Dr. Amy Nett: I’m going to go over this one quickly here just because it’s not too focused on the content we’re going to be covering in this course. I will just say that if you have someone with mast cell activation syndrome, that’s a pretty general label or description, so I don’t think it always tells us what the underlying etiology is. You’re asking there how methylation is involved in that, and that’s one potential cause, but if I see issues with mast cells, histamine issues, I start with the basics. Always, always go back to basics. Start with the gut testing. Is it a gut issue? Is it dysbiosis? Is it a methylation issue? So 23andMe testing, HDRI functional methylation panel. Maybe it’s a biotoxin-related illness or chronic inflammatory response syndrome.
The treatment then for mast cell activation syndrome is going to focus on the underlying pathology. Maybe you’re treating the gut, or you’re treating methylation or biotoxins. Sometimes patients do need symptomatic treatment. Again, with mast cell activation syndrome we’re really looking along a huge spectrum of symptoms, so how to treat this really depends on what their symptoms look like. They might be OK with Quercenase, just doing kind of a nutrient support for antihistamine. You might need to use an over-the-counter antihistamine, something like Zyrtec or Claritin, or it might need to be a prescription, something like cromolyn, which is a mast cell stabilization.
Again, mast cell activation syndrome is such a huge spectrum that what the treatment looks like really depends on the severity, and then the treatment really depends on what the underlying cause is.