Histamine food list?

[PG]

I have been considering trying a low histamine diet. I've seen the list on the National Rosacea Society website, but was hoping to find more detailed information as I find the trial and error approach quite challenging when it comes to food.

Has anyone tried Dr. Janice Joneja's histamine and tryamine restricted diet? http://www.mastocytosis.ca/MSC%20HT%...%20Nov2012.pdf. It seems pretty accurate and nicely detailed.
The only item that I wonder about is allowing peanuts; I think I would leave those out.
Since creating this list, she subsequently allowed green tomatoes (the type that stay green when ripe), and added thyme to the restricted items.
I also found it interesting that she allows coffee, but I think I may try it (I am a tea drinker which is not allowed) because coffee is a vasoconstricter. One small cup, anyway.

I was going to add in no gluten and sugar, but then it seems there would not be much to eat . I could see myself just not eating.

Can anyone point me to a good food + symptom journal/log?

[PG]

I have started this diet. It should take 2-4 weeks to work, it if does.
Also, I found a low histamine wine -- Barbera D'Alba by Velglio, and all wines at Deerfield Ranch Winery. And I don't react to organic (no sulfite) wines made by Bonterra. Doesn't say no histamines on the label though.

[Hokucat]

Hi PG. How is this diet going? Is it helping?

[PG]

It is helping, but I think this is not the root cause (meaning, I don't think I am "histamine intolerant"). My lid margins are a lighter pink now, consistently (as long as I keep doing everything else that I do). Let's say out of a range of 1 (normal) to 10 (abnormal), I am now lower in that range, around 3-5 instead of 4-7. This seems to be yet another thing that helps. But I need to keep at it before I can really give good feedback. I need to start introducing the high histamine foods and see my reaction. The diet is pretty restricting and rather unpleasant.

I think the root cause may be hormones, and but this diet is perhaps eliminating the histamine available in my body and therefore helping with inflammation. I am also doing the supplements to reduce histamines which I listed in another post.

[Hokucat]

That's good the diet helped some. What makes you think the root cause is hormones? Did you have hormone tests run?

[PG]

My opthamologist told me that reduced testosterone is likely playing a big role : )
I asked my gyno to give me a hormone panel and she declined, saying that she didn't need a test. She knows that they are all going down and will continue to go down.

[Hokucat]

Yes, that's the sad reality for many of us! The only hormones I tried was testosterone cream around my eyes. It did seem like it was trying to get my glands working, because I got several bumps that looked like styes around my eye lid margins (which is not where any cream was placed), like the oil was trying to come out of my meibomian glands. But that was when my glands were really blocked, so I guess nothing could get through at that time.

Oh yeah, and it gave me a lot of acne, like a teenager. That stuff can be pretty potent, so take care if you end up going the hormone route. But that would be awesome if it works for you! Good luck!

[PG]

It has been two months and I continue to make progress with this diet. I now seem to pretty much stay in the range 3-4 (which I described above). It used to take me 4+ days to recover from a trigger. Now I recover in 1-2 days.

My lid margins are a light pink, fairly consistently. I don't have much overall irritation. Nights are great, really. Sometimes I sleep through. My eyes are no longer terribly dry when I first awake. Computer use still causes eye strain and overall redness very easily. I still have to baby my eyes. The warm compresses, blinking exercises, eye breaks, steroid pulsing monthly, and loads of supplements continue.

But this diet doesn't just eliminate histamine. If you take a close look it eliminates all preservatives, most processed foods, tyramine, sulfites, tannins, and I also by chance reduced the gluten by 80%. So I'm not sure what is helping of course. This diet is very restrictive and I don't care for it. It prevents me from eating what I would call my staples. I am adding foods back in, one at a time for a week. Right now it's banana week : ).

This diet may only help ocular rosacea people. I am now going to add other variables and muddy the waters, but there you have it.

[Hokucat]

Am glad the diet is helping you. Yes, often we don't know exactly what it is that is helping, but we've all had so many disappointments, so if you're doing better on this, keep at it! Hopefully your banana week will make the cut :-)

The fact you now recover from a trigger in only 1-2 days is definitely a good sign. I remember during the years my eyes were unbearably dry, if I ate anything with sugar or gluten, the next few days my eyes were unbearably dry x10! So diet can really impact our eyes.