I have an appt with him at the beginning of August.  I will report back after I see him.

Thanks for the info Lisa.

Kate

I have seen Dr. Bernstein and I thought I'd add a few comments. On my first visit I told him all about my extreme medicine, food, and chemical sensitivities.   He said that he sees a lot of patients just like me.  I told him that I suspected I have MCAD and I showed him a list of tests that I thought I needed.  He ordered immunocap analysis, tryptase, urine catecholamines, 5HIAA, Prostaglandin F2, and 24 hour urine histamine (NOT methylhistamine).  I asked him why he didn't order the 24 hour urine methylhistamine and he said that hardly any labs do that test anymore.  All my tests cameback normal except my prostaglandin F2 which was low.  On my second visit when I got the test results back I asked him if he would do a mast cell skin biopsy stain because I had heard that sometimes mast cell conditions show up that way.  Dr. Bernstein took a little wooden stick and scratched my arm.  He said, "You don't have a cutaneous mast cell disorder because if you did it would have welted up where I scratched it."  I was disappointed because I really feel like I have MCAD but at that point he decided I  have multiple chemical sensitivity instead (which is his specialty and area of research).  He said all I can do is avoid the things that bother me.  I said, "What about the foods that I can't tolerate?  They are not chemicals."  He said, "Well, that goes along with it."  I guess that if my tests had come back conclusive, he would have treated me.  He said he would try to help me with my intolerance of meds by starting with tiny doses and titrating them up.   Next, I went to Dr. Grubb in Toledo.  He listened to my list of symptoms and my test results. He said it is very difficult to test for MCAD and get accurate results because it can manifest in hundreds of kinds of ways.  He immediately wanted to start me on H1 and H2 blockers and Singulair and see if they helped me.  He called it a clinical diagnosis.  I just thought I would let you all know the facts in case someone is thinking of going to see Dr. Bernstein.  I feel like he knows some about MCAD, but I was disappointed about his apparent lack of knowledge about testing for it.