This post addresses infectious triggers of MCAS or mast cell activation syndrome.
Table of Contents
Who is Betsy Leighton?
I’m a writer, blogger, and healer dedicated to helping individuals reconnect with their innate peace and wholeness by healing nervous system dysregulation. My personal experience with chronic illness called Mast Cell Activation Syndrome (MCAS) shapes my work, and my content offers tools to empower those with chronic illness to improve their well-being and take charge of their health.
I created the Sacred Self-Healing Method and am a trained and certified Safe and Sound Protocol provider, an author, blogger, and A Course in Miracles Teacher. I hold a Master of Divinity in Spiritual Counseling and am a trained spiritual mentor, with certificates in sound healing, aromatherapy, nutrition, and Sacred Deathcare. I offer a self-study certificate program in the Sacred Self-Healing Method, provide spiritual counseling and coaching, courses, and supported subscriptions for the Safe and Sound Protocol.
What is MCAS?
Mast Cell Activation Syndrome (MCAS) is a chronic condition that affects all organ systems. It can cause severe, disabling symptoms every day, including potentially fatal anaphylaxis. MCAS often occurs with other chronic conditions like Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (EDS) and Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS). Managing MCAS is challenging because many healthcare providers are unaware of it, and diagnostic tests can be unreliable. Treatments include antihistamines and mast cell stabilizers, as well as avoiding triggers. Check out this post on managing MCAS.
What triggers MCAS?
Briefly, stress, toxins, and infections are the main triggers of mast cell overreactivity. This past post covered some ways to manage MCAS stress triggers without medication, including specific treatments to calm the nervous system.
What are infectious triggers of MCAS?
Infectious triggers can be acute, such as the flu or Covid-19, or chronic, like Lyme Disease, and co-infections like Bartonella, Epstein Barr, and Babesia.
There has been an explosion of vector-borne illnesses in recent decades as humans have encroached further into wild habitats. Some people believe that crowding wild species into ever smaller areas of land has contributed to the rise in vector-borne illnesses. But the main cause is suspected to be climate change.
Testing for infections
Lyme Disease and the co-infections that commonly accompany it are notoriously difficult to test for.
This article does an excellent job of outlining when to test for infections, the limitations of testing, and the best approach.
Why do infections trigger MCAS?
Infections can become a root cause of MCAS by damaging the nervous system, specifically the vagus nerve. Mast cells line the entire nervous system, and they have over 200 types of receptors that are sensitive to all sorts of stimuli. An infectious trigger will alert the nervous system that the body is under attack. This, in turn, triggers a mast cell cascade to bring resources to the site of the perceived attack, including increased inflammation. MCAS is a protective function at the cellular level that helps the body heal when it is under attack. But the problem with chronic infections is that they perpetually notify the nervous system via biochemical mediators that the body is constantly under attack. So, even after a course of antibiotics or an herbal protocol to address the infection, unless you address the injury to the nervous system, the limbic and nervous systems will continue to think the body is under attack.
The bucket theory
The bucket theory simplifies understanding symptom reactions with MCAS. Imagine your body as an empty bucket you don’t want to overflow. Reactions to various stimuli fill the histamine bucket at different rates, forming the total histamine level (how full your bucket is). More histamine means more symptoms. By managing triggers, reducing exposures, and taking medications and supplements, you can control your bucket’s level.
Know your typical symptom progression
Understanding your symptom progression during a flare is key to developing your rescue plan. This post discusses how to recognize symptom progression so you can be prepared to address them.
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Healing on multiple levels
So, to heal infectious triggers for MCAS, you need to take a multi-pronged approach:
- Deal with the limbic and vagal issues so that the body knows it is no longer under attack;
- Address the root cause of the infection.
These approaches need to occur concurrently to effect healing. This post covers some ways to heal the limbic system and the vagus nerve.
So, how do you address the root cause of infection? Many patients require an approach that combines pharmaceuticals, herbals, and other types of healing. Here are the healing modalities that my daughters and I have tried to heal infectious triggers of MCAS:
Low-dose immunotherapy for infectious triggers of MCAS
Low Dose Immunotherapy (LDI) is a treatment approach that uses highly diluted, homeopathic doses of specific antigens (such as those for Lyme, Bartonella, and Babesia) to gently prompt the body’s immune system to recognize and address chronic infections.
- Personalized Dosing: LDI is highly individualized. The potency of the antigen is carefully selected to match the patient’s current level of reactivity, ensuring the body can handle the treatment.
- Treatment Progression: Patients begin by taking a specific potency dose, typically at intervals of several weeks. As the body responds and healing progresses, they advance to the next, higher potency. While this cost can accumulate over time, healing is often non-linear, allowing patients sometimes to skip potencies as their natural healing accelerates.
Advantages of LDI
- Flexibility and Adjustability: Potencies are easily adjusted to suit the patient’s immediate level of reactivity.
- Compatibility: LDI can be safely used alongside other treatments, such as herbal treatments, allowing for a multifaceted approach to infection.
- Gentle Side Effects: When dosed correctly, LDI is gentle, reducing the likelihood of severe “die-off” or toxicity symptoms often associated with other treatments.
- Low Initial Cost: The upfront cost is relatively low, with individual antigen doses being inexpensive.
Disadvantages of LDI
Dosing Accuracy: Optimal treatment effectiveness often relies on in-person muscle testing to determine the precise potency, although some skilled practitioners can perform this remotely.
Accessibility: LDI is not widely known, which may require patients to travel to see a functional medicine provider.
Insurance Coverage: LDI is typically not covered by health insurance.
What isn’t LDI?
It is worth noting that LDI is not the same as DesBio Infection Series vial kits, which also use homeopathic remedies to heal infections. DesBio kits are a pre-made series of antigens that are not tailored to your specific infection response. In my experience, the DesBio kits are not universally tolerated, and I have personally had strong negative Herxheimer reactions when using them.
Antibicrobials for infectious triggers of MCAS
Antimicrobials are another useful way to treat underlying infections, ranging from herbs and essential oils to antibiotics and other agents. Side effects of different antimicrobials can range from severe to mild, depending on the patient’s characteristics, the severity of the infection(s), the prescribed dosing, and the length of treatment. Antimicrobials are targeted to specific infections, so treatment costs will vary depending on which antimicrobial agents are prescribed, the patient’s insurance coverage, and other factors, such as the length of treatment. Some antimicrobials, such as antibiotics, are typically covered by insurance, while others, such as herbs, are not.
Homeopathy for infectious triggers of MCAS
Classical Homeopathy is another excellent customized way to treat infections that relies on the body’s own healing potential. Homeopathy can be a more affordable treatment because it works on multiple levels of healing simultaneously. Once the provider identifies your specific constitutional remedy, it can be effective for healing any and all symptoms you are experiencing, whether MCAS-, infection-, trauma-, or allergy-related.
LymeStop or CranioBiotic treatment for infectious triggers of MCAS
LymeStop is an amazing energetic treatment modality that can address multiple infections simultaneously, including Lyme Disease. My local LymeStop practitioner is Ben Erlandson near LaCrosse, Wisconsin, but other providers are located around the country. CranioBiotic treatment, on which LymeStop is based, heals many imbalances in the body, including toxicities, parasite or candida overgrowth, and many infections.
Frequency healing for infections and detoxing
Individualized, targeted microcurrent programs can be run to address current infections, mitigate their symptoms, and support detoxification.
Our cases
My children and I each took a different path to healing our infections. I started with herbals, then moved on to LDI, did extensive healing of my gut with the GAPs protocol, LymeStop, and finally homeopathy combined with a Keto diet. Because my Lyme Disease and co-infections had been present in my body for decades, my body required multiple paths to healing over 12 or so years.
My son used antibiotics and then herbals, and because his infections were caught early on, his treatment only lasted a few months. One of my daughters chose to use herbals, LDI, and then LymeStop. The other needed five months of IV antibiotics, herbals, LDI, LymeStop, and then classical homeopathy while she was being treated for SIBO. Each patient’s path to healing will differ based on the specific vector-borne illnesses present, the time elapsed since the initial infection, other underlying conditions, and the state of their limbic and vagal health.
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Sign up for the SSP!
I’ve found the Safe and Sound Protocol (SSP) to be the most helpful bottom-up healing strategy if your nervous system has been overloaded with toxic exposures, including mold or non-native EMFs, chronic infections, concussions, stress, or trauma. The SSP is a passive listening therapy based on Polyvagal Theory that helps heal nervous system dysregulation. Many people with MCAS and other chronic conditions have nervous system dysregulation stemming from infections, toxic exposures, concussions, and trauma. The SSP is an easy-to-use app that lets you listen to specially filtered music for 30 minutes each day as part of a 5-hour cycle. Studies show the SSP has a profound effect on mental health and chronic conditions. Here’s a short podcast describing the Safe and Sound Protocol.
You can sign up for the SSP here!
Heal your mind!
While the SSP is a bottom-up, somatic therapy for healing the nervous system, the Sacred Self-Healing Method I offer is a top-down nervous system-healing modality that focuses on cognition, attention, perception, and emotion, using the mind’s higher functions. The SSP and the Sacred Self-Healing Method complement each other and together produce lasting results. Here’s a short podcast on my self-healing practice.
I provide one-on-one in-person and remote chronic illness and caregiver coaching, as well as Sacred Self-Healing Sessions based on the Sacred Self-Healing Method, a proven, novel co-creative healing modality detailed in my Books.
Order my books!
Here’s a short podcast highlighting my five books.
My latest book, Living In The Light: Healing with Forgiveness, Sound, and Light, is all about the tools that have been most helpful for me to heal: forgiveness, sound, through nervous system retraining using the Safe and Sound Protocol, and light, through entraining my circadian rhythm with the energy of the sun. Living In The Light is available here!
Rocks and Roots chronicles my solo backpacking journey on the Superior Hiking Trail and my efforts to overcome nervous system dysregulation, gut dysbiosis, and Mast Cell Activation Syndrome symptoms to complete the 328-mile hike successfully.
The Sacred Self-Healing Method ebook is available here and in most ebook retailers!
The Sacred Self-Healing Workbook is available for purchase here!
Betsy’s first book, Sacred Self-Healing: Finding Peace Through Forgiveness, is available here
Companion Recordings
The companion audio recordings of chants, guided meditations, and sound healing demonstrations that accompany the Sacred Self-Healing Method are available for free on my YouTube channel here
What do you think?
I’d love to have your reply below!
Disclaimer
The preceding material does not constitute medical advice. This information is for information purposes only and is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, cure, or treatment.
