Lynn, a 56-year-old former gastroenterology nurse, shares her remarkable healing journey from severe Mast Cell Activation Syndrome (MCAS) and hereditary alpha tryptasemia through the carnivore diet. After 35 years of debilitating symptoms including heat intolerance, exercise intolerance, panic attacks, severe rosacea, throat swelling episodes requiring emergency care, and eventually complete disability, Lynn found dramatic relief within months of adopting a strict carnivore approach.
Lynn's story highlights the complexity of MCAS diagnosis and treatment, as she explains how this condition affects up to 17% of the population but remains severely underdiagnosed. Her symptoms escalated from fertility issues and anxiety in her 20s to life-threatening anaphylactic reactions requiring frequent 911 calls by her 50s. Despite working in gastroenterology and following conventional medical advice about fiber and balanced diets, her condition worsened until she weighed 350 pounds and couldn't function safely as a nurse.
The transformation came when Lynn adopted the Lion Diet - consuming only red meat, salt, and water - after initially trying a broader carnivore approach. This strict elimination protocol cleared her rosacea completely, eliminated throat swelling episodes, and allowed her to lose over 100 pounds. She describes how histamine intolerance in MCAS patients requires careful attention to food freshness, preparation methods, and specific meat types, as even carnivore foods like aged meats, bacon, and certain preparations can trigger reactions.
Lynn's experience demonstrates the connection between gut health and systemic inflammation, showing how eliminating plant foods and focusing on fresh, unprocessed animal products can provide relief even for complex autoimmune conditions. Her story offers hope for others suffering from unexplained chronic symptoms and emphasizes the importance of considering MCAS as a potential underlying cause when conventional treatments fail.
Key Takeaways
- Mast Cell Activation Syndrome affects up to 17% of the population but remains severely underdiagnosed, often requiring patients to see numerous doctors over decades before receiving proper diagnosis
- The Lion Diet (red meat, salt, water only) proved more effective than broader carnivore approaches for severe MCAS, completely eliminating throat swelling episodes that previously required emergency care 2-3 times per week
- Histamine intolerance in MCAS requires avoiding aged, smoked, or leftover meats even on carnivore - fresh ground beef and lamb are safest options while bacon, aged cheeses, and stored leftovers can trigger reactions
- MCAS symptoms can manifest 2-3 days after eating trigger foods rather than immediately, making it crucial to maintain a food diary and wait several days between testing new foods
- Lynn lost over 100 pounds and reversed severe sleep apnea, heat intolerance, and exercise intolerance that had persisted for 35 years through strict carnivore eating
- The Swedish Interest Group histamine list provides the most comprehensive resource for identifying high and low histamine foods, including specific preparation methods and food processing details
- MCAS reactions can affect every body system differently - symptoms may include joint pain, headaches, sinus congestion, heart palpitations, or brain fog rather than obvious allergic reactions
- Even severe autoimmune conditions may require only 2 medications instead of 30+ supplements and drugs when underlying dietary triggers are eliminated through proper carnivore implementation
- Lynn's Journey: From Nursing Career to Mast Cell Activation Syndrome Diagnosis
- Early Symptoms: Heat Intolerance, Exercise Intolerance, and PCOS in Her 20s
- Mental Health Crisis: Panic Attacks and Psychiatric Hospitalization
- Escalating Symptoms in Her 50s: Heart Palpitations and Neurological Issues
- Emergency Room Visits and Mast Cell Activation Syndrome Diagnosis
- Understanding Mast Cell Disease: Prevalence and Misdiagnosis
- Discovering Carnivore Diet: Initial Success and Lion Diet Breakthrough
- Current Diet Protocol: Testing Food Tolerances and Managing Histamine
- Career Impact: Why She Can't Return to Gastroenterology Nursing
- Histamine Foods on Carnivore: Aged Meats, Leftovers, and DAO Enzymes
- Medication Management: From 30 Daily Medications to Just Two
- Resources and Children's Books: Midlife Carnivore Channel and Healing Humanity
This is an auto-generated transcript from YouTube and may contain errors or inaccuracies.
welcome to the plantree MD podcast with Dr Anthony chaffy where we discuss diet and nutrition and how this affects health and chronic disease and show you how you can use this to optimize your health and happiness both mentally and physically hello everyone thank you for joining me for another episode of the plant-free MD I'm your host Dr Anthony chaffy and today I have a very special guest who is going to tell her tell us her story Lynn uh thank you very much for joining it's a pleasure to have you on thank you so much for having me welcome so for those who haven't come across you before can you tell us a bit about yourself and what brings you here today yeah absolutely so um I'm 56 years old been married 34 years Mama three grand Grandma three adoptive parent and uh I have been a carnivore since um the end of May of 2023 I attribute carnivore Di to um saving my life saving me from at least a long miserable life full of suffering if not saving it completely um I was a nurse and had worked in hospitals but then my last seven years as a nurse I had worked in outpatient nursing in a gastroenterology um Department GI hepatology and uh had been dealing with odd symptoms and health problems my whole adult life and um ended up on disability um completely disabled in 2022 June of 2022 which forced me into early retirement from nursing and um I did get a diagnosis but it was 35 years of suffering before I finally got a diagnosis and um after being on disability it took me about a year before I found the carnivore diet and um finally started to see Improvement in my health and it's completely changed my life right so if if you don't mind obviously there these are very personal things but can you describe some of the things that you were suffering with and and how that affected your your daily life and then what changed and how that how that looked for people that might be going through the same thing yeah absolutely so the symptoms started when I was in my 20s and throughout the course of my 20s it manifested in severe heat intolerance severe exercise intolerance excessive fatigue infertility um severe anxiety um a lot of menstrual irregularities and um I was diagnosed with depression too but I think anxiety was the bigger bigger thing with me but I lived down in California at the time and the Central Valley of California is is pretty warm but I noticed that my ability to handle the heat was just non-existent I would go very soon after being out in the heat I would be almost in heat stroke range as far as symptoms go and um I would try to exercise I'd feel worse it would put me it would knock me out for for days sometimes a week of trying to exercise had started to gain weight as well I was diagnosed early in my 20s with polycystic ovarian syndrome but never responded to treatment um in my 30s I did end up with a complete mental breakdown I the way everything affected my brain it was just it was odd because I had these panic attacks that were just this spontaneous panic attacks and I never felt like they matched my emotions it was like my body just took over and launched me into a full-blown panic attack and I didn't feel anxious I was happy I didn't yeah it was just seemed like and I would even go into a panic attack in the middle of the night in my sleep and it would wake me up and um I ended up having just a complete breakdown in my early 30s and I ended up just leaving work and telling my co-workers I have to go and I drove myself to a psychiatric hospital and I told them I am convinced that I'm going to die and they they admitted me and so I ended up five days in a psychiatric hospital by this time we had adopted two of our kids and I mean life was stressful we adopted special needs kids out of the foster care system they were a little bit older when we adopted them and they had both been through abuse you know we know now they both have PTSD and so it wasn't I did have stress um but I thought I was coping pretty well but that completely just wiped me out for years and I did go through a lot of therapy um was on every psych medication there was and um but just continued to gain weight my energy levels were like chronic fatigue levels energy and I was always looking for an energy source and so my eating was usually seeking something that would give me a burst of energy and of course it would never last but so then I'd go back to something else and it was always garbage food it was always very carb heavy sugar heavy food and so I continued to gain weight um when I was before before my 20s I I'm 5'8 I was about 150 160 PBS so for me that was a very good normal weight and and over the course of the Decades by the time I was on disability you know now in my 50s my weight had blossomed up to about 350 pounds so I had put on 200 almost 200 pounds but um I continued to push through all through my 40s and in my 50s is when I really started to have some bizarre symptoms and I had learned to just adapt to the heat intolerance learn to adapt to the exercise intolerance by not exercising um the ility issues the and menstrual irregularities were still there um the anxiety I kind of got it under control pretty well I wasn't having full-blown panic attacks but there was still this underlying sense of anxiety that was there and so when I was in my 50s is when the symptoms started to get really strange and escalate and um I started having dizzy spells and heart palpitations severe tachicardia severe hypertension and the first time it happened I was working in the hospital and so my fellow nurses just like they came to the rescue and then the charger nurse put me in a wheelchair and wheeled me down to the ER and um they couldn't find anything specific so the doctor said well it's probably your inner ear so they sent me home with megazine and um didn't do anything to help and so I ended up going to see a neurologist had a brain MRI ended up to with two brain arm MRIs they didn't find anything unusual um although I was having some weird kind of the almost like seizure type symptoms the doctor thought the neurologist thought it might be a type of seizure it was kind of an outof body type experience that would happen here and there um where and it was almost like deja vu where I would just feel as though I was reexperiencing something but it wasn't anything specific I just had the feeling that I had I was out of my body and I was experiencing something that I had experienced before and so the doctor said well I want to put you on some medication for seizures and I declined I decided I don't want to be on any of that medication uh so I just dealt with it it didn't happen that often but then um I was just frustrated because the episode with the dizzy spells were starting to happen more frequently and um I ended up a couple years later and again this is me I mean nurses are terrible patients you know I'm sure doctors are terrible patients too we tend to be but you know I I just tend to push through things I was a mom at that point I had two teenagers um older teenagers and I was working and trying to function I was gaining so much weight that I was struggling I worked in a critical care and I was bumping into equipment um I got injured because I just was not in good condition moving a patient really messed up my back and my wrist so I ended up going to outpatient nursing and in outpatient nursing I was doing a little bit better but I started experiencing flushing and horrible rosacea and then throat swelling episodes and my co-workers were very worried about me they thought maybe it was menopause and I got my blood work done and I was not in menopause and um but the throat swelling was a new symptom for me and the first time it happened I was at home and I called 911 took a benad drill and the EMTs came and you know my heart rate was very elevated I don't remember what it was but I know my blood pressure was 220 over 120 they it was really high they took me into the ER and ran a battery test the only thing that came back negative was a serum trip taste and so the doctor said you know sent me home with prazone and and benad dril and sent me to go see an allergist who was an immunologist as well and the doctor the allergist said you know possibly you might have mass cell disease of some sort and it took a couple more years to get to diagnosis and that during that time and it's hard to diagnose massel disease I mean the doctors are very familiar with systemic mastocytosis and it's it was a concern that I possibly might have systemic mastocytosis because we did retest my trip taste and it was over 20 and I guess the 20 is the cut off for a concern for systemic mass of cytosis so I did end up getting a bone marrow biopsy um and I did have to and which came back not I did not have systemic m cytosis so the doctor said I think you do have massel Activation Syndrome we did a 24-hour urine collection looking for uh mediators in my urine and that came back one of them came back positive and um I did a genetic test and it turns out I also have hereditary Alpha trypto semia which is kind of related it basically means that when my massels do granulate I produce extra copies of trip taste which is one of the many many chemical mediators of massel releases and so I was I had gotten the diagnosis my co-workers were very always very worried about me because I was I had the most horrible rosacea I would flush so easily um I was barely barely functioning but then and I was looking at possibly needing to change jobs to something less stressful or do something different when I got a in an infection and the infection sent the mass cell disease into a horrible flare and I could not speak Pro I couldn't speak I couldn't get my words out I was stumbling I my brain would freeze and I was on the phone with patients a lot I did a lot of triage on over the phone and patient care and patient management over the phone and um I would freeze right in the middle of a phone call with a patient or I would words come out that I didn't intend to have come out and I was experiencing symptoms in EV pretty much every system of my body because I was having heart palpitations severe abdominal cramping I had bladder irritability my skin was in absolutely I mean I look like a leper my face now is nice and clear but I look like a leper with all of the blotches um ttis sinus issues um bone pain muscle pain joint pain I mean the fatigue the brain fog it was just every s in every every part of my body was just not functioning well and but the um the infection just put it over the roof and so I could not work safely as a nurse any any longer and that's what I went on disability um and so for the first year on disability I was just on antihistamines you know I was on some medication that the allergist gave me and the allergist really did didn't say anything other than take these medications didn't say let's identify your triggers didn't do any additional testing for what other exposures I may possibly have had um just said come back in a few months if you're not feeling better and so my only tool at that point was H1 and H2 blockers and I was on some monu cast um but I started to see a naturopathic doctor and because I really just wanted to learn more I dug in and I started to listen to the doctors out there that are the experts in Mass El Activation Syndrome and I learned a lot from them and learned about what it actually entails and how important it is to identify the triggers also how common it really is it's really the the quote I I keep hearing is up to maybe 177% of the population actually has mass Activation Syndrome and it's one of these illnesses that's incredibly common but just underdiagnosed and um Dr Lawrence afron who's Pro probably the leading doctor when it comes to mass Activation Syndrome his theory is basically that when doctors they're still thinking systemic mastocytosis which is rare when they hear about a mass cell issue they think they kind of dismiss it because it's like no that's so rare you know you don't have it but Mass Activation Syndrome is not rare and I've learned that hereditary alpat trypto semia is also not rare and so together you know they they have this conglomeration of symptoms and everybody there's a lot of crossover with symptoms but there's people that have can have absolutely opposite symptoms and still have mass activation syndromes so for example I have a milder version of polycythemia which is really common with mass Activation Syndrome someone else with the same condition can have anemia and you can have opposite presentations in people and so it's just very difficult to diagnose but the doc the naturopathic doctor that I saw was really willing to learn about it and dig in so we did a Mot toxin test which I tested positive for mot toxins um we did a professional mold inspection in our home which came back clean so not 100% sure it may have been my CPAP machine which I forgot to ask them to test it maybe my CP cpat machine that was the source or possibly I just don't clear mold very well on my own um but I I ended up learning these things that okay maybe the mold is the is is a potential trigger obviously the infection was a trigger I know that UV rays could be a trigger for me because I could be out and I live in Washington state and it doesn't get too hot I could be out on a 70 degree day but if it's sunny I could feel like I'm going to pass out and can't and have to go home really quickly and get out of the sun um so I'm I learned all of these different triggers but I didn't have and nothing was really working it was really a matter of lay around stay inside try to avoid life because you never know what's going to set set me off and I was tired of calling 911 because there was more there was trips to the ER and the the doctors at the ER they didn't necessarily know what to do um I tell them I had massel disease and the first thing they thought was in systemic masso cytosis so fortunately I found the massel Society website it's called TMS forac cure.org and they have an emergency protocol and so the and so and also a pre-procedure protocol and so the last time I had to go to the ER I brought the protocol with me so it was helpful I the thing that really got my symptoms under control was IV fine because I I had my blood pressure come down my heart rate had come down come down the throat swelling had sub had subsided with uh dissolvable like rapid dissolve Claritin and chewable and and uh actually it was just rapid dissolve Claritin at that time but I had this Sensation that every cell in my body was vibrating and I hear that a lot from people with massell disease is that you feel like everything is just every cell's vibrating and the IV fine took care of it within like 10 seconds and so I started to add a chewable flodine to the rapid dissolve Claritin and those were my rescue meds I've never had to use my EpiPen which I do have but those were my rescue meds so from then on anytime I'd start to f throat swelling I would pop the Claritin and chew on the famine and that would take care of it I would no more trips to the r but I was still miserable I was gaining weight I couldn't do anything I was in constant pain I wasn't really getting better and in May of 2023 after it had been almost a year on disability my husband said why don't you try a carnivore diet and I had tried a carnivore diet back in 2021 for about 6 weeks did great but I stopped doing it and at that point in my mind I thought that it was just for weight loss I didn't realize it could heal your body like it does and so when he came to me in in May of last year and said why don't you try a carnivore diet he came to me with some YouTube videos of people who had experienced actual healing from autoimmune disease and that really caught my attention that's why all these stories are so important you know and um so I said okay I'll try it if you will try it with me I will I will give it a try and I decided to hold myself accountable by starting a YouTube channel and just start reporting everything that was going on and um that started my journey towards reclaiming my health and so since I started out when I first started I was having to take those two rescue beds the Claritin and the Pepsi two to three times a week for throat swelling episodes and it went down to about twice a month and my Roos my my rosacea was still it was very slowly getting better but it wasn't getting better to the point where I was happy with it I was still looking pretty bad and I just was like there's something missing I just feel like I'm not quite getting the healing I need it's getting there so I decided to try the lion diet at that point I was still eating bacon and eggs and I was eating chicken a little bit although chicken was sometimes would make my throat SW um but I just and I was eating a bunch like aged cheese I was eating Smoked Meats and I just said look I need to just cut the histamine down cut the you know gooh histamine and go the lion diet and that is when everything just totally turned around my rosacea cleared up which I really believe is a reflection of my gut because I was in constant gut pain and my gut healed and the episodes went away I didn't have to take any of those medications no no more throat swelling everything cleared up and I've lost over 100 pounds um and it's just been unbelievable I you know I I feel as though I found I found you know the the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow because I have you know I'm now 56 and my whole adult life I was miserable suffering fatigued and pain and you know it seemed like nothing in my body worked until until I found this hey everyone really happy to announce a new sponsor for the show and for everybody down in Australia Stockman Stakes who are delivering highquality grass-fed and finished pasture raised beef and other meats flash frozen and vacuum sealed to your door something that I've been enjoying a lot of myself recently as well they also have a great range of specialty items such as high fat keto mints and carnivore beef and organs mints with liver kidneys and beef heart as well so use code cha today for free order of beef mints or another specialty gift along with your order at Stockman steaks.com and I'll see you over there thanks guys yeah wow well that I mean understanding just how this Afflicted you I obviously that it's massive it took over your your entire life there's nothing you can really do people who haven't gone through that really don't understand it haven't had a family member who's had to go through that really really can't understand how impactful that that is and having all these very well-meaning doctors and very helpful people that are doing the best that they can and but they're using the tools that are available to them you know it's it's just it it gets you as far as it can and and no further and so having something else you can find to give you an outlet to get away from that is is amazing I'm really glad that you were able to find that so it sounds like you need to be pretty strict you said that you really found the the best healing when you went full lion diet just red meat and water and even chicken can can set you off is is that the way that you're you're eating now do you still have to stay that strict I had to be that strict for about a year okay and um then when I I started to try to just experiment around with a few things and I I kind of used my RO rosacea as a gauge because I just really like I saw that connection between my RO my skin and my gut and once my rosacea cleared up I I felt like okay I think this means my gut has healed really well so let's try some things so I I added back eggs because I was occasionally I'd have a egg yolk because a yolk is low histamine but I added back eggs and I'm doing okay with that I can have bacon a couple times a a week I have to be careful because it is higher histamine I have I have tested the boundaries and found that I really need to limit it to just a couple times a week I can have organic chicken I have to make sure it's organic um and occasionally I do have some cheese but I try to stay as much as possible away from the dairy because I still have about 50 pounds left to go um before I think I'm probably more than an i an ideal weight and now and weight isn't the primary thing for me I mean weight was the weight loss was a happy side effect I'm thrilled to have lost as much weight as I've lost but but it's the functionality in my life that's the most important thing and the fact that I can actually go out before I was not able to ever commit to anything if I'd get invited somewhere I I I had to say maybe or no because I never felt good and I was always reacting to things and so now I can commit to things I have alive so that's way more important to me but the food um you know sometimes I do coffee other times I don't do coffee you know I found that the coffee I do better with decaf if I do coffee I found that the caffeinated coffee actually increases bladder irritability for me um so I my bladder was was was really bad like it would just release its contents without any warning and that makes it so you don't want to go out either you know I mean it happened to me in a restaurant one time and it was just mortifying to have that happen and when that wasn't happening it it would just be so urgent that often I wouldn't make it in time to the restroom which was horrible you know you don't want to have to be in your 50s and needing to wear Depends but um you know that was the that was reality and so my I I will do anything to not have those symptoms coming back if I have to eat one food for the rest of my life I will because I can actually function now and even if I didn't lose any more weight I can function I can fly in an airplane and I can you know sit in chairs in in any restaurant which wasn't the case before and um you know but the but the sense that I can actually go out and not have to worry about can I call can I go to this place or is it someplace where it's going to be hard for an ambulance to get to me that was a lot of it sometimes because sometimes I'd be invited to go we live in Washington you know Washington there's all sorts of places to go and hike and you know I I I gave up an opportunity to go on a on a carnivore Meetup um with Amanda from carnivorous me on a uh Mount rineer there's like a b a a little train track and you can get on these little cars and you can bike and but I I wouldn't go this was earlier on I wouldn't go because I was going if I if I have an episode how is an ambulance going to get to me and these episodes are are so it's so scary the throat swelling episodes with is it is so so scary you do not want to be someplace where you don't have access to emergency care and so I don't have to worry about that anymore and that means everything yeah yeah well that's really good well I'm so glad that that you know has given you that back that's um you know especially Liv Washington in such a lovely State there's so many natural beautiful things that that are yonks away from the closest hospital so you know being restricted by that is is you know it's it's a real practicality I mean you you know people as they get older you have to sort of think okay we're going to move is am I going to live on a road that has good ambulance access or something like that what if it's snows is that going to be difficult or anything like that and being in a good district with a with a hospital that's that's nearby those sorts of things those are real issues but having that be your daytoday where you you can't even go on a hike because it it may be too far away from a hospital or we may not have cell service to get an ambulance or something like that I mean that's obviously extremely extremely limiting um I'm really sorry that you had to go through that I'm really happy that you you um recovered so much that's really great to hear um so you were a nurse did you did you you go back to work or are you still out no I didn't go back to work and I have to be very careful with the stress levels in my life but that's not the main reason the main reason is because and I and I when I did have to quit work my boss said you know yeah hey if you're better and you want to come back there's you know if there's an opening and I was the I was the the head nurse and I was nurse preceptor you know on my team there was seven of us and it was hard I loved my job but I couldn't go back now because it was gastroenterology and I mean I was helping in gastroenterology patients and we had a lot of people with crohn's disease and all sort of colitis and I was you know helping all of these patients with IBS and telling them to eat their grains and their fruits and their vegetables and make sure you're getting plenty of fiber and I do that there's no way I could go back to that and it feel good I'd get fired because I would be telling the patients to stop eating those things and I I'd be trying to find a way to tell them to stop eating those things um because of what I know now I I just can't do it and so I am very fortunate that I am working with um Carrie man and Adam Lacy with healing humanity and so have I've gotten in with their group and I have been working with them with the documentary The Healing Humanity documentary um and their new membership site I'm the site administrator for their new membership site and so I and I feel like just through and I all this is through just having a channel I just got connected with the carnivore Community which is an amazing community and it's given me an opportunity to get the get the word about the carnivore diet and we'll hopefully reach some people who have similar symptoms to me and who I found that with people with mass Activation Syndrome there's a Common Thread and that's that they often have been to so many doctors with no answers or you'll get a diagnosis but the treatment won't work and so every time I have an opportunity to share my story there's always people in the comments that say oh wow I think that's what's going on with me and so part of what I want to do is to just let people know that this is an actual real condition and that it's so often not diagnosed and I'm not saying that you have it I'm just saying that like add it to the list of possibilities that this may be what's going on considering how common it is so I feel like I'm trying I have an Avenue to help more people with something that can really help them more so than I did when I was working as a nurse and not that I didn't love nursing but this is something that can actually really heal people and to me that's so exciting yeah well it is exciting and I'm glad that you are getting out there because I I'm still in practice I still see my patients you know pretty much every every day uh when I'm in when I'm not doing conferences and things like that I'm I'm pretty much work seven days a week either at my clinic or or online and so I'm you know I'm still seeing patience and I and I love that aspect of it but and there's a lot more you can do when you when you're face to face obviously you you di into their blood work and can sit down spend a lot of time with them you're seeing them repeatedly all these other sorts of things and so you can really really help people out sign significantly and if there's more issues than just their ding lifestyle then then obviously that's something that that can be addressed during during those consultations but you're right you know just by just for SHO reach speaking to people online doing videos uh like this and and others and having a YouTube channel and and getting your voice out there working with people like Carrie and the healing Humanity people and getting um this uh wonderful documentary I can't wait until that comes out um you know that that's going to reach a lot of people and that's going to have a huge impact and uh could quite possibly have an even bigger impact as as far as just sheer volume of people um so yeah if you if you're if you're in a situation when you're in just the general hospital system and you're beholden to the rules and regulations and policies of that hospital then obviously it's it's much more difficult and and and you when I was in the hospital uh anytime I would do rounds or see patients be in the ICU and you just see the garbage that they get fed it would always just pop into my head like this is why you're here because because you're being fed that right and and I remember very frequently there would be doctors and nurses that would talk to that way but in respect to obese patients or with respect to diabetic patients but they wouldn't make that connection with cardiac patients stroke patients you know people that were experiencing other types of conditions they did not make that connection to the diet and now that I see that connection you can't unsee it um and it's a little different too as a nurse because as a nurse I I have to follow the doctor's orders and so I don't have the bandwidth not the doctors do either because doctors are you know they're told what to do they've got their guidelines and their algorithms but um you know I'm more limited as as a nurse as far as what can do and especially since my last job was in and outpatient setting and I was talking so much about nutrition to patients because I was working in gastroenterology um amazingly the doctors would most of the time they would tell the tell patients you know it doesn't really matter what you eat I mean they'd encourage them to eat a well balanced diet you know but it was always makeig sure you're getting your whole grains make sure you're getting plenty of fiber and your fruits and vegetables and uh the only time that they had them restrict fiber was if they were in a IBD flare Crohn's or ulra colitis would flare up and they were you know obviously inflamed and at that point they would say okay back back off on the fiber but that connection but like it was never made that maybe they should just stay off of the F you know it was and I never made that connection either I mean I was just as bought into the whole n nutrition component of gastroenterology as there anybody else was I just I didn't see it but looking back I do see the patients struggling and I can't tell you how many times I would have a patient tell me I've tried all that I've tried the fiber I've tried it it just doesn't help especially irritable bowel syndrome patients they would be like nothing is helping and now I've heard so many stories of people with IBS and it clears up on the carnivore I've had IBS and myself I know how miserable it is and I don't have that on the carnivore diet so yeah it's it's it's something that and it's it's hard to think of going back to to nursing with with what I know now especially in the area that I was specializing in and uh but I would love I wish I could go back and at least let my colleagues know and share with them what I've experienced and maybe just plant a seed I mean they will not even recognize me I mean I don't even look like the same person that I did before when I was there so I mean I will end up going back and popping in but I'd love to have an opportunity to tell them that this is all from the carnivore diet and no I haven't had fiber in 17 months it'll blow their minds I bet I was I was actually going to ask you that what your your colleagues at work um thought about this if you had spoken to them have you spoken to any of them or or not yet you know I have kind of texted a little back and forth but I haven't told them what's been going on I'm just wanting to show up and and you know one of the problems with with reason why I don't just pop in is because one of the issues I had was with like I mentioned was with heat and during the pandemic I could not wear a mask and everywhere you went they required you to wear a mask but the heat from my breath would trigger the throat swelling anaphylactic type episode for me in fact that's it sent me home at the beginning of the pandemic when I was I was working and um I when they finally like they brought the patients back in they had they had us cancel most of the appointments and they had they brought the patients back in finally about June of 2020 and um I already had the ability to work from home so for about three months they sent all of us nurses home that could work from home and when they would bring us back in like one nurse to to cover patient visits and so it was my turn to cover patient visits and I ended up having a reaction because we had to wear the mask and my my boss sent me home so Washington the place where I worked it seems like they can't quite give up the masks and so I'm waiting I keep checking online to see what their mask policy is and so I'm hoping next summer that they'll give up the masks and let people come in without them and so I can just drop in on my co-workers but until then I have to be careful I still have to void triggers I can't stop avoiding triggers you know I mean food is one component only of the mass Cell Activation Syndrome I mean the histamine is um one of the many mediators you know one of the many many chemical mediators it's you know the mass cells produce so it's one of many things I cannot stop avoiding the triggers I am testing my tolerances though so I do I've been testing my heat tolerance I've been pushing the boundaries now that I'm feeling better and I feel like my heat tolerance is getting better I could not shower very well I had to take a lukewarm shower and I was so weak I couldn't even raise my arms and really to wash my hair I couldn't wash dishes because of the heat I couldn't be in the kitchen with if anyone was cooking I couldn't even be in the kitchen or I'd have dizziness nausea throat swelling flushing and so I'm I've been testing those boundaries and now I can I can wash dishes I can I can go out and I can hang out in the sun for a while and for maybe an hour and I'm okay um so I'm pretty hopeful and I may even be able to wear a mask now I don't know I haven't tested that one but it's it's something that I have a goal to do is to go back and pop in on on them hopefully by next summer yeah okay great well you know that's a good thing about living in Washington you know if you you can be in the Sun for an hour that's usually about all you get per year you know like in the summer so you know like that was uh that was one of the reasons that um that I had to move a couple times it was just I would just get you know there's so many cloudy days I'm like that's enough of that and I ended up moving uh to Tucson for a year and had that simply because they had the most sunny days of any city in America and now I I moved to Australia and I specifically chose Perth because it has the most sunny days sunny days Australia so of of any you know major city anyway so um that's just I just need that in my life and so um yeah so that that's probably probably good uh good place like it's a great climate for me yeah exactly although we had a beautiful summer we had a lot of sunny days this summer and um you know and it's it is Sun being out in the sunshine and being out of nature is extremely important as you know and so I unfortunately we did have a beautiful summer and it wasn't too hot which was nice and so I did get out a lot um my husband and I Like To Go Geocaching and there's so many fun places to go geocaching around here and so that's kind of our thing to do is we'll go out and Go Geocaching and explore the area and and so it's I and even I'm even testing my cold tolerance because I was starting to get reactions with cold as well and so I've started to go out like last winter I was going out with just short sleeves and hanging out when it was 30 degrees and spending a little time out there and just to you know as much as I could handle and um so I feel like it's it's important to try to improve my resilience because my resilience was pretty much nothing before and in order for me to really function in life I have to improve my resilience and I just feel like I can test those boundaries now where I I couldn't do that before without feeling like I was going to pass out and um having to call 911 yeah but I can even handle UV rays now which I without having any rosacea issues and without having any flushing no dizziness anymore with with the sun um I would have no uh dizziness with noise like we go to church on Sunday and I wasn't able to even go in in until the music was over because just the vibration from the music would set things off and I would have like my cells would start quivering I'd start to get dizzy and so now I'm okay with that I actually have gone to a couple of concerts re recently and there is no way I would have been able to do that before well first of all I couldn't have fit in the seats which you know was one factor but just the crowd the overstimulation the noise the lights everything just tooo much stimulation would set would set off the mass cells so I can actually do that now so yeah I'm I'm I'm going to continue to test my tolerance now I am still um working on detoxing from the mot toxins and I'm seeing a naturopathic doctor still and we're set up to do another my third mot toxin test and the second one was better than the first so I'm hoping that the third one is going to be even better I hope um but you know detoxing detoxing from mold is a little tricky you have to be so careful I mean even you know even someone without mcast if they've got some mold issues um have to be to be careful you don't want to detox too fast or you're going to get sick and um but you know I also have orthostatic intolerance you know a lot of people with mcast also have pots they have EDS um I do my good friend Amy tested me when we met in Texas at hack your health she kind of ran me through the battery of tests cuz she's got EDS and she ran me through the battery of tests and stuff and it turns out that I have a lot of the symptoms so I may have a little bit of uh ERS ERS Downlow syndrome just mild but um but yeah my Thor estatic intolerance is uh something I still need to work on it's important too with mcast that you work on your your nervous system and you know work on the vag you know your Vagas nerve in the your parasympathetic nervous system um because it it just doesn't work that well you know I I end up finding that SI sometimes I still do have some vagle like vagle reactions and that just kind of happen seemingly randomly so I I it might be the mold and it might be just I have more work to do in that area and um I've been doing breathing exercises and and uh and a lot of like core work doing planks and trying to trying strengthen my core to help with um the orthostatic intolerance issues so that's been helping good so having true histamine issues because of the mcast um there are people that talk about how certain foods aged Meats leftovers things like that will cause some sort of reaction and sometimes that's attributed to histamines have you noticed something like that yourself do you have to avoid certain means I know you said chicken but like as far as like the red meats are concerned does aging meat does that cause a problem or have you noticed anything that hey guys just want to take a second to thank our sponsor at carnivore bar I don't promote many products because honestly all you need to be healthy is to just eat meat for those times that you're out hiking road tripping or stuck at work and you want a nutritious snack that is just meat fat and salt if you want it the carnivore bar is a great option so I like this product not because it's just pure meat but also because I want the carnivore Market to thrive as well and the more we support meat only products the more meat only products that will be available in the mainstream so if this sounds like something you'd like to get behind check it out using my discount code Anthony to get 10% off which also applies to subscriptions giving you 25% off total all right thanks guys yeah yeah I I have I haven't tested the Aged Meats again because I'm a little bit nervous because the last time I had aged meat was accidental it was at a restaurant and um I ended up incredibly ill my gut was just very unhappy and I ended up with bleeding and severe pain and it took a long it took quite a few weeks for it to clear up and so there's so many histamine receptors in the gut and my gut is one of my more sensitive organs so I'm really really careful you know the only thing I'm allowing myself right now that has higher histamine is the the bacon and the egg whites and I do take a Dao enzyme before I eat them just to give myself that little extra help okay interesting but my gut will tell me if it's too much I will end up with with with pain yeah yeah um yeah was just thinking mcast is as common you know 70% it's nearly one in five people would have some sort of issues with this that's extremely prevalent and we're seeing people in the carnivore community that they eat certain meats and they have a problem with it and there's a lot of you know interest in that okay why is why is some certain Meats affecting people in a certain ways even if it's you know grass-fed finished perfectly pastur raised all these other sorts of things there seem to be some certain triggers that that people have right and for some people that that can be aged meats or leftovers for some reason they just in the fridge and they just they just can't eat them the next day they get they get right and some people are so so sensitive that they can't eat any leftovers at all they have to take their food once they've cooked it and they eat their portion if there's anything left they have to freeze it right away and I'm fortunate I'm not I'm not so sensitive that I have to do that I can eat it if it's been in the fridge for a day or maybe in two days but yeah some people are extremely sensitive but that's that's why I want the carnivore Community to know and it's not just Mass Activation Syndrome there's people that don't have mass Activation Syndrome that have a histamine issue which tends to resolve um and not be not be a permanent issue but um there's people who may go on Carnivore and they're like but you know I don't really feel better and it may be that they need to consider that it could be a histamine issue now I do have a whole video on my Channel that I did on histamine and the carnivore diet and it's specific to carnivore foods which ones are higher in histamine and which ones are lower which ones are okay and uh even have like samples of meals that you can do that's low histamine versus high histamine and a lot of pictures and everything I did it in a PowerPoint presentation um but I've I've had a lot of people comment that that's been so helpful and it has answered some of their questions about like why they're not getting the results just like me like I needed to do the lion diet and I needed and I it was funny cuz while I was doing the histamine video it had been so long since I had visited my uh histamine list which is this from the Swedish interest group it's their histamine list it's very very thorough um but I hadn't visited it for quite a while and when I was working on this hisy video for my channel I started to realize oh my goodness I'm eating things that are higher in hisory hamine they're carnivore something in my brain when I went on the carnivore diet forgot that I have to watch histamines and I just went like if it's carnivore I'm gonna eat it and it was while I was putting that video together I realized oh wait a minute maybe this is why I'm not getting all the results to the extent that I need and so I took my own advice and that's when I I cut them all out and I went the lion diet so yeah there's so many people out there that could be saying oh carnivore diet's not really working for me don't just throw the baby out with the bath water it could be that you need to go low histamine carnivore and it's not just okay beef and lamb it's like you said how fresh is it is it aged is it smoked you can't be if you have histamine issues you can't be eating a bunch of bris smoked brisket um even fish and I do occasionally eat fish if you are have a real problem with histamine the fish that you find in the grocer store that's on Ice you know that you go and they wrap it up for you that's not fresh enough it needs to be fast like flash frozen or freshly caught and you know filleted and eat it so some people it have has to be that they have to be that careful and um you know young cheeses if you want to eat dairy you know young cheeses are okay but age cheeses are um higher in histamine so there's and you know even butter I only if I do I only do sweet cream butter I don't do cultured butter because cultured butter is a little higher in histamine um so there's little nuances that you know you just want to learn about and just test them out eliminate those things from your diet and then see and I just can't emphasize how the dramatic change of just getting the the higher histamine carnivore foods made for me I mean it made all the difference for me great yeah yeah when I when I when I find people that have these sorts of issues you know I just tell them like look you know make a have a have a food journal and try to Chronicle like how you're feeling and different symptoms you're getting what you eat when you eat them and and see if there's a if there's a pattern there and if you have a connection then you avoid those things and if you don't see a pattern well then okay well that that's that's good information too because it can reassure you that it's not something that you're eating there's something else going on so you look for that but as far well when when people do find that they have issues and they do think it's a histamine issue um like you said you know sweet cream versus cultur cream I I I had no idea what the relative histamine levels would be do do you know a good source where PE where where you found these things or people can can look into yeah yeah the Swiss interest group histamine list is the best that I'm familiar with and um I'm part of a couple of Facebook groups one is for ma Mass cell disease and one's for hereditary Alpha trip to see me and that's that's like what they say everyone there says this is the best list it has so much it even has food additives it has all the seasonings spices if people do use herbs they has every category beverages um yeah so it's extremely thorough so I always refer people to that and very often people come back and say oh I didn't realize that this was it and another thing when it comes to rea ing to histamine it's important for people to realize that the reaction there's no there's no cookie cutter for what type of reaction you're going to experience because a mass cell reaction can affect every part of your body and everyone's a little different so not everyone's going to have like the throat swelling flushing teoc cardia like I did I mean it can make you a little nauseated it could give you a headache it could clog your you know clog your sinuses it can cause skin issues heart palpitations like I would to get the heart palpitations for sure but I would also have issues with can't take a deep breath so it could affect your lungs could just cause joint pain so be just very aware of your body and how you're feeling before you eat the food and also that the reaction isn't necessarily going to be immediate in fact it's rarely immediate it can be two three days later that you end up having symptoms it depending on the quantity you eat and how sensitive you are but it's something that I would when I talk to people I say you know if you're going to try something that you know like people who are have massal disease and they've been on low history if you're going to try something just try it and then wait a few days don't just say well if I don't react immediately it's fine you need to give it a few days and make sure that two three days down the road you're not having pain or some of some other symptom yeah yeah so that's very good advice I mean I I think there's so many people you know if massell Activation Syndrome you know 17% people I mean obviously no one not nearly uh all the people that have this are going to even know and so if you're if you're finding you get some of these symptoms you know have that in the back of your head maybe this is something that helps I guess the good news is that um that carnivore helps and you know as you notice yourself even the triggers that would normally land you in the hospital they're they're now things that you can tolerate more and so the body does get a chance to heal and to calm down as well which is really really important it is something that I've seen a number of people struggle with and um you know here to for there have not been too many people that have um tried carnivore with those issues I mean have been but it's um it's not something that's that there haven't been a lot of interviews like this there people have say hey this these this is my experience and so there are a lot of people that have been struggling with this I've seen a lot of people struggle with this but you know the good news is is that it can get better and it does get better um but say you have to be you have to be very on top of it and very strict very much so and the diet is just one tool and just just to let you know I I still do have to take a couple of medications so I started out with a medication list between medic prescription medications and various supplements um some Mass sell stabilizing supplements and some other supplements that just help support my immune system I had about 30 things I was taking each day it was a long list and now I I and I of course H1 and H2 blockers are definitely very important and I've heard a lot of people even people that are very much you know carnivores in the carnivore space as far as healthc care providers they still would recommend a period of time on H1 and H2 blockers just to give give your system a chance to settle down give your mass cells a chance to settle down but the issue too with me was that I I was on those but it didn't help the brain issue the brain bra issue there's more H3 receptors in the brain and so I ended up going on a medication called koten and it's compounded here in the US you can only get it as an ey drop and so I actually get it compounded into a capsule and so I take koten every day and that really made a difference with my brain symptoms the brain fog and the slurred speech and the word finding difficulties and so that was that was a big deal and then also lowd dose now treone um so actually I think lotos nxone was the one that actually helped the brain more than the ketotifen the the ketotifen helped a lot of the other symptoms um but I have tried to go off of the ketotifen and um not not not able yet I tried maybe four or five months ago to to go off of it and uh it looks like I still need it it can take quite a few years to really really truly heal and let everything settle down and I don't know to be honest if I'm going to be able to go off of that medication um but I'm thrilled to go from a long list of 30 things to two so I I don't want to pretend like you know you don't necessarily you can get off of all your medication right away I got off of most everything within a few yeaha six months I'd say yeah amazing well the the detractors will will always say well you were already on treatment and obviously that was just the treatment working and of course that's not true because the treatment wasn't working things were getting it wasn't working yeah exactly and then when you you CH made this change you were able to come off treatment so you know these these treatments don't make things better they don't address the underlying root cause and so they have to be perpetuated they're going to deal with the symptoms maybe U but they're not going to get rid of the underlying uh cause of this and so it's something that you're going to be on for the rest of your life it's not something oh you're better now you know so I mean antibiotics sure you know you've gotten rid of this infection it's gone now you don't need to take in antibiotics for the rest of your life outside of very very uh specific sit circumstances but these sorts of things no it's it's not getting rid of anything and and so this change and being able to come off medication is you know is very telling I mean it shows that this is actually addressing an underlying root cause some of these triggers and allowing your body to get better which is amazing yeah absolutely and and once I'm fully detox from the mold um I will probably try to go off of them again and you know because the mold is is an issue I I can't assume I mean diet isn't gonna gonna necessarily help with with the mold issue one one good thing though is that I no longer have sleep apnea and so my sleep apnea completely reversed I had been using a CPAP machine I had severe sleep apnea i' had been using a CPAP machine since 2008 and um probably six months ago I I accidentally fell asleep without it without this the machine and uh I was fine in my my husband said oh yeah you know he he wakes up in the middle of the night for work and he said yeah no no snoring no no apnic episodes I didn't have any headache no loss of energy and uh so yeah so that's good so if it was my CPAP machine that was causing me to have the mold issue that is has been out of my life now for about six months so I'm hoping I'm hoping that I'm hoping that that was it because I don't know I mean I live in a damp but no one else in my household has any issues with mold and you know so I'm hoping that that that was this the problem yeah hopefully I've I've certainly seen that I was intern actually and there was a guy who had you know hadn't hadn't sort of changed his CPAP machine and he was getting recurrent respiratory and sinus infections and uh when we sort of addressed that and well also he wasn't he wasn't using a distilled water he was just using tap water and it was like you that's um that's not always what you want to do and so he had a sort of a dirty CPAP machine with with tap water and and he was just getting these recurrent infections and when we addressed that and use distilled water and clean things out he um it resolved but he had some you know he had some chronic issues for a while but they eventually did did resolve he had sort of deep seated sinus infections and things like that because of that but um yeah so that that definitely can be can be a thing um well Lyn thank you so much for taking the time uh to come on and speak with us it absolutely wonderful hearing your store I'm so glad to hear that you're doing so much better it's that I mean it's it's um it is it is actually remarkable to to see that sort of recover and that level of recovery and so I hope uh other people that may be suffering with this I hope no one's suffering with that but if I'm sure that there are and so if anybody is hopefully this gives them a bit of hope that there's a end the tunnel so thank you so much I just I just hope that people who have been struggling with odd symptoms and no Solutions and going from Doctor to doctor will at least consider that this might be the problem and if that is something that comes to their mind now then that's great maybe they can get a diagnosis yeah definitely well then thank you so much for coming on um would you be able to tell us where we can find you would you name of your channel on social media so so people can follow you and find more yeah absolutely so my channel name is midlife carnivore and you can find me there you can find me on the heal you know healing humanity. life membership site you can also find a couple books that I've Co cover it co-written um if you look up my name I've got these are carnivore for books for kids oh so I've got this one some some of the proceeds to this go to the healing Humanity documentary and then we've got this story book which is based on Dr kids and some of the proceeds for this go to the American Diabetes society and so if you look up my name on Amazon you will find those books so that's another way of connecting with some of the work that I'm doing very good well thank you very much for that and uh that's that's great that you're you're putting out kids books especially and there's more to come yeah good I I get I get asked that all the time you know are there any uh is is there any medium to to address you know proper nutrition proper proper n nutrition with kids because it's not something that that they have everything is is is dead opposite exactly so this is why we did these books and we beef bacon butter and eggs are superheroes and yeah so we turned them into superheroes and the first book is an act is a comic book and it also is a coloring book and activity book and so there's all sorts of fun activities for kids to do and it is a way of combating all of them messaging that they're receiving through the media all the ads and to help parents and grandparents you know give their give their kids and grandkids something that will give them a a different message perfect well that's great well thank you so much for doing that if anybody um would find that useful and helpful for uh having these conversations with their kids please do check those out and you can also check out the um the the website for uh hamans as well which is a great resource because that's not I didn't even know where to look these things up really so that's great to have that in one one area so and please do follow Lynn and see more of her work um Lynn thank you so much it's been an absolute pleasure thank you thank you and thank you everybody for watching I hope you enjoyed that if you think this would help someone please do send this to them and let them know there's hope thank you all very much we'll see you next time hey guys thank you very much for taking the time out to listen to what I had to say if if you like it then please like And subscribe to my YouTube channel and podcast and if you're on YouTube then please hit that little bell and subscribe and that'll let you know anytime I have a new video out which should be every week if not more and if you can share this with your friends that would help me get the word out and let me know that you like what I'm doing thanks again guys