolerance policy to histamine for 30 days straight. That is going to be mixed with serious food journaling and detailed records of our son's bodily functions. What a fun thing to do! Every runny nose, bout of constipation or other will be noted. We have to figure out which foods are making him sick. Luckily for us his skin is a red herring. He shows very clear signs of physical distress by breaking out in hives or having large red welts appear. We are scheduling a biopsy to see if there is an underlying mast cell disorder at play with those. More to come on that.
The food journal will not only include meals, meal time, symptoms and his daily schedule, it will also include all ingredients in a product. That is the key. I used to write down things like omelette in my journal. Little did I know then that the egg whites were a problem and the tomato, spinach and mushroom inside as well. Now I am very specific. I write 3 egg yolk omelette in olive oil with pepper, and turnip greens.
How will we keep to 0 histamine levels in our food? We have been working for 1 week now on a strict protocol and there have been tiny mistakes nearly every day. We finally figured out that guar gum and xanthan gum are in a lot of things. That means that every single thing that is processed in some way is now out. He seems to be extremely sensitive. Perhaps that will diminish with time but for now he has a zero tolerance policy to histamine. We are going to simplify our cooking for a while and stick to 5 ingredient or fewer recipes. Additionally, those ingredients should be things we rotate around so we don't have to be confused if something was good once but bad another time. Last night I made a 7 Spice chicken soup and today I am using similar ingredients to make a chicken salad.
For our future we are heading to a gastroenterologist to see what kind of progress we can make. Our allergist is wonderful but in my logic it makes sense that if the DAO is produced in the gut then we need to see a gut specialist. Additionally, we have read that HIT is typically a secondary problem. We have been treating our son for Celiac Disease based off of his symptoms and have been waiting on a diagnosis. If that is accurate, that would help us explain his super sensitivity to gluten and temporary dairy intolerance. After 6 months without, we successfully trialed milk with no adverse reactions. While I don't drink milk anymore because it just seems strange to drink another animal's milk, I have that as my only option. Rice milk is fermented so we know it is high in histamines. We had been using almond milk but it contains guar gum. Another day, another attempt. Wish us luck!
Getting a diagnosis. I went into that fiasco in an earlier post but as a little update I will continue it here.
Our allergist decided that our son did not have Chronic Urticaria and does indeed have Histamine Intolerance. I asked her if it was Histaminosis but she was so unfamiliar with the HIT diagnosis that she couldn't say. She did want to do lab work, which we are still waiting on the results of. I asked her to check his DAO, diamine oxidase levels but the lab technicians had never even heard of it. Not only had they never heard of it, they called dozens of labs around the country and none of them had either. So, how in the world do I get his DAO levels checked? Good question. This is the problem we seem to run into. It goes like this.
Our son has symptoms that they don't understand so they put him off to another doctor to deal with. That doctor has nothing so Mom (that is me!) gets to keep tweaking the diet until results appear. I also get to keep scouring the online medical journals and web sites until I find plausible explanations. Next step, bringing in medical journals to appointments with doctors who don't even take the time to look at them and simply stay narrow minded. Next step...well, the next step is the hardest part. Making our decision to move forward with "treatment" and continuing the search for either a great European doctor who happens to practice in North Carolina or one who is up on his international journals and is open minded.
Our treatment. Our treatment is to have a zero tolerance policy to histamine for 30 days straight. That is going to be mixed with serious food journaling and detailed records of our son's bodily functions. What a fun thing to do! Every runny nose, bout of constipation or other will be noted. We have to figure out which foods are making him sick. Luckily for us his skin is a red herring. He shows very clear signs of physical distress by breaking out in hives or having large red welts appear. We are scheduling a biopsy to see if there is an underlying mast cell disorder at play with those. More to come on that.
The food journal will not only include meals, meal time, symptoms and his daily schedule, it will also include all ingredients in a product. That is the key. I used to write down things like omelette in my journal. Little did I know then that the egg whites were a problem and the tomato, spinach and mushroom inside as well. Now I am very specific. I write 3 egg yolk omelette in olive oil with pepper, and turnip greens.
How will we keep to 0 histamine levels in our food? We have been working for 1 week now on a strict protocol and there have been tiny mistakes nearly every day. We finally figured out that guar gum and xanthan gum are in a lot of things. That means that every single thing that is processed in some way is now out. He seems to be extremely sensitive. Perhaps that will diminish with time but for now he has a zero tolerance policy to histamine. We are going to simplify our cooking for a while and stick to 5 ingredient or fewer recipes. Additionally, those ingredients should be things we rotate around so we don't have to be confused if something was good once but bad another time. Last night I made a 7 Spice chicken soup and today I am using similar ingredients to make a chicken salad.
For our future we are heading to a gastroenterologist to see what kind of progress we can make. Our allergist is wonderful but in my logic it makes sense that if the DAO is produced in the gut then we need to see a gut specialist. Additionally, we have read that HIT is typically a secondary problem. We have been treating our son for Celiac Disease based off of his symptoms and have been waiting on a diagnosis. If that is accurate, that would help us explain his super sensitivity to gluten and temporary dairy intolerance. After 6 months without, we successfully trialed milk with no adverse reactions. While I don't drink milk anymore because it just seems strange to drink another animal's milk, I have that as my only option. Rice milk is fermented so we know it is high in histamines. We had been using almond milk but it contains guar gum. Another day, another attempt. Wish us luck!
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