Why Your Anxiety, Migraines, And Gut Issues Might Be Histamine-Related

Introduction to Histamine and Hormones 0:00

Welcome back to the Hormone and Mental Health Summit. Overcoming anxiety, depression and ADHD in women. I'm your host, doctor Cassie Smith. I'm a functional endocrinologist based in Oklahoma City. Today I'm going to be interviewing Doctor Meg Mills, and we're going to be talking about the histamine and hormone connection. Forbes Health magazine, Mind Body, Green Authority Magazine, Life and Style, and Sunset Magazine, as well as several national publications, blogs, and podcast guest appearances.

So thank you for agreeing to do the summit interview with us. Thank you so much for having me. Yeah, so I think the best place to start with this, this is pretty interesting and a concept a lot of people might not even know. Right? So I think maybe let's just talk about like, what is histamine? How does it affect us? Is it more common as we get older. That does. Yeah. So histamine I feel like, histamine has been the new cortisol. You know, I think everyone talks about like, cortisol is so bad for us and it.

Well, a lot of people have issues with it. It actually serves a purpose. So histamine is actually what we call a biogenic amine in our body. And it's released primarily as from the mast cells in the base. So it's part of our immune system. So it actually does have a purpose in our body. So it actually acts in our immune defense. It protects us against pathogens. It actually works in our inflammatory process. So it creates inflammation purposely to help us heal and fight infections. It just becomes a problem when we have this constant level of inflammation.

It releases gastric acid in order to help us digest our foods and has actually neurotransmitter activity. So it's involved in our restfulness alertness, cognitive function. It helps with wound healing. We all think of it as allergic response, to which we'll kind of get into how it's a lot more than that. But it does also help with our allergic response that helps us expel things from our body. But the problem happens whenever it gets out of balance. So you're supposed to release histamine for whatever reason that you need it, and then it's supposed to clear from your body and what we can get into.

Why this this starts to get out of balance. And that's when people start to experience a lot of these wide variety of symptoms. Okay. So it's something that our body needs, but it gets out of balance just like cortisol just like any workload. Right. So is I guess do you see it more commonly in a certain age of of a woman? Is it more common in women versus men? Like who? Or the typical people that have the same issues? Yeah. So I work, I would say, with more women than men in general, but I do see it more commonly with women and especially in we.

What Histamine Does in the Body 2:51

And we're going to talk about the hormone connection here, especially in that perimenopause range, because what we can get into, how it affects, you know, there's this hormone or this histamine estrogen sort of cycle that starts to happen. We start to have our progesterone drop. So and then we also start to see it happen over time. So we do have genetic pathways that we use to break down histamine. So when we start to get this histamine intolerance where we're seeing symptoms and the symptoms are a wide variety, like I said the nasal congestion, we can have asthma.

I see it a lot with headaches and migraines. But you can even have fatigue, dizziness, anxiety, heart palpitations, irregular periods, joint pain. We're talking about all sorts sleep problems, all sorts of different symptoms. And when we're seeing this we're not necessarily seeing this from birth. You can have genetic variants that make you less likely to break down histamine, but it usually comes from things that are happening over time in the body, whether that's hormonal changes, whether that's imbalances in your gut microbiome, whether that's, you know, or release of mast cells because of an hyperactive immune response.

All of these things start to create the symptoms to start. So it's something that gradually happens over time. I like to give the bathtub analogy when I'm talking about it because, you know, you think of a bathtub and as if you keep filling a bathtub, but you have the drain open, it's going to it's never going to overflow because you're going to be pouring water in. It's going to be draining out. You're just keeping that homeostasis is a word that we like to use. And you're having that all the time.

Well, when one of two things happen or both, either the plug gets plugged in in the bathtub overflows, or you turn the water up and it creates this. And so we have to be able to process histamine in the body. We do that through two different pathways. We do that through diamine oxidase in our GI tract. We have to break down the histamine that we eat. And then we do that through methylation. So we need histamine and methyltransferase in the methylation pathway in order to break that. So we need to make sure that we're having those two functions occur.

And we also need to look at the load that's coming in. So we can see things like you know high histamine foods. People can get really caught up in the diet, which we can talk about some of the nuances. But that's not the only thing we often see. Microbes that can even be histamine producing our cell activity. We can start to see hormone imbalances. We can start to see other assaults on our immune system, like I'm saying. So when we get this imbalance really is when we start to see these symptoms occur.

Okay. So what are some of these symptoms I guess, what are what are signs of histamine intolerance. That so and that's I think what is like a little bit of a surprise for a lot of people. We're getting more information out there about, you know GI symptoms. So we see a lot of like IBS. There's more and more research that a lot of the IBS symptoms can even be from some of these, like we said, histamine producing our mast cell activating microbes. We have mast cells are more concentrated in our nasal passages, our lungs, our skin, our GI tract.

So think of like surface areas where we're coming in contact. So we see a lot of symptoms there. So like with the GI tract, that I see a lot of migraines, headaches, symptoms, we see that typical allergy symptoms like the nasal congestion, sneezing, asthma, things like that. But then we also are seeing things like fatigue, heart palpitations, difficulty concentrating, anxiety. There are actually four different types of histamine receptors. So the H1 receptor is more of like that allergic response.

But the H2 receptor is more in your GI system. And that's why, you know, if you hear like the difference between taking an Allegra or a zero attack versus a Pepcid or something like that, they work different on different histamine receptors. But then we also have the two other ones, and we can even see that that is affecting our neurotransmitters when we're looking at these different receptors. So I think that's why it's so much of a full body issue. We can, you know, like I mentioned, hormonal symptoms, sleep disturbances, high and low blood pressure.

Then then you can get hives, things like that that are more typical that you'd think of that histamine reaction. Okay. So like a lot of these symptoms that you're saying, you know, I take care of a lot of perimenopausal postmenopausal women like you're saying.

Symptoms and Signs of Histamine Intolerance 7:31

And these are kind of the symptoms that people say, oh, that's just normal, right? Like you're getting older. That's just part of getting getting older. Right. So palpitations, anxiety I mean that kind of goes with hormone type stuff. So do you see that when women are transitioning through this perimenopausal phase of their life or in the menopause, this becomes more prominent? Maybe because I mean, can this worsen the symptoms of menopause? Right. Kind of like men get or worse in it. Yeah. So so there's a couple things that start to happen when you get into perimenopause.

You know we see that progesterone drop earlier than estrogen. So we're often estrogen dominant in perimenopause. And we start to have these symptoms. And one of the reasons that they worsen is because estrogen has receptors like we said on mast cells. So estrogen actually functionally will cause mast cells to release more histamine. So we have it also affects diamine oxidase. So it actually inhibits the breakdown of histamine through diamine oxidase. So this is an enzymatic reaction that's breaking down the histamine you eat in your food.

And estrogen can affect that too. Progesterone actually has a more protective effect. So it actually helps support diamine oxidase it you know. So when we're seeing this imbalance then when we start to see symptoms come up. So sometimes we can see like where estrogen is actually making more histamine, which actually synergistically sometimes makes you have more estrogen. And we can start to see some people in this cycle. And it's like this is a something that I like to talk about. So to kind of show the difference even when you're still cycling.

So you know, as you talk about I'm sure like you've talked about this a lot on the summit is, you know, we have different phases of our menstrual cycle. So you're going to have times of the month like ovulation or your little phase right before your period, where you're going to have higher levels of estrogen than other times of the month. So that's why some people can say what, like if we're looking at a food trigger. So let's use a glass of red wine, for example. Some people that get hormonal migraines will say, well, it doesn't have anything to do with the wine because I can have a I can have a glass of wine sometimes.

And then another time of the month I'm going to have a glass of wine and I'm going to have this terrible migraine. So it's it's not the wine because I can have it other times. Well, we look at these things in combination. So maybe it's a time where you're, you know, your estrogen is also elevated. Maybe you are in perimenopause now. Maybe you don't have as much progesterone in that luteal phase and you're just tipping it over. You're like filling the bucket up too much and you're symptomatic because of all of the different factors.

So once we dial in to what some of these factors are, then people start to realize, oh wait, this pattern is actually due to some of these changes. And and it really is affected by cumulative effects. So when you're estrogens high, you're going to have more of those symptoms. When you're at children's high you're going to have more symptoms okay. And then as you lose estrogen like you know you kind of lose it, I guess when you're in post like postmenopausal women, you shouldn't have as many of these symptoms.

You might not so well. Sometimes people will become less. It just it depends because it depends on where the the issues coming from. So you know, let's say you have some like a gut microbiome that has Morgan, Ella and Klebsiella and, you know, enterococcus and different things that, that have that are histamine producing. And you're like stitcher factor these things. And you could still have like histamine producing microbes. You could maybe not break down have like diamine oxidase impairment because of a dysbiosis, things like that.

So you might see no difference in menopause because of where your issues are coming from. But if you have if you're hormone, if the hormones are contributing, we often see some of the symptoms change after menopause. And it is very interesting, isn't it. Yeah. No. And so the other thing you said too is like it's a good point. We have histamine receptors in our gut too. And so, you know, a lot of women when they go into menopause or when we're perimenopausal transitioning and we lose estrogen, it affects our microbiome. Right.

And so then what is the tie between like are there certain bacteria in your gut that cause more histamine release. There are, I believe right there. Certain. Is it Pseudomonas that's a histamine release or klebsiella. And so I guess if you have dysbiosis at any point you make sense that you would have more histamine like symptoms, right? Yes. Yeah. And then that leads to the question sometimes is your body producing too much histamine or are your microbes producing too much histamine. And and what's really tricky here is that one of the things that we do, one of the foundational things we do with histamine intolerance is treat the gut.

But a lot of the gut healing protocol calls out there

Perimenopause, Estrogen, and Histamine 12:40

actually make people worse, because things like bone broth, fermented foods, they're actually going to aggravate your symptoms. We even see probiotics sometimes people like the probiotic will be what tips people over the edge to feel worse. Because someone just actually called me today. Then they were like, well, I always had these symptoms. But then I started this probiotic and everything got worse. Well, you know, maybe there's there are histamine producing strains of bacteria in some probiotics.

So we have to be careful and really start to think of, okay, maybe we're going to change the way we look at gut healing and not do necessarily all the things that are just talked about foundationally, but kind of look at it from a new perspective. So that patient that was talking to you today that said everything got worse. Like what got worse, was it the like there are petitions or they have a rash of what what happened. So for that particular person they were they were having migraines, gut issues and then they were reacting to two things.

So people can start to become, you know, once we get more and more sensitive in some of these things and they start, you can start to become sensitive to different foods. You can become sensitive even sometimes you start to become sensitive to supplements like you're. And that's that's when it gets tricky because you're trying you need to do the things that, that you need to do to help bring everything back to balance. But you can start reacting even to some of the things that you're trying to do.

And, you know, then that's where we're like, okay, what do we need to do? And what order do we need to do it to get your body to calm down so we can actually do the protocols we need to help you feel better. So what foods have a lot of history. So when we look at histamine producing foods we look at it in three different ways. There are foods that have high histamine. So those are things like fermented foods. They're also things like age cheese and meats cured meats, fermented foods, aged cheese, things like that.

Alcohol's another one. Then we look at histamine liberating foods. So those are a lot of times surprising. So those are things like strawberries, tomatoes, bananas. And so they're causing the body to liberate histamine. And then we also have histamine. That foods that actually limit the diamine oxidase. So things like black tea is something that can help you like inhibit diamine oxidase from breaking down. So we want to look at all of those things. And then we also have another thing that is a hard thing for a lot of people that you don't realize is freshness.

So histamine can grow in foods actually. So if you're if you're meal prepping, this could also be a problem for you. And a lot of times we avoid meal prepping because it's like, okay, we want to eat healthy. Let's, you know, take Sunday and get everything ready. But if you're someone with some of these issues and histamine is a problem for you, you could actually if you're cooking your meat and then you're not eating it till Tuesday or Wednesday and you made it Sunday, that can be a problem because histamine can grow in food even if it's a low histamine food.

So we have to look at freshness. I often will tell people if they're this is something that is an issue that we flash freeze it. So you can still meal prep prep, but you want a flash freeze so that that will actually slow down that growth. Okay. So you would freeze it. And then just the thought whatever you get up. So if somebody thinks they have a histamine reaction or issue, is there like a lab test that you do or how do you know this? This is a hard with with lab tests. So you know, because I have seen so people think, okay, I'll go get my histamine level check.

My serum has you know, that's to me level, but they really don't show. You can be symptomatic. And I think that's another problem for people is you get told like, okay, you don't have an issue even from even like if you get to the point where mast cell activation syndrome is at the root cause, like it's when your immune system's just overreacting to everything that has the actual diagnosis. But you have to have a high base level. You have to have certain things. And if you're in a flare, you might not have those things show up.

That. So I, I'm making this answer maybe longer than it needs to, but I just don't want you to discount that. Someone said, well, you don't have the lab values that show this. If you're having symptoms, then we need to treat it. We need to work on it. A lot of times they're they're really unclear on the getting a true diagnosis. So I really just look more for symptoms. And so when I'm looking at someone I'm looking at the whole picture. What's everything that's going on with you. And we're putting those pieces together.

But when we're having a lot of, you know, I start to think about it when we're having multiple symptoms from multiple systems. So, okay, maybe you wake up congested or you have allergies and you have anxiety and you have gut issues and you, you know, maybe you have migraines. You don't have to have all of these. But like, okay, well what are the we're always looking for the connections. And so when we're seeing okay, you're affected by, you know, multiple systems. Is there this underlying cause and that can be a factor in, in a multitude of different symptoms and rashes.

Like I'm sitting you're thinking like I see a bunch of people who have rashes and they have a lot of palpitations or anxiety. Now, I would say one of the things that you should probably do, I mean, you comment on this, but that's easy. I see this a lot. People in far right. And see, like I've said, methylation is an issue. So, you know, when I somebody like, oh, my face gets red when I get in the shower or when I work out and I'm thinking about this, I always make them take a methylated B, right.

And then at least for, you know, a few weeks. But then if those people aren't getting better or they're getting rashes or like you said, migraines have a lot of gut issues. I do a lot of stool studies. So then, you know, you've got people coming back with Pseudomonas clamshell and things like that.

Gut Dysbiosis and Histamine-Producing Microbes 18:38

Then this might be somebody who you would think, okay, well, maybe something is going on because, you know, to your or to your point, I have a lot of women who say, like when I drink alcohol, I just don't know. Well, so that could be like one of the issues as well. That could be a sign that you're not. Yeah. And I have sometimes you have to also be it. This is another interesting little like factor that can play into when you're talking about methylation. Because we have to be able to methylation.

But sometimes methylation if you're if you. So you know when we're looking at methylation in this pathway particularly you actually sometimes work from the bottom up. For some people because sometimes people will feel more anxiety, more symptoms when we start the methylated B. So if you are someone like that, that we're like, okay, we're putting the gas on, but we also have some clogs further down the pipe. We'll go from the bottom up and then we'll work on like fixing your methylation so that you don't have higher levels of like metabolites of histamine.

And so that that, you know, sometimes we can call them down. That's not everyone. But that can happen too. So it is it's just our bodies are so intricate. Isn't it just crazy. Yeah. I think that is like there's just so everything's connected in so many different ways. And it is a puzzle, you know, it's not one of those things that's like, okay, cut and dry. There's a puzzle. But I think once you put those pieces of the puzzle together, I mean, the health transformations like we see are just amazing.

So then when you do Dutch testing, there's no where in the Dutch pathway. I'm thinking, like, all the corners, all break down. None of that's going to show any. I don't think it's going to show anything. That's not going to show histamine. No, no. Okay. Yeah, yeah. I know I love the Dutch test though that that's good for so many out. There's so many other reasons. No none of that. And GI mat might be somewhat beneficial. But really you're going to have to. It's all about kind of like you said, putting stuff together. Yeah.

So then you. Do that for a lot of people with us. Yeah. You know most people in this country have a terrible gut because it's system is it's terrible. Right. You take all the fiber out of everything, put sugar into it because it's cheaper. And then our gut microbiome have nothing to eat. The bad ones eat all of our mucin and our good ones are eating our mucin. And then we wonder why we all feel that. So yes. Yeah. So if you stabilize estrogen levels because I'm just thinking like so. So if you've got somebody whose estrogen is, you know, tanking as they become perimenopausal or postmenopausal and you stabilize those estrogens with hormone replacement therapy, is that going to help or is that going to make the histamine worse?

Well, you have to get to the root of why they're having the histamine issues. So okay. Why why is their body not metabolizing histamine. Because we should be you know, we should be able to break down the histamine. We should be able to eat histamine foods. And so I think that could be individual I don't you know. Yes. Because you're saying if we're if they're estrogens tanking we're giving them estrogen. Are they going to have worse issues with histamine. And technically that could be an issue. So we're working on figuring out, okay, why do you have this.

And then bringing the issues those things back into balance. And then we should be able to tolerate the estrogen. So even with the low histamine diet I never want people to stay on that. I think people get so hung up on the low, like if you think you have it low, if you think you have a histamine and it's the first thing you hear about is the low histamine diet and then people can be like, oh, I'm just I'm so locked in. Well, what we see long term is that you become more sensitive because you just take all these foods out and then you're start reacting to more.

So it's really not about just eliminating. It's about really figuring out why. And and often we start with the gut. There. So it's trying to figure out why your body is basically essentially attacking itself or just not able to. It's not really like it's attacking it. It's just not metabolize. It's not metabolizing the histamine. So there's two, you know, it's either overproducing or not metabolizing or both. So it's like, okay, first of all, how do we get you to metabolize. And then that's what we have to work on those pathways.

How do we get your microbiome rebalance. Do we look at specific things that are triggering within the microbiome. But then also other things like if you have a parasite, if you have Candida, if you have H. Pylori, if you have some of those things, well, they are activating your immune system. Your immune system sees an invader and it's going to tell your mast cells, hey, there's an invader here. We have to do something so your mast cells can activate to try to protect you from this invader that you don't even know is there.

And so that's a lot of people are living with things like that, you know, then we can pile on mold and viruses and, you know, all the other things, tick borne illnesses and all these other environmental toxins and all the other things that can be assaults on the immune system, making it more activated, causing it to release more, you know, it's histamine so that your body's dealing with this higher load. Yeah. And then like you said, it can be not processing this because of your gut or just from any way in my mind, I always go back to like inflammation.

Right. So any inflammation that's going on in your body, whether it be from mold or toxins or insulin resistance or dysbiosis or all of that's going to affect at least it affects how your hormones are made and metabolized. So I'm assuming the same thing with histamine, right? If you've got a lot of inflammation it's just harder for your body to metabolize anything, right? Yes.

Foods That Raise Histamine and Diet Strategies 24:18

Eating energy doing other things. And then if you're making more because you have all these infections. So that makes sense. And then now I'm sitting here thinking, I probably have a ton of patients that may have histamine issues because they have all sorts of gut issues. Yeah. Yeah. So so what is like what dietary recommendation are typical if you think like, you know, talk to us about you told us what are high histamine foods. So what do you recommend. Is there just like do you Google low histamine foods.

Like what do you tell these people to eat? Can't eat raw strawberries and eat bananas. Yeah. So we're going to focus on like food, nutritious foods, fruits, vegetables, lean proteins, healthy fats that are not in the high histamine foods. So we're going to work on anti-inflammatory foods on, you know, we're eliminating certain foods, but there's a lot of foods within there that you can still eat your green leafy vegetables. You can, you know, there's still a lot of different options that you can eat.

So we're going to focus on nourishing the body. We want to really take out all the processed foods, all the, you know, sugars, all the things that you're saying are inflammatory. Let's bring down inflammation. Let's add these staples in. And then we work a lot on reintroducing and really create a, system of how you reintroduce, how you look at your symptoms with food. I mean, I think that is a food is fuel. And we don't like, you're saying with our food we don't think of it that way. But like, everything you put in your mouth affects your body positively or negatively.

And so what, when you're choosing to put that in your mouth, how is that affecting your body? So I try to help people really understand how they feel after they eat. I mean, you may eat something and your nose may get red, or you may have a runny nose, or you may and you're not thinking it. You're just like, oh, like, you know, my nose is running or oh, and you're just not even paying attention because you're not even associating. That's actually from the food I just ate, you know, because we're not taught to do that.

So we need to start thinking about when I eat these things, how do I feel? And then look for connections. And that's really such valuable information because when I have people look for connections, it's hard to write down everything you eat. But when you just say, okay, you know what? If like, if I get this symptom, I'm going to write down what I just when that occurs and we start looking for connections, we can often see, oh wow. These connect these foods. Like every time I eat that I do have that symptom.

And we start to see these really unique patterns. So it's typically the high histamine foods like you said strawberries bananas like give me the top like ten strawberries bananas alcohol all. What else can we say. Like like fermented foods. So sauerkraut avocados are another one that's tough for people because avocados are healthy fat. So that, you know. Like kefir yogurt does that. Yeah. All of. Yes. Pickles. Yeah. That's like everything I eat, I, I summation, it's like I just listed my, like, top ten foods.

And that's the thing that's like, as long as your body, they're healthy foods. Like, as long as you're not having symptoms with them, they're fine for you to eat. You're everything's in balance. And that's ultimately the goal for everyone. It's just when you're having symptoms and we're trying to get to the root of it. I really only use the low as the main diet, as an and a tool of investigation because like we're saying, it's not the end all be all to pull these foods out. It's just that we need to see sometimes that can bring the load down.

And people say, oh, you know what? I feel so much better when I we have diamine. We also have diamine oxidase enzymes too. So you can take enzymes that actually help you break down histamine in your food. You know, what's funny is actually had this random rep come in like one of a few weeks ago and give me this histamine producing supplement. I was like, you should try this, like a lot of your women would. And I bet that's what it is. I just like I was like, okay, whatever. I bet it's one of those blockers.

Because he's like, give it to all your women that drink. And like, I don't really tell my patients to drink during this, you know, like, but it's not what we do. But okay, so that makes sense. So. So then you have them go on this diet and then if they feel better, then you try to. Okay. Then you know, okay. Then maybe you do have a histamine issue. But I do like what you said, which is really important. Then you need to figure out what is the root cause of this so we can fix it. Because ultimately we don't want you to have to never eat a banana or strawberry or avocado, things like that.

Yeah, that's kind of what you're what you're letting there because yeah, I mean, that would be a very sad life for me. I eat all those things every day. Sauerkraut. Because kimchi yogurt. That's my jam. Avocado. Yeah. And then and it's like, yes. So I don't. Think I have a histamine issue because I'm a big trouble. You know. Yeah. You would not be a big and you wouldn't feel well. And then you'd be like, okay, I need to do something and figure out what that you don't feel. Well, the tricky part is that the symptoms are so dispersed, like there's so many different symptoms, that I think people don't feel well and they don't they're not able to identify that it could be from some of these things.

And so that's where I'm then we're told, like you're saying, where, you know, your and I and this is part of aging and you're like, actually I, I'm low energy, I have anxiety, I have got issues like, you know, like all of these things. And sometimes we're, you know, we're looking for those common connections, which one of them is just to think about, like, how could this be something that's connecting some of your symptoms? Yeah. No, I completely agree. Like, you know, that's the same thing with thyroid, with hormones like, you know, the symptoms are just so vague.

And you go to doctors and they say, well, you're it's just part of aging. You know, aging. And it's like, is it. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So so we kind of we know what histamine is now we know how it affects us. We talked about like kind of the signs of histamine intolerance, the relationship between histamine and hormones.

Testing, Treatment, and Root Causes 30:18

Any other one that you want to that you want to point out between histamine and hormones basically mostly it's estrogen. That's the main one. But they're they there's no real tie between histamine and like insulin that we know of or cortisol or anything like that. Well, this is all can yeah. Cortisol can stimulate your body to release more histamine two. So you want to look at the cortisol actually one of a very common thing that I see. And this isn't for everyone. But we can you know, I don't like to see these blanket statements because everyone's unique.

But a lot of people that have histamine issues, if you're waking up at night with some with anxiety, it is commonly it can be a histamine dump. So histamine as your cortisol awakening response starts three. You know, so if you wake up to 3:00 in the morning and you're kind of like, you wake up and you might wake up with a starter, you might feel anxiety, you know, anxiety or like you're racing your mind's racing. It's hard to go back to sleep. That's another common symptom that people feel because cortisol can also affect histamine.

So it is something that we're I do I have a program called the histamine deactivation method for where I run like once or twice a year. With people specifically for this issue, I have a practice that I like of, of practice and functional medicine practice, but I do this program specifically for people, and that's a common thing that people have a lot of issue with the waking in the night and the anxiety, and that has to do with the poor. Does our response to. Yeah, that makes sense, because, you know, a lot of people who wake up in the middle of the night do it and it's very anxious or, you know, I talk to them a lot about going to be a glucose spike, but a lot of those people drink alcohol, too.

And so then I'm thinking like, well, their alcohol, their glucose spikes, but maybe the alcohol is driving the histamine reaction as well. So that's a good. So now and then instead of just learning the alcohol I'm going to say, well, how do you feel after you eat a little bit or yeah. So you can talk about. So now I'm going to be sending you a bunch. So yeah. How does it work. Yeah. Because you think and you're not thinking you're not putting that. That's a it's a common thing and you're not maybe putting that together.

No one's thinking okay. Unless you know that this is happening, that you're, you know, having this, these nighttime wake wakening responses. Yeah, that's very interesting. And then so like, you know, is there something we can do long term? Like what do you tell people is the long term plan is just trying to figure out what's causing it and feeling that is that like is this a this is a three month journey, six month journey, one year journey. Like how does that result play out? I think it's very individual.

So I feel like there's people, you know, I get that question a lot because you're talking with people and like, how long is this going to take? And it really just depends on what the pieces of your puzzle are. I mean, I have people that within a month they can have symptoms for years, and within a month that's like a like miraculous change. They can't even believe how different they feel. But that's that's more targeted. If there's like, okay, these specific things just we we were able to get them right back into line.

And you feel much better now. A lot of other people have multiple issues. So I think the journey depends on what are all the things that are caught that are triggering you. And we really just work to okay, we're going to work to really peel the onion back and work through each layer. And it's a process. So it is something I mean, it's not years, but with the process, but it might be months worth of a process in order to get all the pieces together. Okay. So just depends on the person. And how you tell the story.

Sometimes when you're on things like this, you tell I added someone who, you know, for 20 years had like full body imagining that had no gut health issues like at all. He just had no other symptoms, just this full body eating, but had to be on like several meds shots, like nothing was working and no one could give him answers. And within like four weeks he was like completely medication. Like totally gone. No aging, no anxiety. Not like now. All the symptoms went away. But that's not that's like, you know, that's not it's as you tell those stories because you want to share that this can change your life and it can, but it just is sometimes takes some more steps to put the pieces together.

So did that person just have to go on the low histamine diet basically, or. Yeah, that person particularly had really high levels of histamine producing bacteria. So we rebalanced his microbiome and it just everything cleared and you know, and said that's where the magic happens when you find those things. I mean, I had someone else who had, you know, for years that she couldn't even breathe like last week. She was like, I can't even believe this. I've been told by every other, every doctor, I'm just going to have to live with this.

But we found we found mold. And so, you know, we did like, mycotoxins as soon as we could, we we we rebalance her microbiome too. But then as soon as we could lower those that load, her body was able to relax. And, you know, the symptoms are all clear. So it's really transformational how different you can feel. So that's the message here. You can feel better. That's a message I want to give everyone. Oh yeah I think the other message with this summit too is just like you have to be your own advocate. Right.

So like the whole, you know, this is just a part of aging.

Recovery Stories and Final Takeaways 35:48

This is how you're going to feel. This is the you know your body better than anyone else. And it's not normal to feel like garbage. And I tell people this all the time not to be hateful, but like, your body can't text message you, it can't send you an email. It can't call you or send you an Instagram DM and say, hey, stop eating that. It does it bison, right? So when things are right, your body tells you it has a wonderful way of doing that. Also has a wonderful way of healing itself. But you have to pay attention.

It's right. So that's, you know, that's the problem. We're all just in this, this hamster wheel of life just moving along and we just get used to it, unfortunately. And then one person, you know pops your bubble and says, hey, that's just how it is. And unfortunately have a lot of people out there who just take that and run with it. And it's really sad because we could be so much better. Right. And feel better. Yes. Yeah. So can you tell everyone kind of, I guess briefly, like where can they find you if they want to learn more about listening and what you do, like social media website, you have a book.

So tell everyone about that. Yeah. So I my website is Meg NHL.com. You can just it's just me and I Elle.com I actually do have a guide that is the is like a 25 page guide that goes through in. So it's a nice free resource and that's just at go.mag.com/histamine. So that's another resource you can use. I have a podcast called A Little Bit Healthier which we talk about all health topics. So join us over there. I love connecting with people for the podcast. I'm over on Instagram at Doctor Mag Mills, so I share a lot of information there.

I actually do respond. So, if you have questions, reach out. I'd love to touch base with you. Okay. Well, thank you for joining us on this episode of The Summit. Any like final, do you have like, top 30 takeaways that people could take away from this? As far as, like, history. Yeah. I think just like you're saying, be your own advocate. If you if you have symptoms, you know something is wrong. And I think that we give away our power, our own power with our health too much. So it's like we're relying on someone else to give us that diagnosis or to tell us, like, we have to do that.

It's our be a gatekeeper of our prescriptions or, you know, things like that, and you know how you feel. And so don't let anyone say to you, like you don't accept your fine, be your own advocate, listen to your body, start to pay attention to your symptoms, and really be a seeker and try to put those pieces together and find a good guide that can help you because you will feel better. About that. Okay. Well thank you everyone. Make sure that you tune in for the next, interview that we have as well on the summit.