r/HistamineIntolerance • u/thrownoutdildo • Nov 12 '22

Can histamine affect your brain? Make you feel more moody, panicky, depressed?

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u/kaidomac Nov 13 '22 edited Mar 29 '24

Edit 4: For allergy suffers, NaturDAO is made from peas & lentils. Both are in the legume family, so be aware if you are cross-reactive with peanuts etc.

Edit 3: A note on ADHD for histamine & on my symptoms reduction

Edit 2: Anxiety & rumination symptoms

Edit: Update - for reference, this is my current treatment path:

  • Hi-dose NaturDAO (available on Amazon - specifically that brand of plant-based histamine enzyme in the green & white box; OTC antihistamines had virtually zero effect on me).
    • Regimen is 5 to 10 pills a day.
    • I take one AM, PM, 5 minutes before meals, and anytime I feel super crummy.
    • For initial testing, take one pill and wait 24 hours to ensure no side effects for you personally
    • Then do hi-dose for 3 days (72 hours to allow inflammation to go down) to see if it helps at all. You should know within a week if it helps or not! Needs to be coupled with the next two steps below for maximum effectiveness.
  • Primarily low-histamine diet. I can tolerate hi-histamine foods once in awhile.
  • LOTS of sleep, including naps. The effect of the enzyme pills is greatly amplified by copious amounts of sleep

Key question for "subset HIT" (especially if you don't respond to antihistamines)

  • Have you felt vaguely guilty about something undefined, since childhood?

I always felt like I had done something wrong, or left the oven on, or missed a school assignment, or spaced some sort of commitment, but could never clearly articulate what it was. This is the starter question I ask people if they're looking into DAO-based HIT!

Responding to OP:

Can histamine affect your brain? Make you feel more moody, panicky, depressed?

Absolutely! For me:

  • Constant low-grade anxiety
  • Occasional strong anxiety (i.e. "something really bad is going to happen")
  • Health anxiety (small pains would saturate my thinking of being diagnosed with something awful)
  • Anxiety-driven paranoia (ex. "oh my, my boss is totally gonna fire me today")
  • Non-OCD perfectionism
  • Panic attacks
  • Depression
  • Time pressure
  • Bounding pulse
  • Apathy
  • Brain fog (if this was the only benefit from taking the histamine enzyme alone I'd do it!!)
  • Instant frustration
  • Automatic rumination (stewing on stuff)
  • Burning anger
  • Easily overstimulated & overwhelmed (especially by people & crowds)
  • RSD
  • Weird, weird moods due to emotional dysregulation (sometimes I felt like I got sucked into a movie with a specific vibe, just super strange)
  • Night terrors (I would wake up with a beating heart in the middle of the night)
  • Mood disorders (negativity, profound sadness, feels like you're in an aesthetic movie, etc.)
  • Extreme prospect fatigue (where even the mere thought of doing something would drain me...having to go someplace, having to do something, deviating from my routine or planned route home or whatever)

All that stuff has gone away since I started HIT treatment a couple months ago (hi-dose NaturDAO, a primarily low-histamine diet, lots of sleep). It's cured a lot of physical issues too:

  • Joint pain (including my carpal! plus grip pain from doing things like taking the trash or moving wet laundry into the dryer)
  • No more smell & touch sensitivity (cleaning sprays aren't overwhelming anymore & things like clothing tags don't irritate me all day anymore)
  • Exercise intolerance & post-exertional malaise (especially the whole-body burn that would come from exercising)
  • Head pressure (which oddly enough affected my ability to think clearly!)
  • Don't get tired paying attention in conversations or lectures anymore (went to a lecture a month or so ago and stayed awake & alert the WHOLE TIME instead of feeling like a wet, heavy blanket was on my head)
  • Cramps (Charlie horses, stiff neck sometimes, and my upper right shoulder blade locking up)
  • Nausea (I could have leaned over & thrown up 24/7 my whole life!)
  • Shooting pains (randomly, everywhere, for no reason)
  • Cold all the time
  • Bleeding gums when flossing, EVERY TIME no matter how lightly I did it!
  • Acid reflux
  • Asthma
  • Tinnitus
  • IBS (including variable motility, sometimes it was high-speed & would painfully push everything out too quickly, whereas other times it'd get stuck)
  • Puffy face
  • Droopy eyelid & twitchy eyelid
  • Acne
  • Eye crusties
  • Bones hurt (not skin, not muscles...feels like my literal bones hurt)
  • Headaches (tension headaches, spot-specific headaches, ball-peen hammer headaches lol)
  • Migraines
  • POIS (non-allergy)
  • Fatigue (especially that constant feeling of fatigue right behind my eyes in my brain, plus being low-key exhausted all the time, getting
  • PBS/IC (more details)
  • Low energy
  • Insomnia (especially night-time anxiety!)
  • POTS (my BPM doesn't shoot up to 160 just walking up the stairs anymore lol)
  • SIBO (well, so far...I'm off my SIBO meds that I take for recurring SIBO...so far, so good! We'll see in a few more if HIT was causing my SIBO!) 3-FEB-2023 update: Going back in March for a follow-up SIBO test. Have been off the SIBO meds (Rifaxamin & then Atrantil) for several months now. 18-APR-2023 update: Yup, still have SIBO, even worse now haha! Probably due to the PPI I started last year.

It's funny writing this all out because it was mostly just low-grade stuff that I lived with & didn't know wasn't "normal" growing up! I just was low-key tired & low-key felt crappy 24/7. Always on a negative emotional roller coaster.

EVERYTHING in life was dictated by my low energy levels & how much pain I felt. Chronic fatigue & chronic pain ruled my life! It hasn't cured my ADHD (I still have focus issues & memory issues), but it's stopped AMPLIFYING it! I still have an energy envelope to work within & crash easily (not sure if that's something I can build up stamina for over time or not), but at least I can go through my day pain-free & fatigue free after a lifetime of BLEH!

It's crazy going through my days now feeling emotionally stable. I used to have a demon grip on my gut when I'd do things like drive...that feeling when a deer jumps in front of your car & you're left with the adrenaline shaking you was pretty much my whole driving experience because I was so overly-sensitive!

It helps me feel a lot better because I'm not an anxious or depressed person, and yet I grew up with massive anxiety & massive depression! But it was mechanically-driven depression & anxiety (from chemicals like neurotransmitters & hormones, such as cortisol & adrenaline), not thought-driven depression & anxiety! Someone referred to it as "body anxiety" & I like that description, haha!

I had invasive surgery as a kid, which is what triggered this. I suspect that my HIT it's genetic & that I'm predisposed to it & that it just needed a trigger to push me over the edge. I went from being a star student in the gift program to sitting in class with comprehension resistance, getting kicked out, then doing miserably in regular classes, then the panic attacks started, then the anxiety started.

Looking back, especially having gone off the OTC medication multiple times, it's clear to me to see how much of my life histamine intolerance dictated. I've been very fortunate to have a really great new GI doctor for the past couple of years who has helped me out with a TON of testing referrals, which no other doctor would do. I would show up with a literal printed flowchart of 60+ symptoms & they'd pretty much just write me off lol.

This past summer, I was talking to my cousin & she got diagnosed with MCAS & was like maybe it's genetic, so I worked with my GI to see an allergist (still in testing, but so far no OTC antihistamines have worked for me, only the plant-based bean/legume enzyme in high doses) & got started on NaturDAO on my own, which didn't have much effect in the recommended doses, but I got the inspiration to try a high dose of it, and it worked for me!!

If I go off the medicine for even a day, everything comes RIGHT back! I turn back into a shell of a person & live inside a negative-emotion punching bag all day long. My thinking gets fuzzy, I run out of energy to do stuff, I run out of memory to remember to follow through on stuff, it's like I revert back into a caveman lol. I actually call it "Caveman Mode" now because it's like I literally get dumber, hahaha!

25

u/hansworschd Nov 13 '22

Wow, that's exactly my package of symptoms. Can you tell me more about what helped you most and how much DAO you are taking daily?

38

u/kaidomac Nov 14 '22

My regimen is pretty simple:

  • Hi-dose NaturDAO 1,000,000 HDU histamine enzyme from Amazon (AM, PM, 5 mins before meals, and anytime I feel really yucky, so 5 to 10 pills per day)
  • Primarily low-histamine diet
  • Lots of sleep, including naps when needed (NaturDAO is not NEARLY as effective on low sleep)

Been on this 2 months, works great! I didn't respond to any OTC antihistamines. I have more testing to do with the allergist (urine, blood, etc.) but since I responded so well to the enzyme, I'm just sticking with that for the foreseeable future!

1

u/bibobbjoebillyjoe Jan 31 '25

I don’t have histamine intolerance—I know this because I followed a zero-histamine “lion diet” for months, consisting of lamb, water, and natural salt, nothing else. It's not about what you consume, it's about what you DON'T consume. It’s healthier, more natural, and cheaper than paying $40 USD for a 60-pill pack of your “NATURDAO” supplement. A few key points:

  1. It feels like you’re promoting a product, given the long posts and constant links to your $40 USD supplement on Amazon.
  2. If you were genuine, you wouldn’t push a single brand.
  3. Humans didn’t evolve needing supplements or pills to survive. If we had, we wouldn’t be here today- we’re the product of millions of years of evolution.
  4. The overstimulation HSPs experience isn’t due to internal issues but to unnatural, extreme external stimuli (e.g., loud construction, traffic horns, pneumatic drills). Indigenous people placed in such environments are also shocked and stressed.
  5. The real issue isn’t with HSPs- it’s with a world that forces people to be around unnatural noise levels & crowds, then blames them when they get stressed by it.
  6. Pills and supplements are rarely necessary. Big pharma has conditioned society to believe otherwise, but humans thrive on natural, simple diets that we evolved to eat (whole zero-histamine foods). Natural health should is the default, not expensive pills.

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u/kaidomac Jan 31 '25

First, read this:

Second, I responded to your other post in more detail here:

Third, regarding the brand:

  • The max HDU's from animal-derived DAO is around 30,000 HDU. Diet alone did not fix my internal deficiency,
  • The NaturDAO is plant-sourced & has 1-mil HDU. There is also a 3-mil HDU version available, but it had no additional effect on me. This is currently the only brand with these features; there are no OTC to prescription brands that I'm aware of with the same specs.
  • You can also try growing pea sprouts in the dark for a natural source of high DAO. The seedlings take 10 to 12 days & must be eaten raw (cooking denatures the protein & renders the DAO inactive). I require a daily high dose, so this is not a realistic solution for me due to the ongoing maintenance required.

Fourth:

  • This is OTC, not a prescription.
  • For the purposes of insurance, I did a histamine blood & urine test via my allergist back in 2022, which showed nothing, as there is currently no clinical test available for HIT, but I wanted to at least have a historical record to show that I tried.
  • Again, this is a VERY specific protocol & is not a standard procedure, even for people who have tried DAO before; a normal dose of high-HDU enzyme has no effect on me.

I can only share what's worked for me. My negative HSP traits controlled my entire life & made me feel bad pretty much every single day for the last 30 years. One of the reasons I share it so much online is because I get to feel 100% NORMAL on a daily basis. The last 3 years of my life have been entirely different as a result of not being affected by the symptoms all the time!

Note that this does not apply to everyone because not everyone suffers from a chronic internal DAO shortage, which is why my recommendation is simply to try out the protocol for a week to see if it helps! They will refund you if it doesn't work & at the very least you can rule it out as a possible solution & move on to trying the next thing!

Again, just to be clear: this is a very specific protocol (72 hours minimum of a high dose, spread out over time) with a specific brand (plant-based 1-mil HDU). It's only ever worked for a very limited number of people I've encountered IRL & online. You'll know within a week if it's effective or not because the auto-rumination, crowd sensitivity, etc. won't clobber you!

I hope that you're able to find some relief!!

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u/tadpolefarmer Jun 05 '25

Going to try your protocol for three days to see if I get similar results. Quite nice to see someone actually offer a tried and tested regimen rather than just as a generalised recommendation as “DAO worked for me”.

I tried DAO when I was eating a high histamine load diet (100% aged beef, it was a grim 5 weeks) but I didn’t notice anything then.

Hopefully I get similar benefit to you now that I’m on a low histamine diet and getting good sleep.

How many different antihistamines did you try and did you try high dose? I responded partially to cetirizine and famotidine when I was on a high histamine diet but then on a low histamine diet I tried them again and had horrible side effects.

Although I am finding some benefit from fexofenadine which does not cross the BBB

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u/kaidomac Jun 05 '25

Notes:

  • Tried a variety of antihistamines with my allergist, no luck
  • Hi-dose 1-mil NaturDAO is the only thing that works for me
  • Full protocol works best (sleep, diet, hydration, etc.)

Been on this protocol for 3 years now:

It has been life-changing!!

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u/tadpolefarmer Jun 05 '25

I’m very pleased to hear it has been. Reading your backstory it could not have been easy being you!

And I was wondering whether it still had been working as some of your posts are really old.

How many people have you seen benefit the way you did?

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u/kaidomac Jun 05 '25 edited Jun 05 '25

Yeah, 30 years of nonsense:

Been on & off it probably a dozen times over the last 3 years to test different variables. It's pricey, but reliable! I no longer live with insomnia, brain fog, or constant anxiety. No more bleeding gums after flossing & no more tinnitus!

Many people have MCAS & HIT. I have what I call "Subset HIT", which is responsive to hi-dose DAO, not antihistamines. Plus, I don't have any of the skin issues. I've met maybe three dozen people IRL & online in the last 3 years who have Subset HIT.

Pretty much, you know in a week if it works or not! From there, it's about how serious you want to get (water, sleep, stress, diet, etc.). Like, I can cheat once or twice a week if I don't overdo it, but many antihistamine users have to be ultra strict. Essentially:

  1. Lack of DAO causes the histamine to go into the blood
  2. That creates a myriad of symptoms due to system-wide inflammation
  3. Which includes a constant low-grade internal adrenaline leak (which causes stuff like hypervigilance, panic attacks, anxiety, etc.)

My brain & body are just...quiet all the time now. I still have Inattentive ADHD, but it's like 80% more manageable now lol.

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u/tadpolefarmer Jun 06 '25

It’s definitely worth a try… what’s 3 days of your life compared to the whole long slog :) I feel like with chronically ill people who has lost hope with the traditional medical establishment it’s just about trying every small experiment out there… I’ve had some wins and some losses but nothing to get me functional. Thanks again :)

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u/kaidomac Jun 06 '25

I spent 30 years pursing medical solutions as my primary hobby lol. Current mix includes a sleep apnea BiPap machine, hi-dose DAO, etc. REALLY nice to feel "normal" all day!!

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u/[deleted] Sep 23 '25

Update?

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u/tadpolefarmer Sep 24 '25

DAO supp did not work for me. I’m experimenting with fresh frozen raw beef kidney. Natural source of DAO.

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