Success at last! Depression, gut dysbiosis and histamine.

I have posted here before about how vitamin C helps my son's Depression but now I have more information and we have figured out how to overcome his symptoms and some people here might be helped by the same method. Our son, now 17, was on Antibiotics multiple times over 2 years ago which messed up his gut bacteria, leading to depression. It has taken 2 years to figure out the answers, but we have learned that the organisms that are growing in his gut are producing histamine, and they release huge amounts of histamine when they die off from certain probiotics or oil of oregano, etc, causing severe depression, where when he was at his worst I would find him lying in bed staring up at the ceiling for long periods of time.

The long and the short of it is that histamine causes Depression in our son without many of the other symptoms associated with Histamine Intolerance such as anxiety or racing thoughts.

We have discovered that the Depression can be overcome by taking the co-factors needed to produce DOA, or diamine oxidase, the enzyme our bodies make to neutralize histamine in the intestines. Our son had so much histamine produced in his intestines that he ran out of the co-factors and couldn't make enough DOA. We are working on overcoming the gut dysbiosis with the GAPS diet and using the co-factors to eliminate the die off symptoms in the meantime. The depression was terrible so it is wonderful for him to be feeling well now, even while we are still working on overcoming the underlying cause.

Here is our protocol for the co-factors in case anyone wants to try it and see if it helps them. You have to take a sufficient amount or nothing will happen.

Vitamin C almost to bowel tolerance. You should feel some rumbling, and maybe have loose stools. The C has to be taken every few hours when the histamine levels are high because C has a short half life. I like to take ascorbic acid powder with baking soda to mostly neutralize the acidity because some people have to take 10 grams at a time. Try not to take too much on a full stomach or you may get bloating.

B6 - take enough to get vivid dreams and then back off a little. For my son right now that means 100 mg twice a day. Back off when dreams are too vivid.

You might need a little copper, too, up to 6 mg a day, but maybe not. If the vitamin C and B6 help but not completely try adding some copper. I am wondering if taking copper will help lower the need for vitamin C but we just started the copper. Large amounts of vitamin C can interfere with absorption of copper so it is a good idea to take at least 2 mg if you take a lot of C, I think.

This protocol doesn't address the underlying issue, but it can relieve the symptoms. If you are getting a lot of diarrhea from the vitamin C you might need to take magnesium, too, to replace what you lose. It doesn't hurt to be taking a good multivitamin. Tweet