Histamine Hell - Part 1

When the 'High Priestess of Perimenohellopause' thought heart attacks and angina just weren't enough to be dealing with…

The “High Priestess of Perimeno-hell-opause” is imaginary. I envision her as a cross between a Death Eater from Harry Potter i.e. she sucks the joy from your body and the Evil Queen in Snow White i.e. a narcissist who deflects and gaslights constantly.

Jan/Feb 2024. Covered in cold packs, but we’re in Scotland in winter… hence my hat!

Yea, when she thought that wasn’t enough, she ‘gifted’ me Histamine Hell as well….
For nearly 2 years.

The pain is intense.
I am crying with the constant, agonising scratching just under the surface of my skin, driving me to claw at my already red, sore and blistered body.

Imagine an ant just under the most superficial layer of your skin, busily scurrying around, stopping, starting, scurrying again.
Now imagine that it has a helmet on its head and its body is a hard shell, each with a needle atop.
Unpleasant.

Now imagine, not 1 ant but an army of them, all charging about in different directions.  They're busy, oh so busy.
And there's not just 1 army but many; an army on each forearm, on the inner thighs, the outer thighs and the low back and top of the bum muscles.
Hell.

This was my situation most of 2024 and 2025.

The Issue?
A Severe histamine response to oestrogen, stimulated by an overproduction of cortisol.
i.e. ‘Histamine Hell’

Oestrogen and histamine have a very close relationship biologically - did you know that?
No, neither did I until a few years ago, but boy…. I do now!

Cortisol - a steroid hormone produced by the adrenal glands. 
It governs the sleep-wake cycle, manages inflammation, regulates metabolism and maintains blood pressure.
When cortisol levels become dysregulated, the effects can be severely challenging, ranging from feeling 'wired but tired' to Addison's Disease.

Initial Onset:

End of 2023 - Acute stress caused by advocating for a terminally ill parent who was receiving inadequate and unprofessional NHS care.

The Result:

Additional Stressors:

2023 - NHS GP stopped providing me with HRT due to my (required) high dose of oestrogen, meaning that I now have to pay privately for it all. 
Knowing that I am on a higher than licensed amount also adds to my background stress, even though I know the data.
I need nearly double the current recommended 'guideline' amount of oestrogen due to an inability to absorb transdermally i.e. through the skin.
I’m not allowed oral oestrogen due to my heart conditions.
Said heart conditions are due to perimenopause.
To reduce frequency and severity of SCAD heart attacks, microvascular angina and coronary artery spasm, I need to get oestrogen into my body.
For me, taking HRT is hardly a lifestyle ‘choice’.
I have a clear, healthy heart i.e. no atherosclerosis.
In 20023-2025 the medical profession were absolutely not believing the theory of poor absorption and were hell-bent on shooting the messengers instead.

Even though I trusted my menopause specialist and the labs who were conducting my blood tests, well…. it was still worrying and just contributed to my stress levels.
More on the absorption issue in another blog to come.

Additional Complications:

I have had adrenal ‘issues’ in the past and they do need additional support from Medical Herbalists. They are my weak spots along with my gut… you beginning to see my picture?!
I absorb oestrogel (a gel that is rubbed into the skin) better than the patches.

So.
I need to be able to get oestrogen into my system and the best way for me to do that, is through the skin.
Unfortunately, my skin began to disagree in 2023/2024, resulting in the images above.

The Biology

There is an excellent booklet on the Histamine Response in Peri/Menopause on the Health in Menopause Website and I urge you to take a look. Click on image for link.

Below, are the points that were relevant for me:

• Histamine is a vital chemical in your body playing crucial roles in your immune and digestive systems, and as a messenger (neurotransmitter) in the brain influencing your sleep, mood, sex drive and thought processes.

• Histamine is made in several cells in the body, especially in those called mast cells. In addition to the histamine you make in your body, you also take it in through your diet.

• Histamine Intolerance is the result of an overflow or excess accumulation of histamine.

• Individuals with poor gut health will struggle to eliminate histamine efficiently. This could be due to conditions like inflammatory bowel disease or coeliac disease, or because the gut microbiome is disordered due to a poor diet or antibiotic use, for example.

• Chronic stress is also a contributing factor to histamine intolerance as histamine release from mast cells increases under the influence of cortisol – the ‘stress hormone’.

Foods containing high levels of histamine will aggravate the situation.
For example; alcohol, aged or fermented foods, cured meats, smoked fish, spinach, strawberries, tomatoes, aubergine and avocado.  Unfortunately, I already avoid these foods as well as other inflammatory foods as I’ve had rosacea for many, many years since a gut health issue that began around 2012.
I say unfortunately because, if it was just a case of eliminating certain foods it would be easy for me to do that. Heck, I’ve done that before - Been there. Done that. Got the T-shirt as they say!
Calming my cortisol levels, less easy.

Just Relax!

Never in the history of people being stressed has the command, "Relax!" been effective.
Now that I’ve got that off my chest, a bit more biology:

• Pumping out cortisol is your body's way of protecting you - either in acute or chronic episodes of stress.
• It might not feel like it at the time but your body is doing its absolute best to keep you alive with the tools that it has available.
• In an ideal, rose-tinted, pink and fluffy world, we would all be able to just walk away from life's stress-inducing situations.
• If only eh?!

Asking my body to down-regulate its ‘Keeping -Jilly- Safe’ cortisol response was going to be an almighty challenge.

And Your Last Bit of Biology!
In my 20's my body upregulated testosterone production to 'help me' to deal with a home life that was challenging, resulting in more hair in places that I’d really rather not have any. Even after I had left the situation a year or more ago.
My excellent GP at the time, referred me to an endocrinologist and he explained:

"your body is producing more testosterone in response to stress, hence the increase in male pattern hair growth. Even though the stress has gone and has been for many years, switching that system off will be extremely challenging and may actually never happen."

Bummer.

Back to the histamine/cortisol/oestrogen issue.
My body became brilliant at stimulating cortisol production and it now responds more than it should do to:

• waking up (you’re cortisol levels naturally rise as you wake up)

• being happy

• exercising

• being happy excited

• heat:
  my God the heat issue was hell.
  For eg. the heat created from lying on one side in bed, a warm shower, sitting where an oestrogen patch may be, as for working….
  Lordy! I am a massage therapist so whilst using my forearms, an integral part of my day, they rather obviously heat up and become hellishly, screamingly, itchy as a result.

See the graph below? Your body naturally increases levels of cortisol when you wake, after eating and the like. All totally natural.
If you have adrenal issues, there can sometimes be another spike about 10pm - resulting in that damned inability to get to sleep

Natural daily cortisol levels.
Data from Lovallo and Thomas 2000.

The hellish itching would therefore begin as I woke up.
I would begin each day crying at the itching which would then make the itching worse!! Again. Rock and a hard place anyone?

In addition to this super-stimulation to normal peaks of cortisol, my body also continued to produce piles of cortisol in more ‘normal’ stress-inducing situations like being unhappy, scared, angry, tired, ‘stressed’.

My body’s ability to produce cortisol had become its’ ‘super-power’….

I desperately wanted to stop taking HRT - but I need it to stop perimenopausal angina and potentially SCAD heart attacks.
I never wanted to apply oestrogen to anywhere on my body ever again - I couldn’t take oestrogen orally as having a heart condition is a contraindication for that method.
I wanted to be pain and stress free.
I wanted to live again without the constant thinking about patches, gel, days on progesterone days off and be able to just live and work without thinking about my bloody hormones.
Any of them!
Sex hormones, nor cortisol

But just how was I going to achieve that?

• Jill is a patient advocate for women's heart health and has been asked to speak on numerous podcasts, radio and TV newsreels.

• She has been asked to give her patient perspective of women's heart health on a number of research projects for Edinburgh Napier University, the British Heart Foundation, The Alliance Health and Social Care (Scotland) and been asked to speak at a Cross Party Meeting at the Scottish Parliament.

• All information in these articles should not in any way be misconstrued nor promoted as medical advice.

• She is registered on the Complementary and Natural Healthcare Council (CNHC)the independent UK regulator for complementary healthcare practitioners, in her capacity as a sports massage and rehab specialist and, is therefore not permitted to give specific advice on any medications.

She uses her vast experience as a teacher and therapist within the health and fitness industry to help people to advocate and navigate their own healthcare journey.