In my last post, I gave a bit of background about realising that something was wrong with my little man. He does indeed have Autism and Intellectual Disability, but those diagnosis for me, are not answers to explain his behaviour, they are the questions that need answering. So, i’ll give you a quick run down of his behaviours and the conclusions I have finally (after a 10 year quest) come to and what is working. I will go into depth at a later stage, but I feel I need to get this out there now, because I think a lot of kids are suffering from this.
Fraser started out as a beautiful natured little boy that we had nicknamed ‘the dude’ after the Jeff Bridges character in the movie The Big Lebowski, as he was soooo laid back. As the years have progressed (he is almost 11), he started to scratch and pinch, then kicking, biting hair pulling which just got worse and worse as the years went on. Don’t get me wrong, he isn’t always like this. He is for the most part a beautiful boy, that every one loves, but he can be quite scary at times. We noticed sometimes he was really happy and calm and patient, but at other times he was very agro. What we did become aware of was that at the times he was agro, he would wet his bed, and when he was calm he wouldn’t. Why? When he was agro, his skin on his face was bad… pimply, blotchy and inflamed. When he was calm, so was his skin. Why? When he was agro, he was also obsessive…really obsessive about books, music and movie scenes. When he was well, he was still obsessive, I mean he is Autistic after all! But much less obsessive. Why? When he was unwell, he wouldn’t talk much. When he was well he used much more language. Why? After much trial and error and hours of searching for clues, seeing specialists, paediatricians, naturopaths, homeopaths (of which I am a huge fan), things still kept escalating. He was then given a PANDAS diagnosis (what’s one more diagnosis?), but it still didn’t incorporate everything that was going on. At this point I would like to mention that there is one thing that always helps and is a mainstay for us (even though we don’t go nearly as often as we should),and that is Chiropractic. We are blessed to know THE best Chiropractor, and he has been a constant source of encouragement, support and information for Fraser’s entire life, and we have seen many improvements during that time. The most notable, was when Fraser was about six months old. Dave (the chiro), gave him three adjustments over a couple of weeks that got rid of his asthma which disappeared, never to return. Ever! If your child has autism symptoms, but especially ear infections and asthma, please, please, please consider seeing a chiropractor instead of using antibiotics or steroidal drugs.
Anyway, a couple of months ago, there was a world wide free screening of the fabulous film ‘Food Matters’, I am a huge fan of their other film ‘Hungry for Change’ which are both worth watching if you are interested in health. I was in bed, watching it on my laptop, but drifted into a half sleep. They started talking about vitamins and all the different things they are responsible for. As I was drifting to sleep, a professor was talking about Vitamin C. He listed some of the amazing things Vitamin C does, one of which was to lower Histamine, and PING! A huge light bulb went off in my head. I spent all of the next day researching (and most days since then), but in that first day, I found enough info to realise that this was the missing link. He seemed to have high/very high histamine. To experiment, I gave him half an anti-histamine (Zyrtec). What a difference! Within ten minutes, he had settled down, and was so affectionate. He is affectionate normally, but this was something else. I sent him to school not knowing what to expect, and the note in his book came home with a glowing report that he had participated in cooking for the first time! We were getting closer to the end of the school year, so every morning, I gave him half an anti-histamine and added in some Vitamin C. 2000mg per day. I didn’t tell the teacher what I was doing, as I wanted totally objective view of his behaviour in her notes home to me. Sure enough, the last two weeks of school were exceptional. He didn’t have a single negative incident, and willingly participated in every activity!!! It was quite miraculous. Over the course of the christmas break, we have had many chances to catch up with family and friends, and everyone noticed an improvement. He is sleeping better and longer, talking more (he is mostly non verbal), AMAZING eye contact, and just calmer and happier within himself.
So I will keep posting on progress, as I am waiting for a couple more supplements to arrive from the USA, but here are the basics for now…
High Histamine seems to be genetic, so it runs in families, and tends to affect males more than females. Schizophrenia an Bi-polar are linked to high histamine as well as other mental illness. There are very strong personality characteristics in Histadelics (people with high histamine), that are very reminiscent of autistic traits. High histamine is responsible for many physical symptoms as well that can effect you with or without any type of neurological symptoms.
If you have a child who has been prescribed an SSRI and it hasn’t agreed with them (they sent my son psycho), it could very well be that they are histadelic.
According to all of the research i’ve done, Histadelia can take 6 months to get under control, so strap yourself in and be prepared to wait for the real results…
Before you begin, there is a simple way of testing yourself or your child if you wish to. Give a 50mg dose of Niacin (NOT the flush free kind) on an empty stomach. If you or your child flush at that small dose, is means that you are high histamine. I had a normal niacin flush (red face and feeling warm), but Fraser had an extreme reaction. I mean it was huge! My daughter commented that he looked like an Oompa Loompa as he went bright red, all over. It actually looked like hives. It was a very big reaction for a little man. Don’t be alarmed if it happens, it will go away in half an hour or so. If you want it to go away quicker, give a dose of calcium which will calm it down. I just give him a crushed up tablet in peanut butter, which is how he has most of his supplements. He has his vitamin c powder in fruit juice.
The following is the list of supplements and the rationale behind each one…
-Calcium : Pulls histamine from the tissues and into the blood stream. Dosage : I use a formula that contains Calcium, Vitamin D3 (aids calcium absorption) and Magnesium (must be a ratio of 1:1 with calcium, as they are synergistic.)
-Vitamin C : Escorts the histamine out of the blood and into the urine to be excreted from the body. Dosage : 2000mg per day. Given at intervals during the day of 500mg
-Forksolin (Coleus Forskohli) : To stop histamine being produced from mast cells throughout the body. Dosage : 2 x 500mg capsules per day with meals. Forskolin is an Ayurvedic herb that does many amazing things in the body. Do a little research and prepare to be dazzled!
-Vitamin A: Must be given to stop Vitamin A deficiency caused by high Vitamin C, but also does many incredible things for the body. Dosage : I use Nordic Naturals Arctic Cod Liver oil, which is lemon flavour and quite pleasant. 1 teaspoon per day. This MUST BE IN TRIGLYCERIDE FORM, so the body can actually utilise the nutrients. The cheap oils just won’t work as well, if at all. The good thing about the Cod Liver Oil, is that he also gets his DHA’s and EPA’s.
-Vitamin B6. I use the active form called Pyroxidal 5 Phosphate or P5P. It goes straight into the blood stream and doesn’t need to be broken down by the liver. The body uses B6 to make the enzyme DAO which breaks down histamine. B6 is also responsible for over 300 actions in the body. Dosage : 2 x 50mg tablets per day.
I hear you saying “Gee Kitty, that sure is a lot of supplements and there is more to come? Can’t I just stick with half a Zyrtec a day?” Sorry to disappoint you, but of course, as we know, nothing worthwhile is easy! Here’s the clincher…There are four histamine receptors in the body, and anti-histamines like zyrtec only target receptor H1, and possibly H3, leaving the other 2/3 wide open! Plus, there are always side effects with medications (some times they are a necessity), if we can solve the problem rather than mask it, there will be better results in the long term.
I have on order, L-Methionine and a form of B1 called Benfotiamine, which I will be starting in the next couple of weeks. Benfotiamine is more stimming than for Histamine lowering, but it’s something that i’m looking forward to trying. I will also do a post in the coming days about probiotics. They are an essential tool for kids with Autism, but what most people don’t know is that some raise histamine, some are neutral and some lower histamine, so of course if you think histamine is a problem, you want to make sure you are not using any that raise it.
Kitty xx
Link to my app 🙂
https://itunes.apple.com/au/app/emotion-fonts/id779305002?mt=8
AUTnotISM 
Hi, Do you have any updates regarding the success of treating your son using Zyrtec, etc.? My son has been very difficult since we started a new probiotic and much better once we stopped it. I think it was raising his histamine levels and I’ve gone back to the three probiotics that seem to lowe histamine levels (plantarum, rhamnosus, baccilus coagulans and sacc b). Incidentally, I have high histamine levels myself but manage them through probiotics.
Hi, I didn’t use the Zyrtec for too long because paradoxically, it raises histamine if you’re on it for too long. The body thinks its not making enough, so eventually begins to make extra. Fraser has probiotics (alternating), Quercetin, Coleus Forskohlii, vitamin c, and occasionally, homeopathic histamine. We try to keep high histamine foods to a minimum (not easy with his limited diet)! I have developed high histamine as well over the last few months and quercetin certainly makes the biggest difference to me. I do have another post called ‘Probiotics for Histamine’ which lists the probiotics that raise and lower histamine. There may be more, but those are the only ones i’ve been able to find much info on. All the best to you and your son 🙂
Thanks for your response. My son had a very positive response to Benadryl but it seemed to wear off after a few days. Have you tried Neuroprotek? This has been super helpful for my son. It is a natural antihistamine that you can buy on Amazon. We tried the Low Phenol version first and saw improvement but saw much bigger gains with the regular version. I’m going to try Liver Life next.
Hi Charmaine, i’m so pleased to hear your son is doing well. I actually have some Neuroprotek on order (low phenol), so looking forward to trying it after reading how much it helped Jenny McCarthy’s son. Please stay in touch and let me know how your son does on Liver Life. Thanks for sharing. All the best.
Hi, How is your son doing with his supplements? We had to drop Neuroprotek because it was too high phenol and caused all sorts of issues (despite using No Fenol and doing Epsom Salt baths). We have had a good experience with Liver Life but histamines continue to give us trouble. What was your experience with Benfotiamine? We are currently using Quercetin plus vitamin C. Personally, I have found licorice root to be helpful.
Hi Charmaine, Fraser is doing really well at the moment. He has only one low phenol Neuroprotek in the mornings along with a no flush niacin, culterelle and benfotiamine. I haven’t noticed a huge difference with the benfo, but because his diet has a lot of carbs (he’s a VERY fussy eater), I continue to give it to him. I have had health issues from a parasite that caused my b1 to drop dangerously low which was frightening to say the least, so i’ll keep him on that one permanently. In the evenings he has an echinacea/reishi mushroom combo as he has strep/PANDAS and after running out for a few days recently, realised what a huge difference it had been making. He also has practitioner strength calcium/magnesium before bed with melatonin. The cal/mag has made an enormous difference, as the calcium is required for histamine metabolism and the magnesium is calming. In the last week he has had a ‘vibrational healing’ session. After seeing spectacular results with my friends son I decided to try it with Fraser. It was quite pricey, but we noticed a shift the next day. He has since become a little unwell which is part of the process, but so far so good. He has just turned 13 and his skin is looking very pimply, so I think some liver support will be next on my agenda.