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Lisa Klimas

I'm a 35 year old microbiologist and molecular biologist with systemic mastocytosis, Ehlers Danlos Syndrome, Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome, Adrenal Insufficiency, and an assortment of other chronic health issues. My life is pretty much a blast.

The MastAttack 107: The Layperson’s Guide to Understanding Mast Cell Diseases, Part 43

52. Is it true that it can take up to six bone marrow biopsies to diagnose systemic mastocytosis?

Sort of. This has become sort of an urban legend in the mast cell community. I am partly to blame for this as I have offered this information up several times without explaining it, which is lazy on my part.

Systemic mastocytosis is diagnosed by biopsy. While a positive biopsy in any organ that’s not skin can be used to diagnose SM, bone marrow biopsies are overwhelmingly what is used to diagnose.

In 2004, a paper was published that discussed how well bone marrow biopsies worked for diagnosing SM in a group of 23 patients. These patients had bilateral bone marrow biopsies taken, so each patient had one on each side. In 19 of those patients, both of the biopsies showed mastocytosis. In 4 of those patients, only one of their two biopsies was positive. 4/23 is 17%, which is roughly 1/6. Based upon this figure, it means that theoretically, in a patient who has SM, they could have five negative biopsies before getting a positive biopsy.

It’s important to two things in mind when you think about this 1/6 thing. Firstly, this is a very small patient group. Things that you see in a small group don’t always translate to what really happens in larger groups. Another thing is that the criteria they used in 2004 to diagnose SM are not the same as the criteria we use now. It’s possible that with changes in diagnostic criteria that this 1/6 number is no longer accurate.

In reality, I have never met a person who needed six bone marrow biopsies to get a positive biopsy for SM. But I do know a few who needed two or three. It’s not impossible that it could take six to get a positive biopsy but it’s unlikely.

However, it’s also important to realize that every expert acknowledges that you can have a negative biopsy while having SM. The reason for this is that you can’t tell by looking whether or not a biopsy site will give you a positive biopsy for SM. You have to just hope that the mast cells are clustered where they stick the needle. Mast cells don’t cluster evenly throughout your bone marrow when you have SM. If you get a biopsy site where the mast cells didn’t happen to cluster, you are out of luck. For this reason, some doctors advocate getting bilateral bone marrow biopsies (two at once) to increase the chances of catching a positive biopsy.

The MastAttack 107: The Layperson’s Guide to Understanding Mast Cell Diseases, Part 42

51. What is the difference between mast cell activation syndrome and histamine intolerance?

Histamine intolerance is not widely accepted by the mainstream medical establishment. I haven’t been able to find much about it in the way of peer reviewed literature. That said, it doesn’t seem ridiculous to me. It feels plausible, I just haven’t seen convincing evidence of that yet.

Histamine intolerance is when a patient has symptoms from ingesting something that has a lot of histamine in it, that causes the body to release histamine, or that interferes with the body’s ability to break down histamine. In histamine intolerance, the problem is what is being put into your body rather your body itself. The problem is external, not internal.

Mast cell activation syndrome is when a patient’s mast cells are fundamentally dysfunctional. The problem is internal, not external. There is no evidence at this point that patients with MCAS can’t break down histamine normally with enough time, there’s just so much of it that it takes longer.

Many patients with MCAS (and other mast cell diseases) often have symptoms when they ingest something that has a lot of histamine in it or that causes the body to release histamine. There are two theoretical ways in which ingestion of histamine can cause symptoms: either the histamine released/ingested makes it way to other parts of the body and causes symptoms there directly; or, the histamine released/ingested makes mast cells release more histamine.

Regardless of exactly what is happening, patients with MCAS and histamine intolerance can have identical symptoms to ingesting a trigger. Importantly, MCAS patients may have histamine symptoms from lots of other things, not just ingesting something.

Histamine intolerance is much more commonly discussed in holistic and alternative medicine groups, which is definitely not where my expertise is. If you are aware of some recent data on histamine intolerance, or if I have made a mistake in this post, please let me know so that I can correct it.

The MastAttack 107: The Layperson’s Guide to Understanding Mast Cell Diseases, Part 41

50. How does mast cell disease affect hearing?

For readers who don’t know, I lost the majority of my hearing in 2009. I am profoundly deaf in my left ear and have moderate to severe hearing loss in my right. This happened years before I was diagnosed with systemic mastocytosis or Ehlers Danlos Syndrome.

Mast cell disease affects hearing in multiple ways. Some related diagnoses also affect hearing.

Mast cells are involved in sensorineural hearing loss. The exact role of mast cells is still being researched but hearing loss is not an unusual complaint for mast cell patients. Mast cell disease can also cause auditory processing disorder. This condition makes it difficult to understand speech. Ringing in the ears (tinnitus) is also a symptom of mast cell disease.

Many mast cell patients also have Ehlers Danlos Syndrome (EDS), a disease in which the body makes defective connective tissue. EDS patients are vulnerable to both sensorineural hearing loss, in which the nerves don’t correctly transmit sound from the ear to the brain, and conductive hearing loss, in which the ear is not able to carry the sound waves correctly to the inner ear. Having both types of hearing loss, sensorineural and conductive, is called mixed hearing loss.

Many mast cell patients are deconditioned. This means that their body has undergone lots of changes as the result of not being active. Sensory processing is affected in deconditioned patients. In particular, sounds must be louder to be heard correctly. POTS patients sometimes experience something similar.

Having certain autoimmune disorders can increase the risk of autoimmune inner ear disease, resulting in hearing loss. Many mast cell patients also have autoimmune disease.

The MastAttack 107: The Layperson’s Guide to Understanding Mast Cell Diseases, Part 40

49. What is the relationship between FPIES and MCAS?

FPIES is food protein induced enterocolitis syndrome, a severe type of food allergy. It causes continuous vomiting and diarrhea upon ingestion of a trigger. FPIES reactions can cause dehydration and dangerous drop in blood pressure. I cannot emphasize enough that FPIES can be extremely serious and that the reactions can be life threatening if they are not managed properly.

FPIES almost exclusively affects children starting in infancy and resolves around the age of 5. The reasons for this are unknown. FPIES is a diagnosis of exclusion. There are no tests to identify FPIES.

An important point is that trigger avoidance is generally sufficient for management in children with FPIES. When the child is not being exposed to a trigger, they should not have lingering symptoms.

If a child with FPIES continues to have symptoms, the conventional thinking is often that there must be a trigger that has not yet been eliminated from their diet. In children with continuing symptoms, they frequently have more traditional allergy type symptoms than the profuse GI issues seen with FPIES exposures. This is where FPIES starts to overlap with MCAS. MCAS can cause the same reactions to foods seen in FPIES. MCAS can also cause daily symptoms even if food triggers are avoided. Increasingly, children who were initially diagnosed with FPIES are later diagnosed with MCAS.

There are a few possible scenarios here. Firstly, it is possible that the child has FPIES and has MCAS secondarily to the FPIES. It is also possible that the child was misdiagnosed with FPIES and had MCAS all along. It may also be that FPIES is some form of MCAS. They have a lot in common.

Because there is no test for FPIES, and it is very difficult to accurately perform mediator testing to look for mast cell disease in infants, it is hard to be definitive at that age anyway. In some cases, investigation of MCAS as a possible diagnosis for these children only occurs when they fail to “grow out of” FPIES around age 5. Having anaphylaxis also provides a clue towards MCAS as a potential diagnosis.

For more detailed reading, please visit these posts:

Food allergy series: FPIES (Part 1)

Food allergy series: FPIES (Part 2)

Food allergy series: Mast cell food reactions and the low histamine diet

The Provider Primers Series: Mast cell activation syndrome (MCAS)

The MastAttack 107: The Layperson’s Guide to Understanding Mast Cell Diseases, Part 39

46. What does it mean to be a “leaker” or “shocker”?

These are terms patients use to describe the way mast cell disease affects them rather than defined medical terms. A leaker is someone who has a lot of symptoms day to day but has fewer severe attacks or anaphylaxis. A shocker is someone who has fewer day to day symptoms but more frequent severe attacks or anaphylaxis.

Leakers and shockers are not considered to have different subtypes of mast cell disease because symptom presentation varies hugely in all forms of mast cell disease. There are no tests to identify if you are a leaker or shocker. You can start a leaker and become a shocker or vice versa. The terms themselves have no medical meaning. They are just shorthand for patients to describe their experience with their disease.

47. What does “sense of impending doom” mean?

Sense of impending doom is the medical term for a feeling of terrible anxiety or fear, literally a feeling that something awful is about to happen. It is a medical symptom for lots of conditions, including anaphylaxis. The biological basis behind this sensation has been the subject of debate for a long time but there’s really no decisive answer as to the cause

48. Why do I taste metal when I’m having a bad reaction or anaphylaxis?

A metallic taste is also a symptom of many things, including anaphylaxis. It is also debated and an exact cause has never been identified. One of the more prevalent explanations is that it is the taste of epinephrine, which your body releases as an initial defense against anaphylaxis or mast cell degranulation. As far as I know, there is no data to support this.

The MastAttack 107: The Layperson’s Guide to Understanding Mast Cell Diseases, Part 38

45. Is mast cell disease autoimmune?

An autoimmune disease is the result of a patient’s immune system specifically targeting a normal, healthy part of their body. How particularly and precisely the immune system identifies part of the body to attack is very important to understanding my answer to this question.

Let’s look at some autoimmune diseases as examples.

Autoimmune thyroiditis (also called Hashimoto’s thyroiditis) is a prevalent autoimmune disease that targets the thyroid. The thyroid’s job is to make hormones that tell your body to do other things. These hormones are called thyroid hormones. When you have autoimmune thyroiditis, your immune system makes antibodies that target the thyroid and thyroid hormones. These are called autoantibodies. They target a normal part of body. There is no reason for the body to make these autoantibodies. They do not perform any healthy function for the body. The only function they serve is to attack part of the body.

When you have autoimmune thyroiditis, the immune system makes antibodies to things that are only found in the thyroid or made by the thyroid. (I’m being very general here.) Other autoimmune diseases target parts of the body that are found throughout the body so that the effects of the disease are more widespread. However, those diseases still target specific things.

Lupus is an autoimmune disease that affects many places in the body by precisely attacking things found throughout the body. The cells in your body all have DNA inside of them. This DNA has the genes to make proteins and other things your body needs. If the cell can’t use the DNA inside it correctly, it makes your body sick. This is exactly what happens in lupus. Lupus makes autoantibodies and attacks things inside your cells that your body needs to use the DNA. Because all of the cells in your body need to use their DNA, the things lupus attacks are found all over the body, not just one organ. But even though lupus attacks many organs and places throughout your body, it is still targeted to harm specific pieces of the body.

In autoimmune disease, the body makes specific things for the explicit purpose of damaging specific things.

Now let’s talk about mast cell disease.

Currently, mast cell diseases are not considered to be autoimmune by most – but not all – experts. (I’ll circle back to this.) When a person has mast cell disease, the fundamental issue is that they release tons of mast cell mediators at times when they shouldn’t, causing symptoms and damage to the body. But even though those chemicals can cause all kinds of problems, they are not targeted to attack specific structures. This is where the distinction is from autoimmune diseases. Mast cells release tons of histamine, but that histamine isn’t targeted to find a specific molecule inside of a liver cell. They release prostaglandin D2, but that PGD2 isn’t made for the particular purpose of attacking one particular thing inside of your thyroid.

Instead, the molecules released incorrectly by mast cells affect whatever cells are in its path. This is one of the reasons why there is such variability in symptoms and disease effects for mast cell patients. What parts of the body are affected the most is dependent upon a million things happening in the patient’s body. This is because the chemicals mast cells release are not targeted to any one place. They are just released by the mast cell and they go wherever they can before the body breaks them down.

I mentioned above that most experts did not consider mast cell diseases to be autoimmune, but not all of them. So let’s go back to that. Mastocytosis is not considered autoimmune but anyone as far as I am aware. There is absolutely no evidence that mastocytosis is autoimmune after decades of research. But MCAS is a newer entity and so there is less information on it due to less time spent researching it. There are still a lot of questions around MCAS and some experts think that whether or not it is autoimmune is one of them.

We know that at the very least that there is a connection between MCAS and autoimmune disease. Many MCAS patients have autoimmune disease, often more than one. We think MCAS occurs secondarily to the autoimmune disease in these patients. There’s also the fact that many MCAS patients are positive for ANA (antinuclear antibody), an autoantibody linked to lupus, even though they don’t have a diagnosed autoimmune disease that would cause that to be positive. Some people think that maybe MCAS is the autoimmune disease in that situation and that ANA is a marker indicating that MCAS is autoimmune. I have mentioned elsewhere that while we consider MCAS to usually be a secondary disease, there are some patients for whom we can’t find a primary disease. It is possible that MCAS is a primary condition in those people and that it is autoimmune.

You still need to keep in mind that even if we say that maybe the positive ANA shows that MCAS is autoimmune, there is still no evidence of any kind that indicates that mast cell mediators target a specific part of the body – a defining characteristic of autoimmune disease. That doesn’t mean there isn’t an autoantibody or some other mechanism for targeting precise structures in the body, just that we have no evidence of one existing right now.

Let’s recap: currently, most experts believe that mast cell diseases are not autoimmune because they do not target specific normal, healthy structures in the body. Mastocytosis is roundly agreed to not be autoimmune. There are some experts who feel that at least some cases of MCAS might be autoimmune. They feel this way because of the clear link between MCAS and other autoimmune diseases, as well as the fact that many MCAS patients are positive for an autoimmune marker, ANA, without evidence of an autoimmune disease that would explain that.

The MastAttack 107: The Layperson’s Guide to Understanding Mast Cell Diseases, Part 37

44. What is a myeloproliferative neoplasm? Is that what mast cell disease is?

First, let’s pull this term apart.

“Myelo” means marrow, like bone marrow. In this context, it refers to a specific group of blood cells that are made in the bone marrow. These cells are called myeloid or myelogenous cells. These cells all start as one kind of cell called a myeloid progenitor cell. Mast cells and eosinophils are myeloid cells. There are other myeloid cells, too.

“Proliferative” means making lots of cells quickly. In this case, it means making many cells too quickly. When too many cells are made too quickly, the cells are often not made correctly so they don’t work right.

“Myeloproliferative” means making too many myeloid cells very quickly, producing cells that often don’t work right.

“Neo” means new.

“Plasm” means the substance that makes up something living, like what makes up a cell or a tissue. “Plasm” is part of many words used in biology.

“Neoplasm” means the body growing new things, things that don’t belong there. For example, cancers are neoplasms. (Although not all neoplasms are cancers).

Myeloproliferative neoplasm means your body making too many myeloid cells that don’t work correctly.

Speaking generally, any condition where the body makes too many of these myeloid cells when they shouldn’t is a myeloproliferative neoplasm. This means all form of mastocytosis and mast cell tumors (mast cell sarcoma and mastocytoma) are myeloproliferative neoplasms.

However, when people ask if mast cell diseases are myeloproliferative neoplasms, they are usually asking about the WHO (World Health Organization) classification of mast cell disease, which is a little different.

The WHO puts out an exhaustive list of diseases for reference. They group similar diseases together under one category. This list is also revised periodically as new data becomes available or experts request it.

Under the 2008 WHO guidelines, mast cell diseases were classified as myeloproliferative neoplasms along with several other diseases. The other diseases also included in this category make too many myeloid cells too quickly, like essential thrombocythemia, in which the body makes too many platelets.

The mast cell diseases classified as myeloproliferative neoplasms were cutaneous mastocytosis: maculopapular cutaneous mastocytosis (MPCM), diffuse cutaneous mastocytosis (DCM), and solitary mastocytoma of the skin; systemic mastocytosis: indolent systemic mastocytosis (ISM), systemic mastocytosis with associated hematologic disease (SM-AHD), aggressive systemic mastocytosis (ASM), and mast cell leukemia (MCL); and mast cell sarcoma. Smoldering systemic mastocytosis (SSM) was mentioned as a provisional category rather than a formal category, meaning that the WHO did not agree that this diagnosis was different enough from ISM to warrant its own category. Neither monoclonal mast cell activation syndrome (MMAS) or mast cell activation syndrome (MCAS) were classified anywhere in the 2008 WHO Guidelines as they were not yet recognized by the WHO as diseases.

Last year, the WHO revised the classification of myeloproliferative neoplasms. It removed all forms of mast cell disease from the myeloproliferative neoplasm category and made a different category for mast cell diseases. This was done because the WHO recognized that mast cell diseases differed from the other myeloproliferative neoplasms in specific ways. They also recognized that mast cell activation syndrome has a ton in common with other mast cell diseases even though it’s not a neoplastic disease. (Mast cell activation syndrome is not from the body making too many mast cells).

So all mast cell diseases were put together. In the new category, the following mast cell diseases were included: cutaneous mastocytosis: maculopapular cutaneous mastocytosis (MPCM), diffuse cutaneous mastocytosis (DCM), and solitary mastocytoma of the skin; systemic mastocytosis: indolent systemic mastocytosis (ISM), systemic mastocytosis with associated clonal hematologic non-mast cell lineage disease (SM-AHNMD), aggressive systemic mastocytosis (ASM), and mast cell leukemia (MCL); mast cell sarcoma; monoclonal mast cell activation syndrome (MMAS); and mast cell activation syndrome (MCAS).

The MastAttack 107: The Layperson’s Guide to Understanding Mast Cell Diseases, Part 36

43. What is a rebound reaction?

Rebound is a term that gets used a lot in the mast cell community, often incorrectly. Rebound reactions occur when medication taken to suppress symptoms wears off. This phenomenon is easiest to see with the older H1 antihistamines like diphenhydramine (Benadryl). Benadryl is broken down pretty quickly by the body so it wears off in about 4-6 hours. In some situations, it can break down even faster.

When you take diphenhydramine, as soon as it’s in your body, the diphenhydramine looks for the molecules on the outsides of cells called histamine receptors. In order for histamine to affect your body, they have to find one of these histamine receptors and sit on it. If it can’t do that, the histamine is not able to cause symptoms or perform its normal function. The antihistamine finds those receptors and sits on top of it so that the histamine can’t fit in. This translates into fewer symptoms because the histamine is blocked.

How effective antihistamines are at finding those receptors and sitting on them differs from drug to drug. Some do this really quickly but others take a few hours to find the receptors. Some drugs can get knocked off the histamine receptors they sat on. Drugs like this are less effective antihistamines.

Diphenhydramine finds the histamine receptors very quickly and sticks to them very strongly. This is why it is such an effective antihistamine. Because it is such a strong antihistamine, when your body breaks it down, your symptoms can come back quickly and forcefully. This is called rebound. Your symptoms reappear because there’s no longer enough medication in your body to keep the histamine from working. (Please note that rebound reactions can also happen with other medications for other diseases in ways that do not affect histamine. I’m just being general here for the mast cell disease audience.)

Rebound reactions can be tricky to get out of because the natural response to take medication again to control the symptoms. However, when you do this, you may just be setting yourself up for another rebound reaction when this dose wears off. This is one of the reasons why many doctors prefer that their mast cell patients not take Benadryl frequently. When you are stuck in a rebound loop, it can cause a lot of inflammation and that can trigger your mast cells even more.

There are a few strategies to help decrease the likelihood of rebound reactions. One is to stagger medication dosing. If a couple of your medications can cause rebound, don’t take them at the same time if you can avoid it. Take one an hour or two after the other. Some patients find benefit in layering antihistamines. By taking multiple antihistamines, you can cover lots of histamine receptors. Sometimes, it covers enough that when your diphenhydramine wears off, your body doesn’t notice as much. This could lessen a rebound reaction or even prevent one in some circumstances. You could also take another strong medication to help control your mast cells in another way, like a steroid.

Following a major reaction or anaphylaxis, many providers opt to use a taper for diphenhydramine and steroids. This can help with rebound reactions. A patient doing this might take diphenhydramine every 4 hours for one day, then every 6 hours for two more days, then every 12 hours for two more days. By not stopping cold turkey, you can allow your body to adapt. Steroid tapers do the same thing. You want to give your body a chance to compensate for not having the medication around.

Not all medications cause rebound reactions. The second generation H1 antihistamines like cetirizine or loratadine do not normally cause rebound reactions.

One important point is that many people use the term “rebounding” when they actually mean a different thing called biphasic anaphylaxis. Rebounding specifically means the reappearance of symptoms because the medication controlling them has worn off. Biphasic anaphylaxis is when you have anaphylaxis again after having a first anaphylactic event, regardless of treatment. In this scenario, a person has anaphylaxis and takes medications to treat the anaphylaxis effectively. Sometime later on, the body has a second anaphylaxis event without being exposed again to a trigger. This is not tied to any specific treatment and is different than rebounding.

For more detailed reading, please visit these posts:

How to get out of a reaction cycle

Anaphylaxis and mast cell reactions

The MastAttack 107: The Layperson’s Guide to Understanding Mast Cell Diseases, Part 35

Author’s note: This is not medical advice. Any information found here should be used as a tool for discussions you have with a provider who knows you and your specific health situation.

42. How is anaphylaxis related to mast cell disease? How do I know when to use my epipen?

Anaphylaxis is a complication of mast cell disease. It is not an inherent part of mast cell disease or a symptom of mast cell disease. Many patients never experience it.

One study found that among mastocytosis patients, adult patients with SM are more likely to experience anaphylaxis than adults with CM or children with mastocytosis. But as many as half of adult patients and even more pediatric patients never have anaphylaxis. For MCAS, the number is reported as less frequent with incidence of anaphylaxis in one group around 17%. I personally think this number is very low and sampling error. It is my experience that MCAS patients are at least as likely to anaphylax as mastocytosis patients, if not more likely.

Even though lots of mast cell patients never experience it, it is important to be aware of the risk of anaphylaxis and take precautions. Mast cells are critical in the biology of anaphylaxis so having mast cells that are very reactive, or having more mast cells than usual, can lead to more severe anaphylaxis more often than someone in the general population might experience. All mast cell patients should carry two epipens at all time. They should also carry diphenhydramine (Benadryl, liquid preferred), and many also carry steroids to use in case of anaphylaxis.

One of the most common questions I am asked is when to use your epipen. The answer to this is complicated largely because so many symptoms of mast cell disease are also symptoms of anaphylaxis. It can be hard to figure out what is going on. I have written extensively about the difference between anaphylaxis and mast cell reactions before so I recommend you read those posts also if you have not already.

The answer to when you should use your epipen is pretty much always that you should ask your doctor or provider. This answer is true and is always right. It is important that someone who knows your health situation well weighs in.

But there’s another answer we can give to this question: that you should use you epipen when it will save your life.

There are various charts and scales that people and groups use to categorize the severity of anaphylaxis. These are not useful for mast cell disease. Do not use them. They are meaningless for us.

The purpose of those charts is to allow people to figure out when a bad anaphylaxis episode is on the way. It allows people to estimate by symptoms when they should use their epipen and call 911. The charts are saying, if you have these three symptoms, you could be heading for anaphylaxis, use your epipen. But for mast cell patients, you can have those three symptoms for a variety of reasons that are not anaphylaxis. It could be mast cell reaction or just regular symptoms. So mast cell patients can’t really predict anaphylaxis in the way described in the charts. These charts just do not work for us.

So when should mast cell patients use an epipen? Generally, the answer is that they should use it when they have trouble breathing or a significant drop in blood pressure. If you are looking for independent markers for when to use an epipen and not symptoms, this lines up with a pulse ox of below 91, or systolic blood pressure below 90 (for adults), or a 30% drop in blood pressure from baseline (for children or adults). Speaking abstractly, in mast cell patients, trouble breathing and significant drop in blood pressure are usually considered as signs of anaphylaxis that warrant use of an epipen. Additionally, if the patient has a set of symptoms that they know will lead to trouble breathing or low blood pressure, their provider will direct them to use an epipen as soon as those symptoms start.

Again, when you use an epipen is a discussion that you must have with your provider. Mast cell patients should all carry two epipens on them at all time and whatever else they use for rescue meds, usually liquid diphenhydramine, and sometimes other medications.

For more detailed reading, please visit these posts:

The definition of anaphylaxis

Anaphylaxis and mast cell reactions

Treatment of anaphylaxis

The MastAttack 107: The Layperson’s Guide to Understanding Mast Cell Diseases, Part 34

41. Can my mast cell disease go away? Will it ever not be a problem?

There are several common questions that basically all distill down to these sentiments. I’m going to answer them all here.

I have previously answered the question “Can mast cell disease be cured?” in this series but I think this question is a little different. When people ask if mast cell disease can go away, they mean can it become no longer a problem even if it’s not cured. That’s what I’m answering here.

This answer is very complicated so I’m just going to give my thoughts let’s about all sides of this situation.

Yes, it is possible for mast cell disease to be controlled enough to no longer be a problem in your life. But there are a lot of caveats.

The most common presentation of mast cell disease in cutaneous mastocytosis (mastocytosis in the skin) in children. In about 2/3 of cases, children “grow out of” their mast cell disease. Specifically, this means that they lose their skin lesions and have no obvious mast cell symptoms by their late teenage/early adult years. We don’t know why this happens.

However, there are instances where a person who grew out of their childhood CM have mast cell issues later in life. We have a greater understanding of mast cell diseases now and we know that you can have a whole host of mast cell issues without having skin lesions. So it’s not as clean cut as was previously thought.

For more serious forms of systemic mastocytosis, it is possible that with treatment, the disease can be “knocked down” to a less serious category. For example, a patient with aggressive systemic mastocytosis who does chemo may find that it helped enough that their diagnosis is now smoldering systemic mastocytosis. Or a patient with SSM has a big drop in the number of mast cells zooming around after taking interferon and now they have indolent systemic mastocytosis. While symptom severity doesn’t necessarily change when a patient has a less serious diagnosis, that does sometimes happen.

With the exception of childhood cutaneous mastocytosis, all other forms of mastocytosis are considered lifelong ventures. This includes all forms of adult onset cutaneous mastocytosis and all forms of systemic mastocytosis for children or adults. However, there are instances of patients with SM where bone marrow transplant seems to cure their disease. We need to continue to follow mast cell patients who have had bone marrow transplants to see how many of them have recurrence of mast cell disease.

Mast cell activation syndrome is often secondary to some other condition. Basically, one disease irritates your body so much that your mast cells flip out in response to the disease. The disease that caused the mast cell problem is called the primary condition. In these instances, mast cell activation syndrome is sometimes considered to be dependent upon the primary condition. This means that some doctors and researchers feel that if you control the primary condition, the mast cell activation syndrome will go away.

This sentiment seems straightforward but is actually pretty complex. Let’s pull it apart. Let’s say your primary condition is lupus. You are a patient with lupus. The lupus irritates your body so much that your mast cells just go bananas. Now you are a patient with lupus who has secondary MCAS. The lupus in this instance caused the MCAS. But what does that mean? Does that mean that without the lupus, you would never have had MCAS? Or does it mean that you would eventually have had MCAS secondary to something else? This is the topic of a lot of debate. (I personally am of the belief that MCAS is genetic and therefore you were always going to develop it at some point.) So it’s not clear yet whether a primary condition really “causes” MCAS or just wakes it up.

However, what is not disputed at all is that any type of inflammation can trigger mast cell activation and symptoms. So if you are a lupus patient, and your lupus is going crazy, that’s going to really bug your mast cells. If you are able to control your lupus, it will decrease the inflammation, which will calm your mast cells. But calming your mast cells isn’t really the same thing as your mast cell disease going away. Not having symptoms is not the same thing as being cured.

Another thing to consider is that even if the lupus is what triggered your MCAS, once your MCAS is triggered, it’s going to be triggered by everything. You can very easy get locked into a cycle where the lupus irritates your MCAS, which irritates your lupus, and around you go. So in a situation like this, where the mast cell activation is really out of control, it sometimes doesn’t matter what the primary condition is, and controlling the primary condition might not help.

Many patients with mast cell disease have their symptoms controlled enough to live pretty normal lives. Some mast cell patients don’t have really symptoms at all, even without medications. In a small group of MCAS patients, after a year of treatment with antihistamines and mast cell stabilizers, about 1/3 had complete resolution of symptoms and another 1/3 had one only symptom that was a problem. 

However, it’s important to remember that this is not having debilitating symptoms is not the same as not having mast cell disease. These patients are still predisposed towards mast cell activation and should take mast cell precautions for things like surgery or dental work. Many patients stay on antihistamines and/or a mast cell stabilizer even with good symptom control because it affords some protection from bad reactions and anaphylaxis. Patients should only stop regular medication with the supervision and direction of a provider who knows them. Additionally, trialing things like foods you reacted to, or starting an exercise program, require provider input.

You should also keep in mind that mast cell disease can be very erratic. It doesn’t always follow a trend so symptoms steadily improving does not guarantee that symptoms will stay well controlled. So while mast cell disease can be managed enough to not be a problem, there is always the possibility that it will show up again. Once you have a mast cell diagnosis, you are always going to be looking over your shoulder.