What I Ate to Heal MCAS: My Transformative Journey

I get asked all the time: what do you eat day to day?

My diet now is very different than the diets I was on years ago that actually reversed my symptoms. I am now on a maintenance diet to keep my symptoms in remission- which is much more flexible and less restrictive than what it took for me to actually heal. A truly therapeutic diet should not be forever, they should be effective at reversing your symptoms for about 6 to 24 months to support your body to heal the underlying causes of the symptoms. Then you can move into an expanded maintenance diet, as I have done.

Remember, most “diets” out there are SYMPTOMS MANAGEMENT or SYMPTOM REDUCTION diets, not truly therapeutic or healing diets. This is why a low histamine diet can stabilize symptoms- but generally will not actually reverse the histamine intolerance. A therapeutic diet will actually reverse the underlying cause so that you won’t be stuck so reactive to high histamine foods anymore.

This kind of approach requires, strategic, short term (6-24 month) restriction. These restrictions are based on methods that can optimize your body’s innate ability to heal, not just looking for eliminations based on acute reactions.

Here is what I did that ultimately allowed me to recover. Keep in mind that between every transition, I experienced a major “detox” reaction and got significantly worse before experiencing greater stabilization of my symptoms. Healing can hurt, and it is important to remember this.

1. I started eating a low histamine, whole foods diet. I eliminated gluten, soy, corn, seed oils, and sugar.
2. After recovering from the detox effects of this transition, I eliminated all remaining grains from my diet, which at this point were oatmeal, quinoa, and rice.
3. This caused a very severe “detox” reaction that took several months to recover from. After I stabilized again, I started eliminating the last starch containing vegetables from my diet and started introducing meat stock to support the healing of my gut.
4. I ended up being stabilized enough by this point that I could start GAPS intro, without ferments. I got very ill from this transition, and it took me several months to recover and start to see the healing benefits.
5. By six months into “lower histamine” GAPS, my symptoms had gone mostly into remission, but I had stubborn chronic fatigue issues from heavy metal toxicity. I learned about oxalates and went on a carnivore diet, simultaneously increasing my detoxification practices. I had a massive dump of oxalates and heavy metals which caused another major “detox” reponse that I had to recover from.
6. My chronic fatigue was finally in remission, but the unfortunate side effect was that with all the detoxing I had done, my gallbladder and liver needed a lot of love. This was now about 3 years after I first started healing so I had released a lot of toxins by this point that had overloaded my gallbladder and liver. I ended up transitioning away from a carnivore diet as I had gotten what I needed to from this diet, lowerered my fat intake to moderate and increased low oxalate sources of soluble fiber vegetables to help clear out my bile system.
7. At this point, I considered myself fully in remission, able to live a full and normal life without fearing my symptoms returning. I eat high histamine foods daily and even starch containing foods on occasion with no return of symptoms.

Today, I have a very flexible diet. I try to stay mostly low oxalate, and usually feel my best when limiting high carbohydrate foods and starch, but have no “fears” of whole foods and eat whatever my body intuitively desires. My body really knows what it needs when. As you heal, this is going to be true for you too.

If you are ready to start your nutritional journey, step by step, so that you can optimize your healing without confusion or second guessing, my mini course REACTION FREE is waiting for you. Click the picture to learn more. If you want information, keep scrolling and watch my youtube presentation on my LOW HISTAMINE GUT REBUILDING DIET!