Histamine, migraine and PMS
Category : Uncategorized
So what about histamine and MIGRAINE? Specifically migraine that many women experience with PMS or before out menses?
Histamine symptoms are actually more common in women because of our hormones, and often track with the menstrual cycle, occurring when estrogen is high at ovulation and then again just before the period AKA PMS.
- Estrogen stimulates mast cells to release histamine and down-regulates the DAO enzyme that clears histamine. While, histamine stimulates the ovaries to make more estrogen. The net result can be a vicious cycle of estrogen → histamine → estrogen → histamine.
- Progesterone stabilizes mast cells, up-regulates DAO, and can therefore reduce histamine… but most women have issues with low progesterone due to chronic stress. So of course are not metabolizing and detoxifying histamine efficiently.
- It is proposed that symptoms of estrogen dominance are actually symptoms of high estrogen.
Several symptoms on the symptoms list here are typical symptoms of PMS which makes sense because histamine rises and falls with estrogen. Histamine is highest just before ovulation and then again during the days before the period. Histamine can also cause period pain because of its inflammatory effect.