What Is A Histamine Response? (Part I)

So, what is a histamine response, and why should I care?

Sometimes I have an allergic reaction to cats, and sometimes I do not. Sometimes I have an allergic reaction to shellfish. Sometimes I do not. Sometimes I have awful reactions to pollen. My house is pretty much in the middle of the town named after flowers.  After my wife and I moved into our new house, it seemed that I had a cold for three weeks. It was three weeks before I realized I did not have a cold, but that it was that we had recently moved to a place with a lot of pollen in the air.

Many of us believe that once we discover an allergic reaction to something, that allergy will stay with us for all eternity. For a lot of us, this is true. I would suggest that it is not at all that simple.

So let's define histamine. Histamines are chemical compounds. There, that simple enough.

Cells release these histamines as a part of our body's response to injury or other inflammatory reactions.

Now, as far as my experiences, I can remember three specific instances where I was expecting to have an allergic reaction to something only to experience no discomfort when exposed to the (potential) allergens. My theory of how the immune system works is rooted in my experiences.

I was apartment-sitting with a friend. Our friends' place was a small, one-bedroom apartment that had a cat. I remember having a terrible allergic reaction the entire time. My allergic reaction was so intense that I was able to immediately deduce that my stuffy nose and bloodshot, scratchy eye condition was due to their pet. Surprisingly enough, every subsequent visit to that small apartment, I experienced little- to no-allergenic responses from their pet.

The funny thing is, though, a year prior, one of my roommates had a cat, and I had not experienced any allergic episodes the entire year.

I spent a significant amount of time growing in and around Houston, Texas. In the Gulf Coast area, seafood was a large part of the typical diet. Growing up, shrimp was my favorite seafood. While I always would feel a little tingle whenever consuming shrimp, I would have never considered myself to be allergic to shrimp.

So, one summer weekend, I rode at 36-mile out and back on my road bike. I just moved to a new part of the country and, at that point, it had been several years since I had gone more than 10 miles on a road bike. I decided to eat shrimp during my recovery from the long ride.  Upon eating the shrimp, I reacted so strongly to the shrimp I needed to go to the hospital for treatment. I vowed to myself to stay away from shrimp.

Many months after that episode, I was preparing for a trip out of state. I needed a quick lunch before the plane ride. For some reason, my memory had not served me well enough to alert me when I chose to have shrimp soup for lunch. It was not until I was on the plane that I realized that I had shrimp and should be breaking out and feeling like I needed an EpiPen.

(see next blog post for the rest of the story)

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