Is it possible to know which mediator(s) my mast cells tend to release on a routine basis by knowing the way my body is acting?

I realize that I have had some blood work and urine work done to determine which mediators are elevated, but......

is there a list somewhere of the mediators (that we know of) released from mast cells and what effect each has on the body? If we did, I could look at my main symptoms and target the mediators in question and help regulate them. Or is this entire process a hit and miss experimentation?

Thanks in advance.

Good question and one the researchers are working on .

There is a table I believe in the consensus proposal discussing some mediators like histamine, tryptase, interleukins, tnf alpha, prostaglandins etc and their associated symptoms. Can't recall if their mechanism of action is also discussed in there or not, but is complex immunology and they definitely don't have it all sorted out yet.

You can also google each mediator if you're curious to find scientific articles explaining what they know about their actions.

Very coarsely and briefly from my take on it,  treatment wise the meds really are not that great and blocking many of them in comparison to the complexity of the pathways. In general. antihistamines block some histamine receptors, anitleukotrienes like singulair block some interleukin pathways, mast cell stabilizers try to prevent mast cell release of these, ASA blocks prostaglandin synthesis. and steroids starve the mast cells of what the normally "eat" to survive and propagate and indirectly slam down the whole system along with other immune functions. There are fancier/experimental/immunomdulating drugs out there like Interferon and Xolair which have different mechanisms of action which I won't go into to save rambling.

When mast cell degranulation occurs they generally explode non selectively  releasing multiple mediators. There are also basophils which degranulate and are responsible for other symptoms.

The specific role of each is academically interesting, but in practice most of us are on various flavours of the same type of H1, H2 blocker, mast cell stabilizer, some antileukotriene if its helps and some anti prostaglandin if it helps and does not aggravate +/- acute extra meds +/- Epi +/- steroids for acute reactions.

I think it would be hard to be completely certain based on symptoms alone exactly which one or combo of mediators is your issue, but what might me more telling is which meds help relieve these as indirect evidence. Generally it's a bunch at once.

Not sure if that's what you're looking for. If you want me to send you the article, send me a PM

Doozlygirl wrote on 01/13/13 at 23:52:01:


Thanks Lyn. I'm not finished reading these but wanted to make sure I thanked you for these. I had no idea so many mediators from mast cells were understood.  

Tc .. Marcia