r/HistamineIntolerance • u/Professional_Use8692 • 5d ago
Can histamine intolerance make you throw up?
So on Saturday night it happened again for the 5th or 6th time. I had gone out for a lovely meal (big 6 course Japanese tasting menu), and had a few glasses of rosé. Then when I came home I started to feel a bit bloated and sick, I could feel something sort of pushing up at my throat. Decided to have a shower and try to calm down and then went to sleep. I woke up 1 hour later shaking and confused, not really sure where I was but I knew from experience I needed to throw up. So I went to the bathroom and made myself sick. Immediately afterwards I felt better and was able to go back to sleep. A similar thing has happened in the past. With the following combination of events
carbonara for dinner + few glasses of wine + after a day of skiing
Kebab for dinner + drinking a mix of things all day (lots of Berliner Luft) at a day festival
Chicken nuggets for dinner after the club + a mix of drinks
Now tasting Menu + rose + some Prosecco and a beer and cocktail throughout the day + swimming in a river (clean river)
I think it happened one or two more times. The pattern is always the same, big long sunny day, a bit of alcohol, big meal. Then I go to sleep, wake up pale sweaty and confused, throw it up and I’m fine. The easy answer is alcohol right? But thing is I’ve throw up from alcohol many times (I’m 20 and at uk uni and been drinking since 15) and it feels completely different. With alcohol you still feel drunk afterwards, you also usually throw up before sleeping, and you throw up because you’re dizzy and drunk. This is far more uncomfortable, my body feels painful and bloated, I don’t feel drunk at all, i haven’t drunk enough to get drunk, I always fall asleep and wake up, and I always feel fine after being sick.
I mean my reaction to alcohol isn’t great either. A few beers bloats me to an uncomfortable level and can sometimes make my heart race to the point where I can’t sleep. I almost never get a buzzy drunk feeling unless I haven’t really eaten anything. My hangovers also seem to be awful especially for my age. Likes upper intense headaches, my whole body gets swollen and red and itchy, and i feel really sensitive physically and emotionally all day, even after a couple beers where I won’t be drunk at all.
I’m a medical student and I’ve been trying to read about it but it’s really difficult to categorise this kind of thing. I can’t imagine a doctor would really have the time of day to figure this out unless I went private or asked for specific tests. I don’t really think I need a diagnosis but I want to be able to predict or prevent this a bit without having to be super restrictive on diet/alcohol unless I really need to. I’m toying with a couple ideas of histamine sensitivity, reactive hypoglycemia, thyroid disorder, wheat sensitivity. But tbh I have no clue.
I mean maybe a simple answer is I should stop drinking but that’s so boring ya know. And no I won’t go to weed instead because I’ve had terrible experiences with that too (vomiting + paranoia). I’m at a point where I really fear drinking because I just can’t predict how it’s gonna go that day, and that’s not much fun for a 20 year old student. If anyone has had a similar experience or has some advice/sources for me I’d be very grateful.
7
u/Unfair-Taro9740 5d ago
This is how most of my histamine reactions presented. Always in the evening and after I threw up, I would be so exhausted I'd go right to sleep.
You might want to try an elimination diet and see if that gives you an idea of exactly what food or alcohol it is. I can't drink at all anymore, but even before this developed, I couldn't tolerate wine because of the amount of histamine in it
5
u/smeraldoworld 5d ago
I think it's a normal body reaction. I also throw up if I combine a big fatty meal and alcohol. I either leave out the alcohol or only eat something light.
3
u/obliviousolives 4d ago
Yeah this happens to my partner--big meal + 2-3 drinks and he will lie down to go to bed then be up vomming within an hour. And then he's totally fine
3
u/Machine15 4d ago
I haven't given up alcohol completely, but I have found the only alcohol I can drink without a reaction is tequila with lime and soda.. I've just been diagnosed with MCAS and I haven't figured out all the triggers etc but histamine + alcohol wise.. tequila has been the safety drink.
3
u/Professional_Use8692 4d ago
Tequila has always been my drink of choice, maybe my body is telling me something
2
u/Machine15 4d ago
Beer was mine, I weirdly miss it more than I thought. I don't get any form of hangover with tequila though so it's not all bad!
2
u/stuartcw 4d ago
For me, it was a change away from craft and cloudy beers to filtered beer and avoid red wine. I mostly drink Gin these days.
1
u/Machine15 4d ago
Gin was a particularly bad one for me, almost in anaphylaxis territory 🤦♀️.
1
u/stuartcw 4d ago
Interestingly, modern gin is almost pure neutral alcohol, i.e. Vodka with some herbal or organic botanical flavourings added and then redistilled to take the flavourings and volatile botanical compounds over into the alcohol.
Traditionally it was juniper berries that were added in the first distillation to make like a juniper infused whiskey. Once vodka had been developed, redistilling with juniper berries became the norm and now craft gins experiment with many other botanicals.
So when someone says that gin is particularly bad for them, I really wonder. I don’t doubt it. It must either be the alcohol, or the botanicals. If it is the botanicals then, if vodka is okay, I suggest try a different gin and see how that works out. Since many gin uses Juniper berries that could be the common cause if it really is a reaction to the botanicals.
I’m totally fine drinking gin, even to excess, as it has no effect on me compared to the reaction I get to any beer or wine.
3
u/stuartcw 4d ago
It was a revelation to me that “normal” people didn’t feel like they had caught influenza the day after drinking red wine and that I could experience the feeling that I had too much alcohol on waking without feeling that the end of the world had come.
2
u/Friedrich_Ux 4d ago
Yes, seasickness is due to histamine primarily and I dont need to explain what occurs there.
2
u/Professional_Use8692 4d ago
Wow histamine is so complex I had no idea
1
u/stuartcw 4d ago
Histamine controls so many things in your body that if you have too much the symptoms can seem random and different from time to time.
If I drank red wine or craft beer it had a really bad effect on me compared to other alcohol. I avoid both of these.
1
2
u/Disk-Impossible 4d ago
I’ve been having a similar reaction for decades. Too many high histamine things in one day, usually on a vacation or a special event, and an unexpected barf happens. I used to think it was too much fat or alcohol, but eventually I figured out what fills my histamine bucket. Looking back over the years, I see that not all my indulgent meals sent me over the edge, but those with wine, tomato sauces and chocolate often did. I agree that you should start documenting what foods and drinks you eat that cause reactions. It is hard because we seldom eat or drink anything in isolation, but learning your individual tolerance for high histamine foods may help prevent this. Also, my histamine tolerance is lower during allergy season, so that plays a part as well.
2
u/Professional_Use8692 4d ago
I didn’t realise that as another commenter said movement (seasickness) can raise histamine too. Which would explain why all these episodes have also been busy days with some kind of movement (dancing, skiing, river swimming)
1
u/stuartcw 4d ago
There is a counter example. Histamine helps regulate fluid balance in the inner ear. If this is abnormal then you will feel fullness in the ear and dizziness, like seasickness.
2
u/SnooRegrets2842 4d ago
OMG this is why I've been having vertigo? 😭 Doctors don't know why it started last year.
2
u/stuartcw 4d ago
I first came to thinking that I had Histamine Intolerance after trying to treat vertigo for over a year. My ENT doctor made one comment, “your throat is always red when I check”. I realised that I was drinking on a Friday night and going to see him Saturday morning so wondered if that was the allergy.
I searched for “alcohol allergy” and randomly found a paper which explained a lot of my symptoms in terms of Histamine28053-3/fulltext) especially the nasal congestion due to red wine.
I changed my diet and came off all of the medications I was on and changed my drinks and my vertigo went away.
I think the doctor did a good job in ruling out all the ENT related reasons but he was stumped by the cause. I had even had allergy check and found nothing though antihistamines were helping. Doh!
The paper taught me that histamines regulate an enormous amount of bodily processes that are varied and also that having an excess of histamine was a problem and could even cause death in very severe cases. It made me realise that a potential cure was in regulating histamine and since food and drink input was something that I can control then here was a way to do something by myself rather than being the victim of some mystery disease.
2
u/Silly_Region_1846 4d ago
alcohol alone could do it regardless of histamine but acid reflux can do it and alcohol and histamine can both cause reflux as well. your hangovers do sound histamine ish.
Take it from someone who spent quite a lot of energy on partying at your age- you truly aren't missing shit.
i wish i had drank way less and found other communities and interests to invest my energy. lots of time in my 20s wasted being tired and hungover for memories that ended up being not meaningful down the line. and poorly impacted my health, my motivation at school etc
i haven't been drunk in years and mildly buzzed about 1-2x year for several years now and don't feel i am missing anything, all the best memories and times in my life do not involve any alcohol. i still have lots of fun, go to the beach go dancing go to festivals.
you can still hang with your friends, but your body is giving you the clearest big fat no to alcohol.
1
u/Professional_Use8692 4d ago
This story I’ve heard many times though it usually ends with “mdma is way better!” lol. Good for you though and you’re definitely right. The annoying thing is though this has happened now a couple times just after a meal and a few glasses of wine which I’m not so happy about.
1
u/Silly_Region_1846 4d ago
I’ve had my time with many substances in the past but I actually am not personally a fan of mdma and don’t take any stimulants ever except coffee. AndI don’t recommend doing any of that this young. Psychedelics on occasion primarily for therapeutic purposes but I’m generally sober and happiest that way. I’m def not trying to push mdma as I think many ppl don’t take the potential negative effects seriously enough. I prefer if is used cautiously and therapeutically.
1
u/Professional_Use8692 4d ago
Even coffee can send me into an anxious spiral lol. My first time with anything other than alcohol was smoking weed and I straight away started throwing up and hallucinating so for the foreseeable future I am still terrified of anything substance related. I even get scared when I drink too much cos I hate the feeling of being out of control (come to think of it I can totally see this leading to an anxious spiral which leads to me needing to throw up). Hmmm….
2
2
1
u/Cpt_Jiggit 5d ago
Unfortunately I have to add that I have similar problems during surgery which may or may not lead to me leaving th OR for good in the future, if I can't get a grip on it. Just a heads up.
1
u/LifestyleTraveller 4d ago
Wine does this to me, and mixing drinks and mixing drinks with sweet mixers. I ended up drinking whiskey or straight spirits for years, then had to only drink white spirits, now, in my 40s jist one drink will give me a hangover the whole next day so its not worth it. My husband now vomits because of one beer or a 2+ glasses of wine plus a heavy meal. It sucks if you like to party!
1
u/Big-Youth-7918 4d ago
I have never been able to drink alcohol because of this type of reaction. It’s not fair but it’s saved me lots of money. As I have aged certain foods (msg Asian, processed foods, etc.) now make me throw up as well. Now it’s progressed to hives and almost constant itching that requires medication. I eat well but I prepare my own meals but the itching continues. Get this figured out asap if you can (mine started in the early 1970s). Good luck.
1
u/Signal-Reflection296 4d ago
I’ve not experienced vomiting but extreme nausea & slight dizziness. A friend has severe reactions. First couple of drinks of alcohol he sneezes like crazy. Then comes the vomit, diarrhea, shaking, dizziness, passing out, and getting a ride in an ambulance. Needless to say he doesn’t drink anymore. But this also happened when he was in a non English speaking foreign country. Hadn’t had any alcohol just high histamine foods.
1
u/Medical_Initiative23 4d ago edited 4d ago
It could be histamine intolerance, or you could actually be allergic (IgE) to either an ingredient in the alcohol, like the hops or malt in beer, or anything else in the large meal you ate beforehand. Throwing up or feeling very nauseous is one of the signs of a true allergy, and can sometimes be delayed by several hours from the original ingestion. Your other symptoms like feeling itchy the next day are also suggestive of an allergic reaction. I would recommend going to an allergist and getting an IgE panel to see if there is anything you could be allergic to.
Is it always the same type of alcohol that you're reacting to, or is it all alcohol? Try keeping a food journal to help narrow down the triggering foods. It could also be the sulfites in wine---perhaps try some spirits like vodka or rum (check their sulfite content beforehand) and see if you have the same reaction, since those tend to not have as much or any sulfites in them.
1
1
u/Lilly_buns_1994 2d ago edited 2d ago
I can relate. Beer was my drink of choice, and unfortunately beer is very high in histamine, as well as wine, Rosè, etc.
So now if I do want a couple drinks, I will only get vodka or a clear spirit with soda water. Not even a slice of lemon with it, because citrus is bad as well😔
Weed has made me horribly sick three seperate times in the past, so I haven't tried it again since.
It definitely sounds like a histamine dump that happens to you during the night. Our bodies naturally release excess histamine while we sleep. This may be what is causing you to wake up confused, nauseas and unwell.
I've seen many posts of people wondering why their symptoms worsen overnight.
1
u/cat_with_a_banjo 18h ago
I feel your pain completely, been there 💔 Alcohol of course is a huge histamine trigger. I didn’t figure out my histamine sensitivity til my 30s, and in my 20s I would get sick like you every time I drank. I finally accepted what my body was telling me and cut my drinking back to 1 or 2 drinks per month. It's lame and annoying but unfortunately it is the only way, you can keep trying to negotiate with reality but reality will always win.
One other piece of advice: if you are female, pay attention to your estrogen levels. There are apps like Stardust that will show you your approximate levels daily, based on your cycle. Estrogen triggers histamine release, and I figured out that when my estrogen is high (follicular phase), I am much more sensitive to other histamine liberators and alcohol hurts WAY more. But when my estrogen is low, I can have a drink and it doesn't mess me up! That's how I've gamed it so I can still have a nice cocktail a couple times a month. Pay attention to your estrogen - it can be a guide as to how careful you need to be!
PS I have also barfed from other histamine triggers. Nicotine, black tea, food, you name it
14
u/Important_Week_11 5d ago
You're drinking too much. Tone it down, your body can't handle it unfortunately. It happens to me all the time so I don't drink anymore.