posted
I had never heard of mast cell disease until recently. Two very sick tickborne patients that I follow on other sites have recently been given this diagnosis. Both are mothers who have children most likely infected congenitally and their kids have also been given mast cell diagnoses as well.
I have always been somewhat skeptical of autoimmune diagnoses in regards to tickborne diseases. In both cases I know about it seems like there is a high probablity that tickborne infections triggered some underlying gene that caused the mast cells to become overactive.
This type of scenario is one of the reasons I have always been concerned about the blasting type of docs who prescribe multiple drug combs right off the bat without first seeing how the patient responds to a single antibiotic.
Eventually high doses will be needed to eradicate most tickborne infections but people who have hyper immune responses can and do end up developing mutiple chemical sensitivity or activating some sort of autoimmune disease such as mast cell overstimulation if the body gets too overwhelmed with either drugs or toxins in my opinion.
It is very hard to know how hard to treat. But I believe that most patients have a gut instinct of what they can tolerate. I feel it is always wise to trust your intuition about when to back off meds or go full steam ahead.
Here are the links to the 2 patients I have been following. I think they posted some links to general info on mast cell disorders. Reading their own stories will give a better idea of just what type of symptoms can be caused by mast cell disorders.
Bea Seibert
Posts: 7306 | From Martinsville,VA,USA | Registered: Oct 2004
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poppy
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 5355
posted
I agree with you about autoimmunity in connection with tickborne diseases. It is not uncommon to have autoimmune markers in lyme disease, that subsequently go back to normal with successful treatment.
There is a reason why allergy and infection are handled by the same NIH institute, although I am not sure they have the connection figured out as it relates to chronic infection.
Posts: 2888 | From USA | Registered: Mar 2004
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