Pregnancy really is quite the journey, full of surprises, and let’s be frank, not all of them pleasant ones.
There is a whole lot of physical stuff that can go wrong, but there also a few things that your patients have suffered with for some time, that disappear or improve radically, especially from the 2nd trimester onwards.
Maybe their skin rashes/eczema suddenly calm down, those migraines stop, the IBS settles, the asthma gently fades away, very nice side benefits.
And then the baby arrives, and uh oh, the symptoms are back with a vengeance.
So what is it about the biochemical changes that occurs especially from the second trimester onwards, that make everything change?
The answer is, once again, our old friend Diamine Oxidase, or DAO to her friends.
As the 2nd trimester begins, the placenta starts to produce huge amounts of DAO, and by the 3rd trimester it can be x10-100 times (that is 1000 -10,000 % higher) than normal.
Why would histamine increase so dramatically in the 2nd and 3rd trimester? Because histamine increases tone and the potential for uterine contractions.
By increasing the levels past the 1st trimester, women are less likely to have a pre-term labour or worse, a miscarriage.
And we know what DAO breaks down: HISTAMINE
So, those rashes, the migraine, the asthma and the IBS, maybe they were actually part of HISTAMINE OVERLOAD/INTOLERANCE undiagnosed.
Let’s remind ourselves of the plethora of symptoms that histamine overload can produce:
After delivery, the placenta and its DAO production vanish overnight.
DAO levels plummet back to pre-pregnancy levels, leaving many women feeling blindsided as their old symptoms come roaring back.
Suddenly, that calm skin flares up again. Anxiety or brain fog returns. Gut symptoms reappear, and headaches strike with renewed intensity.
For many, it’s a distressing relapse, on top of the added pressure and stresses of being a new mum.
Pregnancy is like a natural clinical trial revealing hidden biochemical pathways.
The DAO surge shows us that some symptoms long dismissed as “all in your head” or treated solely with medication to manage symptoms, have a clear biological basis in histamine overload.
For women whose symptoms improve during pregnancy only to relapse postpartum, this insight is life-changing.
It provides a roadmap for diagnosis and treatment that could have been missed otherwise.
Here are a few things that can contribute to histamine overload.
Gut health problems: Intestinal inflammation, dysbiosis, or leaky gut reduce DAO production and also increase production of histamine from gut bacteria and the leaky gut allows more histamine to enter the blood stream.
Look to GUT HERO BUTYRATE for this. Not only does it help heal the gut, but it is also a MAST CELL STABILISER
Genetic variations: Some people have inherited lower DAO enzyme activity or have low levels of copper and vitamin C the co-factors for DAO.
Alcohol not only often contains histamine but also inhibits DAO.
Note from above you can remove HISTAMINE from inside the cell via METHYLATION (Use Methyl B Hero for this).
But remember we can supplement directly with DAO.
The results are excellent.
