If you’re histamine intolerant, you’ll be well-experienced in the struggles and difficulties of searching for a histamine intolerance treatment.
You have to struggle with constantly trying to manage and worry about your low histamine diet, trying to navigate the social aspects of eating and dealing with a lack of recognition from medical professionals - even when you’re in the middle of an allergy-like symptom flare-up.
It can be so difficult to identify what's going on! Then, when you do, the repeated doctors visits and cycles of high hope waiting desperately for your next appointment, only to walk out feeling more deflated than ever, you carry the thoughts you may never find a histamine intolerance treatment! It may indeed be what the rest of your life looks like.
Believe me, I know the struggle because I’ve personally been through it. I suffered from histamine intolerance for years. And today, I’m going to tell you my story. I'm sharing it with you in the hope that what I went through, and how I personally solved my histamine intolerance will help you too...
My Search for a Histamine Intolerance Treatment
I had just turned 23. All of a sudden, I was histamine intolerant. But I didn't know what was happening at the time. Foods I had always enjoyed and tolerated simply didn't agree with me any more. I felt sick and weak, and with every meal I ate, felt like I got sicker and weaker.
It took almost a year for me to self-diagnose the issue. And almost entirely by accident! Fortunately for me, at the time I was completing my Master of Science studies and the topic of histamine intolerance happened to come up in one of our lectures.
Before then, despite being involved in the health and wellness industry for many years, and like many of you potentially reading this today, I had never even heard of the disorder before.
Even once I had heard about it, due to the multi-symptomatic nature of histamine intolerance, combined with the lack of awareness or literature available about the disorder, I found it extremely difficult to diagnose.
I spent a considerable amount of time searching for information about the condition. I searched for diagnostic criteria, and tried to find any research I could to help me to understand what was possibly going on inside my body. But, considering the lack of easily accessible information on histamine intolerance, I began to understand that seeking out a histamine intolerance diagnosis was going to be a struggle. Even worse, without the ability to construct a concrete diagnosis, I knew that finding a standard approach to treatment would likely be as illusive.
Taking My Histamine Intolerance Symptoms Into My Own Hands
After some time of investigating histamine intolerance further with the information that was available, I decided to try out a low histamine diet. It was the easiest and most immediate course of action I could take. It was free and a change I could make at home. The research I had done also suggested following a low histamine diet would work quickly if I was indeed histamine intolerant, and I should see changes in my symptoms within a few days (1).
Sure enough, after following the low histamine diet for just a little over a week, I began to feel some relief of my symptoms. My symptoms were by no means cured and if I unintentionally had an exposure to high histamine foods, I would would still go into an all-out flare - but I suddenly had a way to better manage my symptoms, something that I largely had control over, and something that I could do on my own.
After following the low histamine diet for a few months, I could absolutely see an improvement from eating this way, and compared to the suffering I had been experiencing before, I knew I had to stick with it.
I Am Definitely Histamine Intolerant!
By following the low histamine diet, and feeling relief from many of my symptoms as a result, it was my first strong piece of evidence that I was histamine intolerant.
Again, even though I had felt significant relief, I was still having flares and was constantly having to readjust my diet. As you may well have realized yourself, many of the histamine intolerance food lists out there appear to contradict one-another. Some low histamine foods on one list were labelled as high histamine foods on another, and it was a process of trial and error to determine which of those would cause my symptoms to flare.
I had to constantly do research to not only keep trying to find out which foods were high in histamine but to determine why other foods may also encourage the release of histamine in my body. You see, there are also foods that may be labelled 'safe', but these foods may still interact with mast cells.
Mast cells are interesting when it comes to histamine intolerance. They are cells that are part of the immune system, and when triggered, they release histamine as well as other inflammatory chemicals (2). While histamine-adjacent, inflammatory conditions in the body that can occur alongside histamine intolerance, cause sensitivities to other foods, which cause mast cell degranulation and histamine release into the body.
As a result of this confusion, I meticulously researched and tracked my food. It's for this reason I was able to create my own histamine intolerance foods list. You may notice it’s a bit more strict than some of the ones out there - but for good reason!
My histamine intolerance food list aims to eliminate other foods that may trigger histamine-like symptoms. These additional offenders as mentioned, commonly contain irritants and compounds that frequently lead to symptoms of histamine intolerance, even if they are not necessarily high in histamine themselves.
Finding out all of the foods that should be restricted was step 1, and it helped me greatly in alleviating my histamine intolerance symptoms.
But, avoiding high histamine foods didn’t solve the problem and it certainly created awkward situations compared to living a 'normal' daily life.
I was constantly worrying about my diet. I felt like I needed to manage and control every aspect of it. I spent hours preparing every single thing I ate, avoiding eating out for fear of ‘contamination’ from unknown ingredients. I remember living in fear and neared social isolation due to the social aspects around eating in environments where I wouldn't have full control.
Looking back, this new diet did not provide me with a histamine intolerance treatment. Rather, it was a temporary band-aid for symptom relief.
Of course, it was great to begin with and got me out of the confused, suffering state I was in - however, I knew I did not want to live this way and I needed to seek out a proper histamine intolerance treatment. As I carried on with my studies, I began to think about why this had happened to me. I needed to start thinking about the root cause of my histamine intolerance, to heal the underlying reason the condition started in the first place. This would be the only way I could stop my symptoms completely and get my life back to normal!
More Time and Research Goes Into My Histamine Intolerance Symptoms
I knew I had to take the next step. I had seen around 4 doctors already and they didn't offer any support in terms of histamine intolerance treatment. While sympathetic to my suffering, some dismissed the disorder entirely saying that it was normal to have histamine in the body. They said it was normal to have allergic-like symptoms when reacting to foreign substances, and diet had nothing to do with it.
I soon realized that my hope of treating histamine intolerance with the help of conventional medicine was coming to an end.
I was left with three options: take steroids (which have their own significant side effects), live with the intermittent flare ups I was having while on a very restricted diet, or continue the battle alone...
I chose to continue to fight.
Thankfully, I come from a scientific background. I was in the midst of completing my Master of Science in Nutrition and I had completed my undergraduate in a Bachelor of Science in Human Biology and Psychology. Both degrees felt important, as the studies of natural therapies combined with a great understanding of the human body and mind would certainly come in handy as they are both are deeply intertwined in creating your overall health state. So I thought, well, if anyone could dive deep into the topic and learn everything there is to know about histamine intolerance and what to do about it, it would be me.
Needless to say, that's just what I did. I dedicated a significant amount of time and energy into researching histamine intolerance causes and treatments. I was even lucky enough to use some of the information I had found for assignments I had to hand in for my current degree and I received feedback from professors as well as the dean of the school on the research I was doing and the work I was handing in.
It was definitely an incredible advantage to have a team of highly educated practitioners behind me, ready to answer my emails or give me feedback over a call, all while being objective and not treating me like a 15 minute quick-fix patient that needed to be rushed out of the treatment room ASAP for the next ill person to take my place.
As a result of my research, I was able to find out why I had histamine intolerance. I was able to compare the research to a real-life experience - my own! - and use the tools I had found to come up with a plan to heal myself.
Below are the steps I used to overcome my histamine intolerance, and I hope you're able to do the same!
5 Steps I Used To Overcome My Histamine Intolerance
I won't lie to you; this was a long and gruelling process, and I repeatedly hit dead ends in my search for a histamine intolerance treatment. But I found a plan of action that worked, and not only did it help me to solve the riddle as to why I had developed histamine intolerance so suddenly, it helped me overcome my condition completely. Today I am able to once again enjoy all sorts of food, and I am not aggravated by random triggers in the environment. Since healing from histamine intolerance I have also been able to help thousands of people I've worked with as a Nutritional Therapist overcome their own histamine issues, and I'm sharing that with you today.
Here is a summary of what I found was causing my histamine intolerance symptoms and what I did to solve my histamine intolerance for good:
1. Identify and treat the root cause of histamine intolerance
Histamine intolerance has many root causes.
The initial trigger of histamine intolerance is usually as a result of one of four main causes:
- an infection with opportunistic or pathogenic microbes (3)
- gut bacterial imbalances
- mast cell disorders
- genetically inherited mutations
Although there are many other root causes to explore, one of the most common underlying issues is and infection with the opportunistic bacteria called helicobacter pylori (H. pylori), a bacteria that can typically reside within the digestive tract (4). In fact, it is estimated that approximately 50% of the world's population have H. pylori living in their stomach, many of those without experiencing any issues as a result.
However, in other cases, H. pylori both underlies and perpetuates the disorder of histamine intolerance and is an essential piece in the puzzle of the condition. And it's in the eradication of H. pylori that leads to a significant improvement in symptoms (5). For this reason, and largely depending on your symptoms, testing for H. pylori can be one of the best places to start in your journey to healing from histamine intolerance.
As I mentioned however, H. pylori isn’t the only cause of histamine intolerance, and there is a long list of additional causes that are important to explore and test for.
I’ve included a more comprehensive explanation of all the common causes of histamine intolerance, as well as the steps to take to overcome them in my How I Solved My Histamine Intolerance Course. Throughout this course, I share step-by-step information about how to identify the root cause of histamine intolerance and, most importantly, what you can do to address it and heal your body from the condition.
2. Gut health is key in histamine intolerance
Gut health is another essential factor to consider in identifying the underlying cause of your intolerance (6). And a lot of people don't even consider the gut when seeking out a treatment plan for histamine intolerance.
As research continues in the field of health, evidence is increasingly revealing the gut as the epicentre of health. The gut can be thought of as the soil your body grows on. It is responsible for breaking down food and absorbing all of the incoming nutrients your entire body relies on.
If the health of your gut is compromised, every single organ and body system has the potential to be compromised. Poor gut health can quickly lead to nutrient deficiencies and exacerbate histamine intolerance issues. It compromises the function of every system in your body required to regulate histamine release and breakdown, including how mast cells respond to triggers, as well as the levels of diamine oxidase enzymes, which are responsible for degrading histamine (7).
The gut remains a hot topic in the health and wellbeing world - and, for good reason! You can find plenty of info on improving your gut online by doing a quick search but, it’s important to keep in mind a lot of the best interventions for your gut (fermented foods, bone broth, standard probiotics) actually make histamine intolerance worse! These foods and supplements can be extremely high in histamine by design, which is why you likely don't tolerate them well if you have tried any of them.
Its for this reason I encourage you to use only very specific gut health treatments if you're navigating your journey to healing histamine intolerance. I detail all of the ones I used in my own journey, which you can access in my solving histamine intolerance course.
3. Take the right probiotic for histamine intolerance
Bacteria are involved, either directly or indirectly, in every single system of the body. And, unlike your genes, you can change your bacteria - for better or for worse.
Underlying issues (such as H. pylori, other pathogens, poor diet, antibiotics, etc.) can lead to bacterial imbalances that can easily increase internal histamine levels.
For example, it is a natural process that several species of “good” bacteria produce histamine within the body. However, even if the populations of these “good” bacteria grow too large, you can end up producing more histamine than your body can handle.
This is exactly the reason why taking probiotics can make histamine intolerance worse. Some strains release histamine in the body while others are able to convert the amino acid histidine to histamine.
Knowing that an important part of gut healing is getting the balance of bacteria right in the digestive tract, during my search for a solution to my histamine intolerance I delved into the types of bacteria that would be helpful to degrade histamine. I found out there are a handful of those, and there are other helpful bacteria out there to help with gut healing, but are otherwise histamine neutral. So my advice is unless you know the specific low histamine probiotic strains that are histamine intolerance friendly, avoid taking any probiotic supplements if you're histamine intolerant.
Although I discuss everything I discovered about the relationship between bacteria and histamine intolerance in How I Solved My Histamine Intolerance Course, for now, the current histamine-safe probiotic I use with my histamine intolerant clients can be found here.
4. Nutrient deficiencies and insufficiencies are common in histamine intolerance
Imbalances in biological nutrient status can occur for many reasons. Eating a restricted diet, living with a compromised gut that prevents absorption, taking medications, living with comorbidities like infection, celiac disease, inflammatory bowel disease, the list goes on.
Although healing the gut and balancing bacteria can help to resolve nutrient issues on their own, there are still a variety of common nutrients depleted in histamine intolerance. In these cases supplementation may be needed in the short term in order to return those levels to normal.
One common deficiency seen in histamine intolerance is magnesium. Magnesium is involved in over 700 reactions in the body, so depletion of this nutrient can cause big interruptions in standard biological processes. It can also be contributing to the anxious feelings that are common among individuals with histamine intolerance.
Other common deficiencies or insufficiencies seen in histamine intolerance include zinc, omega-3’s and vitamins A, B, C and E.
In my step-by-step protocol of the How I Solved My Histamine Intolerance Course, I go deeper into nutrient deficiencies and why supplementing with them at the start of your histamine intolerance journey can actually be a bad idea and turn out to be a waste of time and money.
5. Stress and histamine intolerance cyclically impact one-another.
We all know stress is bad for our health. But, did you know that stress from having a chronic illness actually imposes some of the worst biological impacts on your body and health.
This type of stress is known as inescapable stress because, no matter how hard you try, the stress continues to disrupt your normal body processes. It's the type of stress that may have a significant impact on your everyday symptoms of histamine intolerance (8).
In order to reduce the stress impacting your histamine intolerance, I encourage you to use evidence-based methods to reduce the overall stress on your body. Mindfulness, meditation, yoga, nature walks, and journaling have all be show to help to minimize inflammation caused by chronic stress and rebalance biochemicals that can be thrown out of whack during a long, stressful period.
Additional stress-busting activities include eating a healthy, low histamine diet, getting regular exercise, and even trying cold showers to give you a great cognitive boost and reduce inflammation further.
It’s important to note, although many people think they are living healthy lives, many of us simply do not realize we are actually living under a huge burden of stress our bodies have not adapted to.
Working a 9-5 with a scary boss, environmental pollutants, pesticides, relationship issues, social media, drinking alcohol, poor sleep hygiene, eating packaged foods, financial stress, unresolved traumatic events in our lives.... all contribute major stress on the body and impact histamine!
On the flip side, trying to avoid them in order to improve health becomes a stressor in itself. Suppression of stress can be quite detrimental as it doesn't resolve the underlying source of the stress, which continues to disrupt the nervous system.
It can really feel like a lose-lose, but I promise, once you get the hang of it, you understand the concept of healing and know exactly how to prioritize your health with enjoyment of life, you're going to be even healthier from doing less! It's about doing the right things, rather than the most things.
In my Histamine Intolerance Course, I detail all of the most effective interventions for both solving histamine intolerance and keeping your body healthy to prevent further issues and symptoms from returning.
Ending the Search for a Histamine Intolerance Treatment
Throughout my search for a histamine intolerance treatment, I gained the knowledge to combine the info I found into a step-by-step, actionable plan that helped me to solve my histamine intolerance for good.
It took months of work to develop, and several more months to put those interventions into practice to test things out myself.
But, what I noticed, was that each step of the way I was able to eat more and more foods, while experiencing less and less symptoms.
I felt better and I could tolerate more foods until, eventually, by following the steps I had created, I was able to eat everything again without symptoms.
I was able to stop worrying about my diet and stop being afraid of social events. I was able to start going to my favourite restaurants again (sushi nights every Friday!) and start eating my all-time favourite treat - chocolate - all while experiencing no reaction.
It was a long journey, but one I am glad to have taken.
While seeking out a histamine intolerance treatment, being turned away by medical doctors was discouraging, it didn't keep me from figuring it out on my own. Doing my own research on histamine intolerance treatments was hard, but it sure worked.
Once I had started to feel better I ended up sharing my protocol with approximately 100 people in exchange for feedback. I was thrilled it ended up working for them too!
As soon as I knew it had not just worked for me, I went even deeper into the research in order to put this protocol together into a course. I added in common questions people had and filled in any gaps I thought there were in the information. I also added in therapies for common histamine intolerance symptoms that I wasn't necessarily experiencing, such as diarrhea or the presence of H. pylori. With these additional pieces in place, I knew that each stage of the protocol I built had a straightforward approach for the general symptoms of histamine intolerance, but now had the optional section that would be customizable to the individual depending on their unique symptoms.
With that, you have everything you need to solve your histamine intolerance, laid out in easy to understand and follow, step-by-step videos within the How I Solved My Histamine Intolerance Course.
Click the link above to learn all about what the course has to offer. You can also click here to see the testimonials!
"By far the best resource I've found in my search for a histamine intolerance treatment. Two months in and I have never felt better. I can finally eat some of my favourite foods again! Thank you." - Liz C., United States
"Diarrhea, skin rashes, fatigue and anxiety - all gone! Hallelujah!" - Susan S., United Kingdom
"It's a great feeling to be able to spend more time with my family and kids, compared to managing and worrying about my diet and symptoms" - Tiana B., Australia
I am elated to share these resources with you. I want you to feel as good as I do now; not simply managing my symptoms, but being completely free from the clutches that is histamine intolerance.
References
- Sánchez-Pérez S, Comas-Basté O, Veciana-Nogués MT, Latorre-Moratalla ML, Vidal-Carou MC. Low-Histamine Diets: Is the Exclusion of Foods Justified by Their Histamine Content?. Nutrients. 2021;13(5):1395. Published 2021 Apr 21. doi:10.3390/nu13051395
- Thangam EB, Jemima EA, Singh H, et al. The Role of Histamine and Histamine Receptors in Mast Cell-Mediated Allergy and Inflammation: The Hunt for New Therapeutic Targets. Front Immunol. 2018;9:1873. Published 2018 Aug 13. doi:10.3389/fimmu.2018.01873
- Sánchez-Pérez S, Comas-Basté O, Duelo A, et al. Intestinal Dysbiosis in Patients with Histamine Intolerance. Nutrients. 2022;14(9):1774. Published 2022 Apr 23. doi:10.3390/nu14091774
- Chen, Yi-Chu et al. Global Prevalence of Helicobacter pylori Infection and Incidence of Gastric Cancer Between 1980 and 2022. Gastroenterology, Volume 166, Issue 4, 605 - 619.
- Queiroz DM, Mendes EN, Rocha GA, et al. Helicobacter pylori and gastric histamine concentrations. J Clin Pathol. 1991;44(7):612-613. doi:10.1136/jcp.44.7.612
- Schnedl WJ, Enko D. Histamine Intolerance Originates in the Gut. Nutrients. 2021;13(4):1262. Published 2021 Apr 12. doi:10.3390/nu13041262
- van Odijk J, Weisheit A, Arvidsson M, Miron N, Nwaru B, Ekerljung L. The Use of DAO as a Marker for Histamine Intolerance: Measurements and Determinants in a Large Random Population-Based Survey. Nutrients. 2023;15(13):2887. Published 2023 Jun 26. doi:10.3390/nu15132887
- Eutamene H, Theodorou V, Fioramonti J, Bueno L. Acute stress modulates the histamine content of mast cells in the gastrointestinal tract through interleukin-1 and corticotropin-releasing factor release in rats. J Physiol. 2003;553(Pt 3):959-966. doi:10.1113/jphysiol.2003.052274
Anita Tee
My name is Anita Tee. I'm a nutritional scientist who specializes in histamine intolerance. I hold a Master of Science in Personalized Nutrition and a Bachelor of Science in Human Biology and Psychology.
For the past ten years, I have used my experience in nutritional and medical health sciences to create a scientifically backed, natural approach to healthcare that relies 100% on evidence-based research.
As I previously suffered from - and overcame - histamine intolerance, my focus is to increase recognition and expand the available resources and protocols available for resolving this particular disorder. To date, I have helped over 4,000 individuals fully resolve or better manage their histamine intolerance symptoms.
