Oh my Kelley, you've named so very many triggers that you are unaware of, but to those of us who know, red lights, sirens, alarms, and every other kind of warning advice go off BIG TIME AND SCREAMING!!!!!!
Pizza = cheese, tomatoes, gluten in bread.
BEER! = Alchohol!! BIG NO NO!!
Stress = mediators released from the stress system always trigger mast cells for the MCs are full of receptors for these mediators!
Chocolate = trouble if you are on the edge
Pineapple juice + lemon juice = acidic and fruit enzymes
Travelling = physical stress
Florida = heat
Restaurants = foods prepared ahead of time and with MSG and other ? ingredients
miscarriage = birth is physically stressing and involves MCs in a very normal process. in a masto patient without pre-medication, hemorrhage could easily ocurr since the MCs have been triggered to help with birth.
ANESTHESIA!! = danger! danger! danger!!!!
D&C = surgery - the body must heal and to heal requires MCs.
HOLY COW!!!
Kelley, my masto came violently out of hiding following major surgery - a histerectomy. I went into the surgery clueless as to disease and came out of it with somebody else's body!!! In reviewing that surgery a few years later with my gyno we understood a great many things that he had, at that time, thought was nothing way too unusual. I had undergone excess bleeding during that surgery. My daughter, upon seeing me wheeled into my room after the surgery exclaimed "WHY IS MY MOTHER SO WHITE?!" While I was still hospitalized, I was given an IV injection for pain - a narcotic. I immediately broke out in hives and had a huge hematoma on my arm at the site of the injection of the antihistamine which I was given shortly thereafter to counteract the reacting to the narcotic. A few days following my surgery, I began to feel a heaviness, but no pain, in my abdomen. It began to weigh and bother me and I began to find it very uncomfortable to sleep on my back and began losing sleep. I was in pain and not being a back sleeper the loss of sleep began to take its toll and I began to feel that I was about to faint immediately before slipping into sleep - so I fought sleep even more!. After about 4 or 5 days of this, where I was then going through bouts of dyspnea, I was an absolute wreck! I had called my doctor and he ordered a relaxant and was expecting to see me in two days for my first review. So I kept dealing with the situation, trying to get sleep when I could. I had no real pain outside of the typical abdominal incision so I didn't feel any need to go running to the ER and neither did my doctor (he was checking up on me). When I went into his office for the 1st review, I had been sitting in the waiting room and by the time I had to go into his office I was with dyspnea and really struggling to keep my cool. He hospitalized me immediately! He ruled out infection and anemia and the only other option was suspicion of a pulmonary embolism. I'd been having hipertension prior to the CT with contrast, but upon injecting the contrast my BP plummeted and I fainted away!!! I vaguely heard my angiologist explain "OH MY GOODNESS!! WHAT IS THAT?!" I had a very large subcutaneous hemorrhage and was immediately put into the ICU for 2 days observation. No pulmonary emoblism was found, thank God, but what my gyno thought was that I had a typical subcutaneous hemorrhage which can come from the slight bit of plastic he did in order to clean up my abdominal incision. I was released after 4 days hospitalization only to return again in another 2 weeks for another 2 day stint and then one last time again 2 weeks later for another 2 day stay!!!!
In analysis, the hemorrhaging during surgery itself was caused by the stress that surgery and the anesthesias had created since I went into this surgery totally unprotected by any pre-medications. The allergic reaction following surgery was to narcotics, a well known MC degranulator! The huge bruise on my arm was caused by the needle injecting the antihistamine. The antihistamine probably kept it from becoming a really bad situation. I was so weak, so severely stressed by the surgery itself, it's only God's mercy that I hadn't had any worse spontaneous hemorrhaging anywhere else. Complete bed rest is what kept me safe, I believe, but upon returning home, I was uncomfortable in my bed and could not sleep properly and with the loss of sleep, as well as the up and down of getting in and out of bed began to wear upon me. In losing sleep, the MCs were triggered (not enough sleep is a MAJOR TRIGGER for us even though the vast majority of us don't recognize it!) and they, in turn began putting me into small crisis events of dyspnea and fainting, which in fighting, I was only losing more sleep and putting myself further out over the edge of no return. In going into my doctors office for the 1st review, I had spent the night without sleep (for fear of the fainting) and just having to shower and dress and go into his office, this tipped me over the edge and I went into anaphylaxis with dyspnea and hypertension being the major symptoms. I was so weak and had lost enough blood that I was not even able to flush! The fact that I was already anemic due to the recent surgery masked the anemia caused by the internal hemorrhaging, so my doctor couldn't see it! The contrast from the CT is what sealed my fate and put me into syncope immediately and also made my BP drop so much that the doctor couldn't find a periferal pulse! The subcutaneous hemorrhage could have been nornal, but not the amount of blood I had lost! The forced bedrest in the ICU is what helped all of the reacting come to halt and yet in returning back home, in returning to much of the same pattern of not staying in bed, only provoked the reacting again and this would explain why I returned to going through anaphylaxis about every 2 weeks and needed hospitalization once again!
Kelley, once you are able to understand how the MCs behave and what can trigger them, you, like me, will be able to review situations and say, THAT'S THE MASTO AT WORK THERE!!! Yet, in learning more about masto and how defective MCs behave and learn to identify your triggers, you begin to see how you can taylor your lifestyle and improve upon it by avoiding triggers more adequately.
Your doctor is 100% right, on the right meds, things will indeed IMPROVE. So, follow his advice, it sounds like he knows what he's doing!!!
Lisa
ps - the high histamine levels create anxiety in some of us Kelley. And when you are not properly medicated, you think it's a "panic" attack, but in truth, it's just a flood of histamine in your brain!!! This is why we get brain fog prior to a crisis and can't think straight!!! In having enough meds, most of that dissipates along with the other emotional issues that can happen in masto.
pps - KEEP READING AND KEEP ASKING QUESTIONS!!!!