u/DrGuevin

Hi everybody,

I am writing this as a 28M athlete, very healthy, amazing life and balance. Here is my story :

Got married, went to Punta cana for 2 weeks in an all inclusive. I usually eat very very clean at home, everything is organic, local, and I track macros. I take magnesium, zinc, creatine, and enjoy my sport to a provincial/national level (Olympic Weightlifting). I am also a biologist. Just to say that, I love my life and it was amazing, here is the story :

2 days before ending the honeymoon, I started to feel bad in my stomach (upper abdomen). I was like "Okay, it's going to be fine once back home, it's normal not to feel so good". In the plane 2 days later, the pain and discomfort started to be a bit higher. I was happy to come back home just to eat better quality food and better food choices in general. However, I had so much pleasure to let myself eat whatever I wanted in those 2 weeks.

Then, 2 days after coming back home (Canada), I had the worst panic attack, extreme anxiety and OCD flare up, literally from nowhere. (I've never had that in my life, never ever). It was debilitating. My experience in scientific field and my wife who's a nurse helped me know that it wasn't any disease, or heart attack or whatever. It was just panic. But afterwards, the absolute terror feeling, anxiety, and not feeling myself, like I was dying just kept me from living, during almost 2 months. I had better days/week, and very very bad days. But what I don't tell you, is that, I kept having my stomach pain growing. Every time I was in pain, my anxiety/panic/ocd were worse. And as soon as I felt relief in the stomach, I had a window where I could feel myself for a short moment.

My symptoms included :

- Stomach pain (very localized)

- Nausea

- Diarrhea

- Sometimes urticaria popping

Nothing else.

I started to see a GP, to check, Punta cana, and I'm originally from a tropical island so I was like, it's either H pylori, candida, any parasite, c.difficile, or a simple gastrite from everything I ate during the trip.

I was like, anyway, maybe my stomach pain or mental situation are not related, but I just want the pain to go away because it started to be so bad.

Every lab was absolutely perfect, negative H pylori, stool test, parasite stool test, urine, hormones, ferritin, thyroid, abdominal echograph. Everything was good. I was really really starting to lose hope as I was in such a bad state. My energy was going away, sometimes I couldn't eat, sometimes I was really hungry...

So I started to write everything, everything I ate, how I felt in general, I wrote everything on an excel and then, data showed that, every time I ate cheddar cheese (or any cheese), tomato based dish, lentils, pickles, or something with cocoa, I was feeling the worst and it lasted for days.

So I looked up for what was in common in all three, and ended up seeing histamine.

I started 4 days ago to check for every food I ate and avoided histamine food.

And yesterday I started to feel like myself again, but today was the best day ever. No pain at all in the stomach, no diarrhea, no urticaria (sorry I don't know how we say that in English), way more energy, and my panic/anxiety/ocd is absolutely gone like a switch was pushed.

Today, I had the result of a new lab test from my GP (who called me on a Saturday), and DAO deficiency is added to the situation for me !

I just wanted to share hope if anybody is living the same thing, as it was the worst state I've ever been in my life... I couldn't train for weeks...

I hope it says everything and my text was clear, English is my third language. And before leaving you guys : - Yes it could be the beginning of an ulcer, but the pain is going away with low histamine food. - Yes in inflammation was created (gastritis).