Treating histamine intolerance so far
It's solving not just my fibromyalgia but my seasonal allergies
I’ve previously written about the miracle of taking the digestive enzyme diamine oxidase (DAO) to treat my newly-diagnosed histamine intolerance. It’s nearly solved my fibromyalgia pain—something I never thought possible. It has also largely resolved my keratosis pilaris (dry, clogged skin). Now, it’s resolved my seasonal allergies!
Once I figured out the right amount of DAO for me, taking it 15 minutes before meals has basically stopped my fibromyalgia pain. I was floored, but it turns out there is a link between low DAO levels and fibromyalgia, according to a study from last year. I never would have imagined that a digestive enzyme would be the solution here, or that anything would improve my fibromyalgia symptoms so much.
Interestingly, it doesn’t seem to have improved the other part of my fibromyalgia, which is low serotonin levels. I tried weening off Cymbalta very, very slowly to see if I was overdoing it. When I was 17, the way I found out that I had fibromyalgia was that I was getting sick all the time and I had endometriosis. Colds and infections were nearly constant. When I searched this information on Google, I found someone posting on a small forum that fibromyalgia often accompanies endometriosis and people with fibromyalgia have low immunity.
A rheumatologist confirmed the diagnosis and explained that low serotonin levels lead to low immunity. Since then, I’ve taken Cymbalta which had no effect on my mood—which was always fine—but it stopped me from getting sick all the time. With DAO’s success, I was worried that I could develop serotonin syndrome if it was also improving my serotonin levels. I’d know if it was no longer needed if infections didn’t come back. I went down 10mg for a month and I was fine. When I went down another 10mg, I got a cold that exact day. So that was my answer. Back on Cymbalta, which isn’t a big deal! It was worth being sure.
A new, exciting development is that I no longer have seasonal allergies! By now they’re usually pretty aggressive with severe eye and sinus irritation, and usually exhaustion. But it’s a light and infrequent sniffle this year. What’s so interesting about this is that my fibromyalgia symptoms started the same year of life where my seasonal allergies started. And for the few years until I started on Cymbalta, my seasonal allergies caused asthma. The asthma went away with the treatment. So there was always an obvious tie between my allergies and fibromyalgia that I could never discern until now.