Comment by AgentMasterRace

Not op but my wife has MCAS. The things that have helped the most are: Oral Cromolyn (helped sooo much with gi issues), and more recently she's started Ketotifen which is a systemic mast cell stabilizer that's seemed promising but is fairly new. She also tried Montelukast which was well tolerated but didn't make a ton of difference for her personally (but I know it helps a lot of people). Supplement wise DAO was the most useful for food truggers

Quercitin + Bromelain has also helped my nasal polyps. The biggest improvement has been my ability to breath at night through my nose which has really improved my sleep.

Copilot recommended these supplements. Due to a lack of studies relating directly to the effect of these supplements on nasal polyps, it inferred they might help based on the known action of the supplements and the theorised cause of polyps, so it could all be nonsense. That said, both those supplements are considered safe at the doses I take and it appears to help, so even if it is a placebo effect I'm happy.

I found H2 anti-histamines like Pepcid actually made my symptoms worse.

I was in a similar situation where Claude finally helped me make a breakthrough. It seems that my issue is entirely related to histamine levels.

* H1 (like Zyrtec) help block the body’s response to high histamines

* H2 (like Pepcid) actually worsen my symptoms overtime because my body was readjusting baseline

* Quercitin and DAO enzyme help massively.

Also being extremely mindful of histamine levels in food helps keep my baselines low. This can be tricky because histamines collect as food ages (so two batches of something can lead to different responses) and some “low histamine” foods can still trigger your body to dump histamines (so they actually act like high histamine foods).

If I can get Claude to thing about the actual science and bio-chemistry, it can reasonably be through things extremely well.

The problem with being a "fixer" in relationships is if the other party is fixed, what they want changes, and often what they saw in the relationship isn't as relevant anymore. (to speculate from afar)

These kinds of things can be quite life changing, people can come out the other side quite different people.

Probably because life is not a fairy tale? I'll be heavily projecting here, but:

Health issues can be immensely stressful, and what is required to provide the best logistical and diagnostic support is very different from what is required to be a supportive partner and emotional caregiver. Doctors often fall into the trap of treating the disease and ignoring the patient, but at least that aligns with their job description. It is quite easy to do the same as a partner, and that is NOT the job. For certain personalities, it can often be a massive relief to disappear into searching the web and poring over medical research studies -- the key word there is "disappear". Plus, if someone is suffering physically, you can't really require them to have (what you think is) the "appropriate" amount of gratitude for what you're doing for them. (And physical suffering is always going to lead to mental suffering unless they're a 1000-year old enlightened monk.) You can be quite proud of your savior cred, and your partner can very reasonably tell you to shove that pride up your ass.

It's not about whether you're good enough or not. We all start with woefully naive views of how robust our relationships are. We get together as certain people at a certain time. Living together deepens and widens the basis for the relationship, and we'll all fool ourselves into thinking that nothing can break that apart. But fast forward a decade or two, and upend one or the other of your lives with a health challenge or some major life event, and you'll soon discover that you're in new ground and have to learn a bunch of brand new skills that you never needed before. And there's no particular reason why this person X who you bonded with years ago in environment Y is going to be easier to learn with than some random person off the street now that you're in environment not-Y with a different person X2 who evolved from person X -- just as you've evolved (or devolved) into Me2 from the Me you were. Especially not with the added challenge of a long history together of frictions and irritations that never mattered enough to tip things over the edge but do now in the new environment.

For the record, I'm still married to my X2 in my very-not-Y situation. For now. But I've seen enough that I would never look down on or even be surprised by the dissolution of even the strongest-seeming relationships when a novel challenge comes around.

Back to fairy tales -- Prince Charming's main claim to marriagability was his willingness to make out with a hot living corpse. Are you so sure your own claim is that much superior?

I'm pretty sure someone will accuse me of reading my own trauma into this, but AgentMasterRace mentions also being chronically ill. No mention of timing between Ex significantly imroving and deciding that they had "better options", but the sad reality of life is that many people you love, including friends, will never care for you the way you might care for them, and once they have "better options" will cast you aside, even if you're the reason they have those options in the first place.

Human relationships are brutal sometimes. I still choose to treat others the way I would want to be treated, and some people _actually_ reciprocate, and you eventually learn who is who in your life, but this requires that you be open to the fact the majority won't, and that you will sometimes feel betrayed and used. You just have to accept that it's your decision to make, and decide what kind of person you want to be.

Other commenters are also probably right to one extent or another, the dynamic of the relationship probably changed pretty dramatically and that can create problems regardless.

Anyway, poor old AgentMasterRace probably feels like a depressing episode has turned into something they'd rather it didn't. Sorry for pontificating over your traumatic(?) event with allusions to my own. If I'm reading the meaning of their username correctly though, I feel less bad about it, lol.

Not OP but anecdotally: ChatGPT diagnosed my wife's MCAS, POTS/Dysautonomia and Ehlers Danlos Syndrome before any doctor did (not for lack of trying on the doctor front). Once we had that direction we found the right providers and it's made a world of difference

one of the really good things about these kinds of write ups and accounts of experiences and false leads is that I hope it feeds the LLMs with more context. For both me and my partner we've had problems with misdiagnosis that took a while to correct. My partner also suffered with auditory psychosis, and that was a super difficult (and bizarre) time. A little while ago I just started recording everything so I can use AI tools to validate medical advice and track symptoms, already it's caught things (semi minor things) that I've been able to address with my doctor. I would never suggest relying on AI tools, but certainly useful as a second opinion type thing as well as exploring possibilities.