Hi [...]
Sorry for the delay… I got caught out and about without my tablets after last posting and ended up missing two doses. When I destabilise, I get extreme lethargy and fatigue and end up bedridden, unable to lift my head off the pillow.
I’ll just take the pressure off myself and address your questions one at at a time in separate posts, so just know I’ll keep adding as I have more add.
First of all - I was actually going to mention DAO and histamine blockers, but didn’t want to overload you with too much. All these supplements also add to expenses which many of us simply don’t have the means to meet. I haven’t been using DAO or histamine blockers during my taper because I didn’t feel they were necessary as the benzodiazepines are a mast cell stabiliser, even when tapering, but I feel that’s only true if you taper slowly and remain reasonably stabile in your taper. Early on when I was suffering through a C/T and then directly switched to Valium they probably would’ve helped. My intention (if needed) is to add these supplements once I jump, as obviously, there will be no benzodiazepine to stabilise the mast cells and the stress of withdrawal on my CNS may mean they become necessary to ease my overall symptom load.
In regard to the probiotics - just do a google search of histamine producing probiotic strains and write down the ones you want to avoid. This way you can refer to it when reading the various strains included on any probiotic bottle or package.
There’s also a problem with the way people use probiotics - firstly, not all probiotic strains have been studied properly, and all probiotic strains serve different purposes or have different actions within the body. If you have taken a course or are taking a course of antibiotics for some specific reason, then it makes sense to take a probiotic to fill up the spaces left where the gut bacteria is being killed off. Maybe it is of little consequence which probiotics you take to fill up these spaces whilst on a antibiotic treatment because they are serving just that purpose, avoiding other nasties from taking up that ground, but when you are treating specific symptoms, you want to take a probiotic that targets your specific issues, and these probiotics must have had a certain amount of study done on them to know that they do support in treating a specific issue. So many are unstudied and thrown into bottles to make up the numbers and consumers are unaware that some of these strains are offering no benefit at all.
You can visit Jason Hawrelak’s (world leading researcher in probiotics) ‘Probiotic Advisor’, do a quick study of which probiotic strains are study backed and target your specific needs and write down all the information you can as you go through it, keeping in mind that you only get 24hrs free of charge to do your search after which you will then have to pay to join.
If you want to find more on histamine intolerance, there’s an endless supply of information out there on the net, including lists of foods rating from low to high. You won’t have any trouble finding them. But because we’re not just talking about histamine intolerance on its own, but also potentially destabilising mast cells, your best one stop for information on both would probably be the US site MastCell360.
I’ll add more as I think of it.
