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What do mast cells, histamine, estrogen, and endometriosis all have in common? A whole lot more than you might think.
We're wrapping up the Endo Uncovered series with one of the most requested topics from Erin's Instagram community: the connection between mast cell activation syndrome (MCAS) and endometriosis.
In this episode, Erin and Rachel start with the basics (because what the heck is a mast cell, anyway?!) before getting into the very real connection between immune system dysregulation, histamine, estrogen, inflammation, and endometriosis symptoms, plus why MCAS can be so difficult to identify.
You’ll also hear a real client case study involving endometriosis, MCAS, mold exposure, elevated lead levels, gut dysbiosis, and methylation issues.
In this episode:
What mast cells are, how they protect the body, and what happens when they keep releasing inflammatory chemicals
The dangerous feedback loop that can amplify real physical symptoms
What mold, heavy metals, chronic stress, infections, and histamine intake have to do with mast cell activation
Why antihistamines can improve PMS and PMDD symptoms for some women
Resources mentioned:
Listen to Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4 of the Endo Uncovered series.
Manifest Your Health is the neuroscience-backed membership that helps you regulate your nervous system, integrate the parts of you that keep you stuck, and become the version of yourself your body can actually heal as.
Apply for 1:1 Endometriosis Support here if you’re navigating painful periods, suspected or diagnosed endometriosis, gut symptoms, hormone issues, or inflammation.
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Rachel:
We do know that endometriosis lesions contain high amounts of mast cells. This has been proven through studies and research, and estrogen directly activates those mast cells through those estrogen receptors that are on the surface of the mast cells. When these mast cells are activated, they release histamine, and when we have higher levels of histamine in our body, this can stimulate our ovaries to release more estrogen, and then you have that increased estrogen stimulating the mast cells to release more histamine.
Welcome to the Funk’tional Nutrition Podcast, spelled with a K because we do things a little differently around here. I'm your host, Erin Holt, and I've got 15 years of clinical experience as a functional nutritionist and mindset coach, creating a new model that I call Intuitive Functional Medicine™, where we combine root cause medicine with the innate intelligence of your body. This is where science meets self-trust. Your body already knows how to heal, and this show is going to show you how. If you're looking for new ways of thinking about your health, be sure to follow and share with a friend because you never know whose life you might change.
Erin:
Hey guys, we're back. This is our last episode in the endometriosis podcast series. So if you haven't listened to our last 4 episodes, we do recommend go back and do that.
In part 1, we talked about when to suspect endometriosis, what signs and symptoms to be looking for. In part 2, Rachel shared her whole story leading up to her endo diagnosis and her recent surgery. In part 3, we talked about what to do if you have been diagnosed with endo. And we also talk about how we approach endometriosis in our practice. And then in part 4, we covered what to consider when looking for an endo surgeon, the difference between ablation and excision, and strategies that can help you prepare your body for surgery if you're going that route. So today we are chatting about the MCAS and endometriosis connection. This was a big request from folks on Instagram. If you have endometriosis, you should be aware of mast cells and histamine-related issues.
I was just in San Diego last week with a colleague of ours. I want to say it's not a practitioner colleague, it's a business colleague. But she was diagnosed with endo and got excision surgery last year. And we were talking all about endo. And I kept mentioning mast cells in our conversation, like I probably said it like 2 or 3 times. And finally, she's like, Erin, what is a mast cell? And this is somebody who's really familiar with endometriosis. obviously her own experience, but she's done a lot of research on her own as well, but she didn't know about mast cells or understand the connection. So, I realized with her, I had to kind of back up and start from the beginning.
So, Rachel, I think that is exactly the place that we should start with today's podcast. Let's define what mast cells actually are.
Rachel:
So, mast cells are parts of the immune system and they live in your tissues instead of the bloodstream, and you can find them in pretty much every organ. When a threat is identified, mast cells break down or degranulate, and they release a ton of inflammatory mediators. This can include histamine, but it's not just histamine. It can be cytokines, prostaglandins, proteases, just a lot of different inflammatory compounds. And in a normal immune or inflammatory response, your mast cells will detect a threat, they'll break down, they'll release those inflammatory mediators, and this increases inflammation. It basically preps your body to attack the threat that was detected. The threat is identified, it's neutralized, it's eliminated, and then your immune system basically says, okay, we're good. It's gonna downregulate that inflammation, and it returns to baseline.
And when we're dealing with MCAS, or mast cell activation syndrome, those mast cells, they stay stimulated, they don't really turn back down to baseline. And so, when we're thinking about MCAS, it's really characterized by that excessive mast cell activation and degranulation. And oftentimes, people with MCAS, they actually have a normal amount of mast cells in their tissues, but they become really hypervigilant, they become sensitive and reactive. And what this means is we're releasing those inflammatory mediators too often, and we're triggering the immune system, stimulating the immune system way too much. And these symptoms can affect the whole body, which can sometimes make it hard to pinpoint, am I dealing with MCAS? Like, what is going on? And so again, with MCAS, mast cells are releasing these inflammatory mediators too often, in too large of amounts, and then in response to inappropriate triggers or inappropriate threats of the system as well. And like I mentioned, mast cells are everywhere throughout our body in pretty much all of our organs, and the symptoms can be pretty widespread. So, the way that MCAS can show up on the skin would be flushing, itching. Dermatographia is when you can basically write in your skin.
You take your fingernail and you barely press on your skin, you could write an R in it, and that would stay raised and elevated for a while. Hives, rashes, and eczema are pretty classic with MCAS. From a GI side of things, we can see bloating, diarrhea, abdominal cramping, nausea or vomiting, because, you know, we do have a ton of mast cells in our gut. IBS, acid reflux, GERD, eosinophilic esophagitis is another way that MCAS can present in the gut. We can see headaches, migraines, brain fog, vertigo, anxiety, depression, difficulty falling asleep, difficulty staying asleep. And then from a cardiovascular side of things, we can see hypotension, which is low blood pressure. We can see POTS-like symptoms, we can see dysautonomia and/or tachycardia as well.
Erin:
Yeah, and I think these widespread symptoms are really important to highlight. First of all, you can have flushing without having MCAS, you can have bloating without having MCAS, you can have a hard time falling asleep without MCAS. So it becomes confusing to pinpoint. And if you have all of these symptoms, I really would be thinking about more of an MCAS situation. But this is something that I've really been talking about for years and years now at this point, Specifically as it relates to autoimmunity, how autoimmune patients can go up to a decade before receiving a diagnosis because symptoms are so widespread. Autoimmunity can affect any system or organ in the body from top to tail, so symptoms can legitimately be all over the map. So these patients are kind of dropped into a bucket of like, we're not really sure what to do with you. So they tend to be the patients that are really, really underserved because it is so hard to pinpoint a diagnosis.
And I'm bringing this up now because we can see the same exact thing with MCAS because the symptoms are so widespread and kind of random. Because those symptoms can overlap with other conditions, it can just be more challenging to pinpoint for people what's going on with them. And it's not a really well-understood condition at this point in time. So there are just so many MCAS people that are being underserved. And these are the people that really start to feel like they're going crazy. Like, why am I so sensitive? Why am I a hypochondriac? Why can't I eat foods that everyone else can eat without having these symptoms? Like, why can't I walk into a building without feeling I'm gonna pass out? What is wrong with me? And it can be really emotionally challenging too, especially if you don't have context for what's going on, if you don't have a diagnosis, if you don't really understand. So I want to speak into this side of things for a moment in case you're listening to the show and can relate to this. And I want to just affirm and validate this for you.
Totally not the point of today's episode. But I want you to understand that the fear of what's going on in your body, the fear associated with your symptoms, the not knowing, the fear of the future, the fear of the unknown—all of that creates real fear physiology in the body. So fear physiology, when we are fearful in our mind, it can create physiology in the body, and that fear physiology can amplify and exacerbate symptoms in a very real physiological way. This Does not mean that these things are all in your head. It's literally happening in your body. But what is happening in your head, the story that you have about your symptoms, the emotional experience that creates, can absolutely undeniably influence the way that these symptoms express themselves in the actual body. And I'm bringing this up because there is— when you, especially if you are on Instagram and you're learning about MCAS, which I think is actually a wonderful place to learn about your symptoms sometimes, is social media, you'll hear a lot about the nervous system in relation to MCAS. And that's an important conversation.
But I think sometimes when we go too far in that direction, people can sort of misinterpret that and be like, oh, this is all just happening because I'm stressed out, or all this is happening in my head. It's like, no, what's happening in your head is influencing it, but it is actually happening in your body. This is why I'm so passionate about brain rewiring and nervous system repatterning in these chronic inflammatory conditions, whether it is MCAS or endometriosis or autoimmunity or something else, because the symptoms create this anxiety and this loop of I'm so fearful of what's going on in my body, I don't understand it, I'm trying to get ahead of it. And that kind of reinforces the very real symptoms. So that's why I created the Manifest Your Health membership. And I'm going to come back next week and talk more into the brain rewiring side of things. But I just want to say that this can be a big part of the MCAS picture. And I know I just mentioned autoimmunity, but just to be clear, so there's no confusion, MCAS is not an autoimmune condition, but it is inflammatory and immune dysregulation.
So we can certainly So we see overlap between MCAS and autoimmunity. What other conditions, Rachel, are associated with MCAS?
Rachel:
So of course, endometriosis, interstitial cystitis, Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, chronic fatigue syndrome, and multiple chemical sensitivities as well. And mast cells, they have estrogen receptors on their surface. They also have receptors for progesterone, insulin, testosterone, and And a few others. So when we think about mast cells, they really are immune system cells that listen and respond to your endocrine system as well. So it's all connected.
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Erin:
For those of you guys who have been listening to the podcast series, you probably know that there's an endometriosis estrogen connection. And I just heard you talk about estrogen and the endocrine system. So kind of tie it all together for listeners. How does all of that relate to endometriosis?
Rachel:
So we do know that endometriosis lesions contain high amounts of mast cells. This has been proven through studies and research. And estrogen directly activates those mast cells through those estrogen receptors that are on the surface of the mast cells. The estrogen also activates the mast cells that are inside of those endo lesions. And again, so when mast cells are activated, they release histamines, they release all of those other inflammatory cytokines. They also release another growth factor. It's called fibroblast growth factor 2. And Basically, when we release these histamines, they sensitize our nerve endings, and this can cause and contribute to pain.
And then this fibroblast growth factor 2 helps cells grow and helps form new blood vessels in tissue. So, we think about new blood vessels growing all the time with endometriosis. And so, if your mast cells are really active in your endometriosis lesions, it can lead to a lot of ongoing inflammation. Pain, fibrosis, adhesions, and scarring. So that's the big endo-mast cell connection. The endometriosis tissue also responds to estrogen itself, and this is part of the reason why estrogen is one of the drivers of the growth of those endometriosis lesions. So as we see increasing levels of estrogen, this estrogen activates our mast cells, When those mast cells are activated, we see more pain, we see more inflammation, we see more cytokines released, we see tissue growing, and then we have more of that tissue that's actually responding to estrogen itself. It's kind of like chicken or the egg, a feed-forward cycle.
Another negative feedback loop that we can see is we have our mast cells. When these mast cells are activated, they release histamine. And when we have higher levels of histamine in our body, this can stimulate our ovaries to release more estrogen. And then you have that increased estrogen stimulating the mast cells to release more histamine. So that's why it's so, so important to stabilize your mast cells when you have endometriosis, because it can make such a big deal when it comes to your endo-related pain, your histamine-related issues, and symptoms overall.
Erin:
Yeah, so it's like, are we looking to stabilize mast cells? Are we looking to try to lower estrogen or clear estrogen? Or is it kind of all of the above when we're thinking about endometriosis MCAS, and histamine-related symptoms, if you're thinking about this clinically, like, okay, I'm working with somebody who has any of these, what are the major areas that you're looking to support?
Rachel:
So one of the first areas we're thinking about is wanting to see healthy estrogen levels, healthy estrogen metabolism, and healthy estrogen clearance, like detoxification from the body. And estrogen is processed in our liver in 2 separate phases. So it's really important to keep alcohol and other endocrine disrupting substances low as they place additional demand on your liver pathways. You know, they can influence both your estrogen levels and how your body is metabolizing histamines. I want to acknowledge genetics absolutely can influence estrogen metabolism, especially methylation. And again, endocrine disruptors can really impact this negatively. I feel like we talk about bile every time that we record a podcast. Every time.
Erin:
Never not.
Rachel:
But bile is literally how we move processed hormones, estrogen, toxins, medications, supplements from the liver into our gut. And so when we're thinking about how can we support that bile flow, we're thinking about wanting to eat more bitter foods and then wanting to eat more cholagogues, which are basically foods that like keep the bile thin and keep it flowing freely, like ginger and artichoke hearts and dandelion root tea. And then the gut is the last step in estrogen detox. And this is why we always treat the gut in our patients that come to us with endo, but like hormone conditions in general. So we need to keep you pooping, we need to keep the bowels moving, we need to make sure you're eating plenty of fiber and that we're addressing constipation. And then we really want to make sure that we're assessing the microbiome too, because there's a massive amount of mast cells in the microbiome as well.
Erin:
I will just say, just to throw in my anecdotal stuff, I just pulled another stool test on myself. So I was on antibiotics for a sinus infection this winter, and I shared my story here about like, I thought it was perimenopause. I had all like these hormone symptoms. And it turned out to be thyroid and gut. And I had to support my gut. Well, guess what? My beta-glucuronidase is elevated again. And I wouldn't say I'm having like crazy hormone symptoms, but like breast tenderness, definitely some of those more estrogen-forward type symptoms. And I did a Dutch test just to do my due diligence to see hormone levels.
But I'm like, every time I have hormone levels, it's always my freaking gut, like the weak link in my body. Anyway, go on.
Rachel:
It's one of those things too, like the deficiency in beneficial bacteria can raise beta-glucuronidase. And I just had excision surgery in June, and I was put on Flagyl for 2 weeks post-op, like prophylactically. And then I also, like earlier this month, I took 2 weeks of doxy for endometritis, which was recommended at my post-op visit. So, I know I'm due for some gut work as well just to like make sure everything is in tip-top shape. Oh, and the problem with having excess levels of estrogen as well, excess estrogen or estrogen dominance, this causes more mast cell stimulation. This contributes to higher histamine levels. This contributes to the proliferation or growth of endolesions. And then, when we have higher levels of estrogen, this downregulates an enzyme called DAO, Or diamine oxidase.
This is an enzyme that's really helpful in breaking down histamine in the gut. So again, it's all connected. Something else we wanna be looking at, or we want to ensure, is that there are healthy progesterone levels. Progesterone stabilizes mast cells, and I like to say that progesterone kind of keeps estrogen in check. It can also help to keep symptoms in check. Progesterone can calm the nervous system. It can support sleep. And, something that we can see time and time again is when someone has long-term stress, depleted adrenals, lots of inflammation in their body, this can contribute to low progesterone.
Vitamin B6 and C are cofactors. And, there's a lot we can do to support progesterone. This is also why women with endometriosis can have more symptoms pop up in perimenopause as their progesterone levels start to dip and there's more unopposed estrogen in circulation. And one thing I wanted to touch on, there is no formal test for this, but there's also a thought that women with endometriosis have tissues that are a little bit more progesterone resistant, meaning they could have really healthy levels of progesterone on lab testing. Maybe things are looking optimal, but maybe their tissues aren't responding to progesterone the same way as someone without endometriosis.
Erin:
What is the workaround there? Like, would that be a candidate for HRT, specifically progesterone, maybe topical.
Rachel:
Possibly. Yeah, absolutely. And really keeping your estrogen levels in check as well.
Erin:
So we want to make sure that we're clearing estrogen. We want— we don't want to have too much unopposed estrogen. So we need healthy progesterone levels. And then we also want to support histamine clearance. Obviously, keeping estrogen in check is going to support like histamine levels in the body. But we also want to make sure that we are clearing histamine.
Rachel:
Mm-hmm, exactly, because high levels of histamine stimulate the ovaries to produce more estrogen. And this is why many women notice improvements in their period, their PMS, their PMDD when they take antihistamines regularly. I feel like there was a big wave on TikTok and social media— There was. A few years ago, and it's continued, where people are like, oh my gosh, I started taking antihistamines daily and things got so much better. When you take the antihistamines, it's basically like blocking your histamine receptors from responding to those histamines, but those histamines are still being released. So, it's great to get that symptom relief, but we do want to dive a little bit deeper because all of those histamines, again, they're still being released, they're just not like binding to those receptors. So, we really wanna think about how can we support histamine clearance. The 2 main pathways, or the 2 main enzymes that I think about, one is DAO, that enzyme that degrades histamine in the gut.
It is produced by enterocytes, or the cells in your small intestine, and we need a handful of nutrients to make DAO that are cofactors. B6, and vitamin C. Those are also cofactors for progesterone, and copper. So we want to have healthy levels of those nutrients to make sure that we're making enough DAO. But if someone has a lot of long-term gut infections, if someone has a long-standing history of SIBO or leaky gut or celiac disease, these are all conditions that can interfere with our body's ability to produce this enzyme because they're affecting the health of those cells that line your intestines, basically. And then also another reminder is that if you have estrogen dominance, this is going to reduce your DAO production as well. I've actually worked with some women—it's super interesting—where they do not need DAO in the first half of their cycle, but they do really well with DAO around ovulation and in those like ten days leading up to their period because that is when their estrogen levels are higher. So it's a cool connection.
HNMT is another enzyme. This degrades histamine. histamine in the brain and the liver. It is dependent on magnesium and methylation. And oftentimes, this can present— issues with HNMT can present as difficulty falling asleep, difficulty staying asleep, racing thoughts, and anxiety as well. And then, a third pathway that is lesser known is sulfation. And this is just another pathway we can use to clear histamine from the body, but it's really, really important to support histamine clearance In the context of MCAS, because with MCAS, your mast cells are releasing a ton of histamine. So we want to make sure that those clearance pathways are optimized and working well too.
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Erin:
And then you also mentioned stabilizing mast cells. So how would we do that? So just in summary, we want to support healthy estrogen levels, healthy estrogen clearance, we want to support healthy progesterone levels, we want to make sure that we're supporting histamine clearance. And we also need to stabilize mast cells.
Rachel:
Yes. And again, this is because when you have angry mast cells, they're going to release more of those inflammatory mediators. including histamine. When histamine levels are higher, we have higher levels of estrogen, and then we have worsening endometriosis. So I wanna be totally transparent that treating MCAS and stabilizing mast cells really is multifaceted. You really need to be working with a practitioner who isn't afraid to dig deep and question things. Rarely will a single lab address MCAS completely, and I wanna be totally transparent, these are patients that are quite sensitive. We have to progress through treatment slowly.
It is a little bit of trial and error to see what works with their bodies. Because what I've really seen in practice is like, what typically works for people doesn't always typically work in MCAS patients too.
Erin:
Yeah, so there has to be a lot of patience on the side of both the client, but then also the practitioner. And I'm thinking of— this kind of goes back to what you were saying earlier. I'm thinking of the client who woke up like 4 to 5 times a night to pee. And you're like, I think this might be a histamine thing, try an antihistamine at night. And she was able to reduce that. So kind of being willing to like throw things against a wall. You're like, this might work, this might help. Yeah.
Totally not. Like, you have to get a little creative, but also like, bring a little like levity into it. It's hard to do when you've got a lot of symptoms, but bring a little levity or like, I'm willing to try this, you know, it might be the thing, it might not be the thing. And just making sure that you're working with a practitioner that understands that part, so they can contextualize it for you. A lot of MCAS clients are aware that they are more sensitive. That's not like shocking to a lot of MCAS people. And so Interventions sometimes also have to be titrated really slowly. So you want somebody that understands that and can validate that for you.
But also like somebody who can help you expand your capacity to be able to tolerate more. I'm speaking from experience here with autoimmunity. I got so nervous that anything I would do would trigger a flare. I started doing a lot, lot less. And part of my recovery was like, let's try this. And I was, I was so grateful to have a practitioner who's like, it's okay if we try this, it's okay, it's not going to send you into like a complete and utter breakdown. So there has to be a little bit of a relationship and a little bit of a dance. But you also don't want somebody who's creating such an aggressive treatment protocol that it's going to push you too far over your edge and into complete dysregulation.
And then for folks who do have MCAS and aren't aware that they're going to be more sensitive, You need a practitioner to explain, like, like Rachel said, like, hey, this process is probably going to be a little bit slower for you because of that. And that's okay. That's part of the process. What are specific areas we would need to evaluate with MCAS?
Rachel:
So we do want to rule out exposure to mold toxins or heavy metals. The toxin exposure is very, very aggravating to our mast cells. We also want to take a look at the microbiome. We have the this gut-associated lymphatic tissue, or GALT for short. It's home to a ton of immune cells. It's actually the biggest reserve of mast cells in the body. And, you know, when someone has a really reactive gut, they're going to have a really reactive immune system, and as a result, really reactive mast cells. We want to take a look at their emotional state and their stress levels too.
High cortisol degranulates mast cells, and we really can't skimp on that nervous system side of things. Even with my mast cell patients, a lot of times we'll dive into their relationships and their environment. Not like, where are you living, but like, what are you getting exposed to on a daily basis? Your social media feed, who are you spending time with, things like that. We're also wanting to address underlying infections, possibly Lyme, Epstein-Barr, you know, do they have a history of COVID or long COVID? With their nutrition, we're really wanting to assess nutrient density, blood sugar balance, balance as well, and then their intake of histamines overall, and then hormone status, which we've discussed already on this podcast. And something to consider— this is not always something we have to do— but do we need to reduce the amount of histamines coming into their body from the outside environment? Does their diet need to temporarily be adjusted to be a little bit more low histamine so that we're not exacerbating things further? Is histamine coming in from the environment? And when I say this, you know, We can talk about allergens in the environment. Like, you know, are you wearing your shoes outdoors and then wearing them indoors and tracking in a bunch of pollen and dirt? That's one thing to consider. Also, again, we're thinking about environmental toxicants as well.
Erin:
And you were saying that sometimes a low histamine diet as a trial can be helpful too.
Rachel:
Definitely.
Erin:
This may be a tricky question, but curious, percentage-wise, and based on what you've seen, what percentage of MCAS Does have some type of underlying infection? And I don't mean gut infection, but like you said, like the Lyme, the tick-borne illness, EBV, or long COVID.
Rachel:
Honestly, it's not typically where I start with people, but it is a variable for us to consider. Usually I'm wanting, you know, diet, stress management, hormone health, gut is all definitely lower hanging fruit than like diving into the infections. But sometimes you can, Figure this out when you're chatting with an individual and they're like, oh yeah, I got really sick in 2020 and nothing's been the same since. It's like, okay, then we might be thinking about like, is this a COVID picture? It's not uncommon for people with histamine issues to— this is not always the case— but have a history of like, oh yeah, I got bit by a tick, or yeah, I've been treated for Lyme in the past as well. Sometimes these infections can stay dormant or hidden in the body, like creating low-grade inflammation and aggravating those mast cells too. I would say we're talking about this like maybe 15 to 20% of the time. It's a less common root cause of MCAS than, you know, environmental toxins and the gut for sure, but it's absolutely a piece of the picture for some.
Erin:
Yeah, that makes sense. Do you wanna share a little bit about an MCAS client that you're working right now to like contextualize some of this stuff?
Rachel:
Yeah, so this client came to me knowing that she had MCAS. She is post-hysterectomy. The hysterectomy was completed because she has endometriosis as well. I should clarify, actually, she found out she had endometriosis when the hysterectomy was performed because she had fibroids and a lot of irregular bleeding. And so when they were in there, they're like, oh yeah, you have endo. So So, we ran a handful of different tests on her. Her Mycotox profile revealed mold. Her HTMA revealed very high levels of lead.
And, after further conversation with her, she's been DIYing some home projects and stripping the paint off of— really old paint off of parts of her home. So, we know that's where that's coming from. Her GI Map revealed dysbiosis. And then, she had an elevated marker on her GI Map. It was the eosinophil activation protein, which also tells us, hey, there's a big histamine response occurring in your gut. And, she also came to me with testing that showed she's not a good methylator. And again, methylation is involved in phase 2 of estrogen metabolism and detoxification in general. So, for her, we're thinking about mold, heavy metals, gut, and methylation.
These are 4 factors that are contributing to her overall symptoms. And really, before we started any detox work or gut work, one of my first recommendations was bringing in some additional mast cell stabilizing support, methylation support, and histamine clearance support that was really personalized to her and targeted to her test results as well. And one thing I want to mention too, you know, because in FNA we do mentor practitioners, I see this a lot with practitioners where people come with mast cell activation syndrome and practitioners really just want to tunnel vision focus on the gut. The gut is The gut is a part of this, but it's really important to expand beyond the gut when someone is extremely reactive as well. And it's just the perfect example of the treatment that this individual is receiving is really comprehensive. It's not just focusing on the gut, although she did also come to me dealing with some pretty gnarly diarrhea, which has since resolved too.
Erin:
No more diarrhea. You know, I appreciate you bringing that up because, you know, I keep drawing parallels between this and autoimmunity, just because there is a lot of overlap, and it's like that, I think that's people's reaction with autoimmunity too. It's like, let's go to the gut. And some autoimmune patients are so reactive that to put somebody on a hardcore detox protocol or just immediately try to kill things off in the gut, that can really flare them up quite a lot. And we have to focus more on stabilization, stabilizing the immune system first. And stabilizing mast cells is stabilizing part of the immune system. So I think that that's an important thing for everybody to hear, whether you're a practitioner or an MCAS patient, just understand that. So thank you, Rachel, for coming on once again.
That wraps up our whole series on endometriosis. And if you've been following along, and any part of this sounds like you, or you'd like the type of support that we've been talking about here, please reach out. This is the exact thing that we offer at The Functional Nutritionist. You can fill out the application form in our show notes. If you enjoyed the little nervous system tangent part of this discussion and you want to learn more, go back a couple of episodes where I'm talking about the nervous system's role in chronic health challenges. And also stick around for next week's podcast where I will be talking about more of the brain rewiring aspect, how to rewire your way out of chronic inflammation. And thanks, Rachel.
Rachel:
Thanks, Erin.
Thanks for joining me for this episode of the Functional Nutrition Podcast. Please keep in mind this podcast is created for educational purposes only and should never be used as a replacement for medical diagnosis or treatment. If you got something from today's show, don't forget subscribe, leave a review, share with a friend, and keep coming back for more. Take care of you.