I know that when there is an illness and there is an information void and no sense of control, people fill the emptiness by self-diagnosing.
Gary (and I) have looked to see if the source of his rash might be nightshade allergies, balsam of peru, folate deficiency, and of course the original: drywall dust.
Recently Gary has been all in on this histamine intolerance thing. He tracks how his skin feels after everything he eats.
Today Gary went to the dermatologist and heard a theory he does not like: that this is a reaction to his migraine or epilepsy medication. He immediately decided he would rather live with a rash than cut off his medications entirely.
I suggested that perhaps they could drop his meds ten percent and see if the rash recedes ten percent, and he said, “It doesn’t work that way” with no other explanation.
He discussed all these things with the doctor, and the doctor decided he wanted to re-run the initial test to see if Gary has psoriasis (because it looks like every kind of psoriasis piled next to each other). So back at square one, and I suspect we went there to get Gary to come back in two weeks to get the results, when I suspect the doctor will have run an additional test to see if it’s a possible reaction to his meds.
Even worse, he came home and did more research on histamine intolerance and discovered it’s some fuzzy pseudo-science. “I’m like … A TRUMP VOTER,” he moaned.
6 responses to “Gary’s Skin Doctor Visit”
There *is* a lot of Utter Quackery around histamine intolerance, but there is also some regular ol’ scientific research paper stuff on it; it’s just that whenever science hasn’t gotten far enough to definitely say “this is what will help you with this problem” (or even “this is definitely the problem you have”) then psuedo-science and scam artists will fill in the gaps, and *then* many doctors look at that and say “therefore histamine intolerance is not a real problem” instead of saying “okay, there is a lot of quackery around this *and also* this is a real, scientifically documented thing; we just don’t have enough solid research on how to fix it.”
It’s not like earthing; more like probiotics, where honestly 1. which strains are advantageous instead of problematic varies by individual and situation, and we know that, and 2. we don’t have inexpensive and easy ways of determining that so 3. there are “educated guesses” you can make based on published research about specific probiotic strains and quantities and your symptoms, but 4. fundamentally it’s a “try it and see” process which can have glorious or miserable results, quite simply because we don’t have cheap testing and we don’t have the bulk data we’d need to match current-microbiome-and-symptoms with exact-ideal-probiotic. Probiotics affecting the gut microbiome, at least temporarily, with that having a variety of full-body effects for people [mental health, metabolism differences, nutrient absorption, etc.]: definitely, very much science. “Probiotic X will cure Y”: silver-bullet quackery with a side of “well, it does for a percentage of people but we have *no idea* whether you are in that percentage or not.”
That said, it seems to be pretty universally useful to have acidophilus, at least, after taking full-spectrum antibiotics; that much seems to be Generally Known.
But while “gut microbiome has effects on these health systems: a, b, c, d, e, f, g, etc.” is research-backed science and “probiotics can affect the microbiome” is science… well. Science has some big fat gaps there which we either fill in with educated guesses and trying things out and seeing what they do, or we wait decades or longer for there to be proper science filling in the gaps.
Histamine intolerance has research behind it, but not research filling it in *enough*, so quackery and anecdata and “well, this does X in a test tube so maybe it does it in the body?” extrapolation guessing has filled in the gaps. But at base it is a real, scientifically demonstrated thing, not a “drink bleach” thing…
(DON’T DRINK PLAIN BLEACH. Science is unanimous on that one.)
KC – Hah to the bleach. And, quackery is how I think of free radicals. I wonder if that’s in the legit space and I haven’t checked yet.
While I regret to state that free radicals are in fact a thing, I would say that based on my anecdotal experience if something is advertising to consumers using “free radicals” language… yeah. Quack-quack-quackity-quack. So your vibe/quackery detectors are 100% accurate there.
(see: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3614697/ )
(see also: the thing your doctor Doesn’t Want You To Know [because if you did it you would be healthy!!! buy our product and cheat the doctors except it’s more expensive than doctors but ignore that!!!] which is pretty much a Quack Red Flag. You do realize that if everyone became a lot more healthy, there would *still* be *plenty* for doctors to do, both preventative care and treatment? It’s not like the Only Thing Wrong With People’s Health is excess weight or low energy. You could knock 3+ things-that-are-wrong-with-me out of the picture and I’d still have an abundance of stuff I’d like to get fixed up…)
KC – Wow, that was weird. I copied your link, but did not paste it, then truly wondered if I’d been in a fugue state because I’d already opened a tab to virtually the same article https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3901353 earlier.
Pubmed is the hot place to go! 😉
(no, seriously, while you do need to check 1. what publication things are in and 2. the conflict-of-interest statements and 3. the edges of the page for links to corrections/responses, it’s generally a really good place for what’s going on.)
KC – I’ve never gone there deliberately, it’s always through a search, but it;s always a link I click on.