Would you rather itch constantly or give up these foods?

[y4m]

I am debating going on a low-histamine diet to see if it will help with my hives.  It requires:

-No alcohol, especially wine
-No cheese, yogurt, or other fermented dairy
-No pickles or olives
-No fish
-No tomatoes
-No citrus
-No berries
-No chocolate
-No lunchmeat
-No beans
-No nuts
-No vinegars
-No tea
-No wheat (at least I already do this one)
-No leftovers

I think I might rather be itchy...

[ECB]

Alcohol, cheese and vinegars would probably be the hardest for me.  The rest of it - I could handle.  Even chocolate! 

[karinothing]

That menu would pretty much mean no mexican, which would make me sad

[tacom]

Itch.

[y4m]

Feb 16, 2014 17:57:48 GMT -5 karinothing said:

That menu would pretty much mean no mexican, which would make me sad

Right now Mexican is such an easy go-to wheat-free thing for me.

I think this menu is so impossible I should not even consider it.  

[Deleted]

I understand you completely because I had a similar issue. I would probably go 1 week on a really clean diet trying to give up that food and see if you feel any difference. I think after the week, you can make a conscious effort to cut down. Think of your allergy like a bucket. Every offending food is 1 drop. You can probably tolerate a certain amount but your allergies will be triggered once you have too many drops in your bucket. So on a day you might have alcohol, try to avoid the other things. That will also help you possibly pinpoint what the main offenders are. Is there any alternative?

[sillygoosegirl]

I'm sorry you are itchy.

I have a friend who became allergic to all mammalian meat as an adult. It gave her awful hives. Apparently that's something you can catch from certain kinds of ticks, but it took a long time to identify what the problem was. Have you been checked for allergic reactions to specific things?

[karinothing]

Feb 16, 2014 17:58:56 GMT -5 y4m said:

Feb 16, 2014 17:57:48 GMT -5 karinothing said:

That menu would pretty much mean no mexican, which would make me sad

Right now Mexican is such an easy go-to wheat-free thing for me.

I think this menu is so impossible I should not even consider it.  

Yeah, I mean I guess you could still do fajitas with no sides? And maybe even not because most fajitas I know the meat is tenderized with lime? I guess if you made it at home it be fine.

I have no idea that tomatoes were a histamine. I mean you could try it for a while and see if it is life changing.

[y4m]

Feb 16, 2014 18:00:42 GMT -5 sillygoosegirl said:

I'm sorry you are itchy.

I have a friend who became allergic to all mammalian meat as an adult. It gave her awful hives. Apparently that's something you can catch from certain kinds of ticks, but it took a long time to identify what the problem was. Have you been checked for allergic reactions to specific things?

I have--but I react to lots of things.  Including some but not all of the things on this list.  And including things like light scratches on my skin and showers.

[karinothing]

No vinegars would also eliminate a lot of asian food

[tacom]

Is this something you could potentially try for a couple weeks and slowly test out individual foods after that (like an elimination diet)?

[ESF]

Itch, without question.  I mean, what on earth would you eat?

Also, why is leftovers on the list?  I don't get that.  And what constitutes a "leftover"?  Because I can imagine some definitions covering a lot of food prepared in advance at restaurants. 

[curbsideprophet]

I would have a hard time eliminating all of that. I could certainly get rid of some it though.

[y4m]

Feb 16, 2014 18:05:24 GMT -5 ESF said:

Itch, without question.  I mean, what on earth would you eat?

Also, why is leftovers on the list?  I don't get that.  And what constitutes a "leftover"?  Because I can imagine some definitions covering a lot of food prepared in advance at restaurants. 

So the idea is that as meats decompose, they generate histamine.  So only the very freshest meats--you should really buy meat and cook it the same day and not eat it after that.

I experienced this with shrimp once.  Got giant hives all over my face, and a friend was just fine.  We suspect they were just slightly on the older side--not unsafe, but enough to have generated histamine that I would react to.  Shrimp are notorious for that kind of reaction.

[Deleted]

Also I think with some research you might be able to find cheeses, wines and chocolate with very low histamine levels. For instance, Germany wines have a set amount of histamine level allowed in wine and it's a fraction of what's in other wines.. Read more here www.ravenoustraveler.com/2010/07/connection-between-histamine-wine-and.html?m=1

[y4m]

Feb 16, 2014 18:05:39 GMT -5 @domerjen said:

Can I just take mass quantities of benadryl?

Well mass quantities of Benadryl will make you very sleepy and probably not very good at presenting complex ideas in front of major clients.

But I do already take 5 (non-benadryl) anti-histamines a day.

[gt7301b]

I don't know what I would eat.

[auberge]

Itch

No cheese, tea or alcohol are the deal breakers for me.

[auberge]

What about the allergy shot? Seems to work for my sister.

[y4m]

Feb 16, 2014 18:14:04 GMT -5 auberge said:

What about the allergy shot? Seems to work for my sister.

I am a huge fan of allergy shots.  I do those too and they have been nothing short of miraculous for my nasal allergies, but they don't help much with my hives.

[Pom]

My goodness, this must suck for you. Hives, not fun. I can't even describe how much cheese is in our fridge right now, so that would be an absolute deal-breaker. Can you cut some of the things, keep a food diary plus take the shot to see if you get some relief?

[lasagnasshole]

OMG. This sucks. Cheese would absolutely be the hardest.

I guess it depends how bad the itching was.

Could you try an elaborate elimination diet where you test these different items? I'm thinking set a boring, low-histamine menu for a few weeks and try one of these things per day. Maybe you really need to give up berries but not cheese? I'm just trying to think of anything to make life suck slightly less.

[rbp]

I am so sorry. That sounds miserable.

[KaraOrNot]

That sucks. I guess I would take itchy, as long as it isn't intolerable.

[Cicero]

I'd itch.

[Cicero]

And I'm really sorry because this choice sucks.

[noodleoo]

Oh man, this sounds awful. I'm so sorry you have to deal with this!

That list eliminates a lot of my diet. What is left, exactly? Maybe you have to eliminate them all for a while, then you can slowly reintroduce things one at a time and figure out what exactly you are allergic to. But this sounds awful and yeah, the itching would have to be unbearable for me to have the willpower to stick to that diet.

[fortmyersbride]

I hate itching, and I've done various elimination diets over the years for migraines and when breastfeeding a baby with food allergies. If you're going to do it, I'd go all out rather than eliminating some things here and there and dragging it out. There are some foods I was never able to add back in due to migraines and after a while I really stopped missing them.

[sporky]

I would have to itch. I couldn't live without most of that list!

[dexteroni]

I would rather itch. Cheese, yogurt, chocolate, and wheat make up like 75% of my current diet. I might be curious enough to try it for a short period of time just to see if it works, but I don't see adopting it for the rest of my life.