Mast Cell Activation Syndrome Video Guide

Marty Ross MD Discusses Mast Cell Activation Syndrome

In the video above, Marty Ross MD discusses the causes and management of Mast Cell Activation Syndrome in in Lyme and other tick-borne diseases or mold toxicity.

Resources

For more information — including dosing of the medications and supplements discussed in this article — read Mast Cell Activation Syndrome in Infections & Mold Toxicity.

Edited Transcript

Melissa says, is there hope for MCAS, mast cell activation syndrome, to ever go away, or is it symptom management forever? So, everyone, mast cell activation syndrome is a complex illness.

Basically, we have these cells called mast cells. Traditionally, we’ve thought of them as being the allergy cell, that the only thing that would activate them is if you had something you were allergic to, and your IgE allergy antibodies attached to it. They would then carry these things you’re allergic to, attach themselves to the mast cells, and the mast cells would react by releasing histamines, and you get the whole allergic reaction. Okay? That’s what we historically thought that mast cells do.

However, we actually have more information now. And what we realize is these mast cells don’t just make histamines. They make a whole mess of cytokines and other inflammatory chemicals called leukotrienes, all kinds of stuff. And they actually can get activated and turned on by allergies, mold toxins, stress, stress, stress, and stress, anxiety and stress.

I should emphasize that a lot. So if you have muscle activation, one of the key things is try to control your stress. Do the things you need to to deal with stress. Okay?

And then the other things that can cause them to be turned on are chronic infections. Okay? Those infections can be tick borne infections. They can also be too many yeast living in your intestines.

To answer your question, can you ever get over mast cell activation syndrome? Yes.

But what you’ve gotta do is eliminate those things that are triggering the mast cells so they learn to be less reactive, and eventually they will become less reactive. The long term approach is get your toxins out if you have mold toxicity, get your yeast and get your tick borne infections under control by treating them as you can, which is what you’re doing here. Okay?

And then in the short term, you wanna do things to deal with the mast cell reactivity.

One of those is to block the histamines that get released by these mast cells, and that’s by using what you call h1 and h2 blockers. So h1 blockers would be things like Zyrtec and Claritin. H2 blockers would be stomach acid blockers, like Tagamet, for instance, is one. Okay?That’s a type of histamine.

The other thing that is really big that we need to do in this is control your stress. So meditate, deal with counseling, change a job, whatever it is that’s giving you stress, you have to deal with it. They’re one of the biggest triggers of your mast cells. Alright?

The other thing we wanna do is stabilize your mast cells. We wanna make it so that they don’t easily release histamines and all those cytokines and leukotrienes that they do. Right?

There’s actually a few ways you could do that now.

One is to work with low dose naltrexone, which is the LDN that you’re talking about here. Low dose naltrexone binds to a group of receptors on mast cells, called Toll receptors, and it helps to stabilize them so they’re not as reactive.

Additionally, I like working with quercetin. Quercetin is a very good mast cell stabilizer. It’s a natural substance. It comes predominantly from onions and other fruits and vegetables, and it stabilizes mast cells. It also is good at lowering cytokine inflammation as well too. All right?

And then I think one of the newer items that many of us are using is an antihistamine and mast cell stabilizer prescription medicine, which is called ketotifen. And it is a medication that would have to be mixed up by a compounding pharmacy because it’s only manufactured for an eye drop, for allergy eye drops. Okay? But it’s kind of turning into one of the mainstays of treatment.

So I usually, in my approach, I will start with quercetin, a good H1 blocker like Zyrtec, work on getting infections out, definitely going after yeast early.

I find that to be one of the biggest stimulators of mast cell activation, so going after your intestinal yeast overgrowth early. And if those steps are not effective enough, then I may come back and add in a ketotifen. And ketotifen has to be dosed at one to two milligrams once or twice a day is how you dose that. Okay?

Alright. Now there’s a side effect. It sometimes can make people drowsy. So usually start at the one milligram dose first and then go from there.

Alright? There’s also foods you can avoid. There’s a whole bunch of other things to try, but those are the essential parts of it. But I do in answering your question, I do wanna let you know that, yeah, you can get over this.

Basically, it you have to work to stabilize your mast cells so you’re not as reactive to it doing all and block your histamine, doing all the things I just talked about, but get your infections under control.

Get your mold toxins out of you if they’re in you, and that will go a long way towards making it so that you don’t have this as a lifelong problem. Okay? Alright.