My Story So Far

I am always crazily lucky.

I bounced through childhood, school, and then university, without any real problems. I was tired a lot… but then I didn’t sleep a lot, so no one thought much of that. I studied Law at university.

At 22 years old, I was one month into my first job (training to be a solicitor) when I woke up one morning with a sharp pain in my right-hand side. I hoped that it would go away if I ignored it. A few days later, having learnt that it would not just go away on its own, I wound up at the doctor’s. I was diagnosed with a kidney infection and told to rest and take antibiotics. Unfortunately, five days later I was in more pain and I still had a temperature. At that point, my doctor sent me to hospital.

Once the IV antibiotics at hospital were helping, my consultant asked the question that, I guess, I should have asked: “Why are you here?” I thought that the kidney infection was the obvious answer, but he clarified that as the antibiotics I had been taking were the right ones to fight the bacteria attacking my kidney, I should not have needed to be admitted to hospital.

He went on to ask questions about fatigue, rashes, headaches, and reactions to food. Finally, he suggested that I may have something called “histamine intolerance”. Neither I, nor anyone in my family, had ever heard of this.

Two months after leaving hospital, I had not yet bounced back. I was constantly exhausted to the extent that I was dizzy, nauseous, and easily confused and forgetful. Thankfully, my consultant ordered a blood test, which showed that I had low levels of DAO in my blood, suggesting histamine intolerance. He also mentioned that he thought I had something called Mast Cell Activation Disorder (again, something that I had never heard of).

It has been almost four years now since the original kidney infection. I have seen many different specialists, and had many different tests. I have a few diagnoses but the key ones are: Histamine Intolerance, Mast Cell Activation Disorder, and Mannose Binding Lectin Deficiency.

I am determined that my life is going to be better than it ever was and along the way from here to there, I am going to soak up all of the knowledge and information that I am learning. I hope that in sharing what I am learning, I can help someone feel better, because it turns out that lowering inflammation makes everyone feel better.

For the first 22 years of my life, I thought I was living the best life that I could, because I never realised that I wasn’t completely healthy. Now I realise that life can be even better than I ever thought it could be. This inspires me to continue to improve not just my life, but the lives of as many people as possible.