Low histamine adventure continued

Well we're just over a week into our low histamine diet and finding out more and more about the ins and outs of the diet.  The good news is that Jack and I have been hive free for a week now.

The problem I have been running into is that every resource on a low histamine diet has a different list of foods to avoid.  There is agreement about fermented foods, spinach, tomatoes and chocolate but google bananas and eggs and you'll get 5 different answers.  So for myself I put together the main lists from some great sites and then worked on eliminating the most obvious foods.

Here's Livestrong's take: ...foods naturally high in histamine include spinach, eggplant, fish, processed meats, eggs, chocolate, tomatoes, pumpkin, citrus fruits, berries, raisins, dates, apricots, cherries, peaches and prunes.

Stay away from foods and beverages with artificial colorings, flavorings or preservatives; they contain chemicals that can trigger histamine production. Examples of preservatives include benzoates, sulfites, BHA and BHT.

Avoid the spices cinnamon, chili powder, cloves, anise, nutmeg, curry powder and paprika. Do not drink soda or tea.

 

Other sites disagree about eggs. The International Chronic Urticaria Society says cooked eggs are fine, it's raw eggs white that can be a problem. They have a pretty comprehensive list of foods plus a handy 4 week elimination diet to follow.

 

My favorite site so far in terms of simplicity and a common sense approach is the Histamine Intolerance Awareness site:

• Avoid or reduce eating canned foods and ready meals
• Avoid or reduce eating ripened and fermented foods (older cheeses, alcoholic drinks, products containing yeast, stale fish)
• Histamine levels in foods vary, depending on how ripe, matured or hygienic the foods are
• As much as it is possible, only buy and eat fresh products
• Don’t allow foods to linger outside the refrigerator – especially meat products
• Ensure that your food preparation area (kitchen) is always kept clean – but don’t be manic!
• Everyone has their own threshold; you will need to find yours.

They say a food diary is necessary and I wholeheartedly agree.  It's amazing how obvious certain food - reaction links can be if you just write down everything you eat. We caught a grape reaction for my son this way when I had actually forgotten we had eaten any!

One more site that I check regularly to keep up with the latest in the low histamine world (yes there is such a place!) is The Low Histamine Chef. She is my go to when my head starts spinning with all the varying opinions because she's been there done that!

Histamine Intolerance

I have a wonderful 4 year old son who just started preschool and is a fantastic bundle of energy.  He does however have a history of moderate speech delay (his was initially diagnosed as apraxia), chronic constipation and hives (or in his case urticaria pigmentosa, which is when you not only get hives but you also get "nests" of mast cells that look like freckles on the skin).

Just before he turned 3 I had been doing my research and decided to try him on an "apraxia diet."  This is basically exactly the same as the autism diet - no gluten, no casein, add in fish oils.  It worked wonders! The constipation was gone and within about 2 weeks he started talking more than he ever had before... at 3 years old we were still only at 2 word sentences and he refused to say a lot of words despite a year of speech therapy. It seemed almost too good to be true but he has been progressing steadily ever since and a few months ago reached age level for his speech. He also had almost 8 months without hives. Unfortunately I never could figure out how to stop them recurring for good...

Recently I decided to do a complete allergy work up on him and that's when he was diagnosed with urticaria pigmentosa (that is such a mouthful).  Here's a link to a more in depth description at PubMed. We were basically given the option of daily medication or a food diary to figure out the triggers.  I opted for the second - of course.  The problem with hives is that they are an auto-immune issue causing chronic inflammation, and while medication may cover this up, it's always better to find out the source of the problem to avoid long term issues.

This leads us to histamine intolerance which is the usual cause of hives.  Do you know anyone who drinks red wine and gets migraines?  Can't eat chocolate without getting itchy?This is the most obvious form of histamine intolerance.  Others, like my son, react to nearly everything with histamine, or that causes histamine to be released.  So we are going to follow a histamine restricted diet for him and then slowly reintroduce all the good foods that contain histamine (like spinach).  We will also be introducing supplements that help the body break down histamine naturally  - Quercetin, Nettle extract, Vitamin C and B6 - which increase the level of the enzyme diamine oxidase. I'll keep updating, and outline the details of the diet, as we get further into this.  Already he's had less hives and I've had less headaches - and our diet (while good, we did a lot of fermented foods and eggs) should improve too!