Hi guys. I've been wanting to join and post in this forum for many months but haven't had the energy. This probably isn't the best first post, but it's the question I'm most curious to have answered right now. I'll describe my symptoms and give my story in a later post.

I'm undiagnosed but confident I have an MCAD. Several times in my life I'll consistently tolerate certain inhalants (fragrances, smells etc.) daily for months or even many years and then after a strong reaction to one of my stronger triggers I'll suddenly be more sensitive and have my symptoms triggered by things I previously tolerated just fine, and it also causes the triggers I already had to become even stronger triggers causing stronger, longer duration symptoms. I'm going to refer to having increased number of triggers and stronger reactions to triggers than previously, as becoming more sensitive.

So the more triggers I'm exposed to the more sensitive I become and it's just snowballed to the point where virtually every smell triggers my symptoms now.  

I've been extremely sensitive for the past 3 years. I start becoming less sensitive if I can avoid my triggers really well for many months but these periods of improvement are brief and quickly lost by having another exposure to a trigger.

The same thing happens for ingestant triggers. I can have 1 or 2 foods that I tolerate daily for many months or years and then try a new supplement or food that triggers heartburn and then suddenly my tolerable foods start giving me heartburn every time for several days or even over a week before I start tolerating them again. This has happened dozens of times so it definitely can't be coincidence.

So does particularly bad or frequent exposures to triggers chronically increasing sensitivity fit with people who have MCADs?

Oh so you've noticed that exposure to triggers can prime you to react easier to other things that you were tolerating fine before huh?

This is the characteristic of my condition I was most unsure of regarding MCADs. And so I'm just really hoping my condition can still be an MCAD. Otherwise I'm thinking my condition is something similar that isn't yet known by medical science.

The only med that I've been taking is dye free Benadryl.  I'm not sure how much it helps me though. I definitely need some more meds.