Having an MCAS rescue plan in place is key to managing symptoms. Mast Cell Activation symptom flares can occur from environmental exposures, eating triggering foods, having an emotional upset, a physical injury, work stress, or any combination of stressors that add up to overwhelm your system. Mast cells are involved in immune responses, too, so if you get sick, your mast cells will send messages to your brain through your nervous system that your body is under attack. You can react to hormonal changes like your monthly period, perimenopause, thyroid issues, and endocrine disruptions stemming from toxic exposures. You can even have a more pronounced mast cell reaction simply due to mast cell activity in your body.
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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.
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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What is an MCAS rescue plan?
A rescue plan provides step-by-step instructions for when you are experiencing mast cell activation symptoms or histamine intolerance.
Ideally, you have a physician or functional provider following your care, who will help you develop a rescue plan tailored to your constitution and typical symptom progression. But what if you haven’t been able to find a local healthcare provider who is knowledgeable about MCAS and histamine intolerance? What if your provider isn’t comfortable diagnosing or treating?
Unfortunately, you may have to use your intuition and trial and error to figure out your own rescue plan. I am not a doctor, and I cannot diagnose or treat anything, so you should continue to seek a provider to help you.
What is your typical symptom progression?
Understanding your symptom progression during a flare is key to developing your own rescue plan. In this post, I discuss symptom progressions and ways you can figure out your own symptom progression. Once you know what typically happens in your symptom flares, you can put together a rescue plan to address those symptoms.
My symptom flares usually start with facial flushing.
Then I will experience prickling and pain in my limbs, spreading to more of my body.
Then general inflammation increases, and I develop a sense of heaviness throughout my body from excess fluid and stiffness.
Then I begin to experience neuropathy/neurological pain/numbness in my sciatic nerve, which comes in waves like zinging electrical impulses at night, waking me up. When they happen during the day, they are accompanied by waves of intense heat.
If my symptom flare continues to progress, I will start to develop body aches, chills, and flu-like symptoms. Or they could develop into mental/emotional symptoms of anxiety/panic or depression/overwhelm.
At any time throughout my symptom progression, I may experience insomnia, heart palpitations, GI upset such as bloating, gas, heartburn/reflux, constipation, and a sense of fullness/constriction in my throat with hoarseness.
And if the mast cell flare goes unchecked for a few days, then my hair loss dramatically increases, and I get migraines of all kinds, including ocular and hemiplegic migraines.
Sample rescue plan
The following general example is my rescue plan, and it will not suit anyone else. I offer it as an example of what you could create with your physician or functional provider, given your typical symptom progression.
My Rescue Plan
| Symptom | Response |
| Level 1 Dysphoria, neuropathy, flushing, overheating | Take 2 capsules Nettle-Quercetin |
| Level 2 Hives, inflammation, insomnia | Take 1 additional tablet of Claritin. Stop eating any possibly triggering foods. Drink chamomile tea in the evening |
| Level 3 Neuropathy, edema, pain, GI symptoms | Take 2 capsules Nettle-Quercetin every 2 hours until the symptom flare resolves. For migraines, take Herb Pharm Head Soother. For heart palpitations, drink lemon balm tea |
| Level 4 Aches, chills, flu-like symptoms, anxiety, depression, migraines, heart palpitations | Take 1 additional tablet of Claritin. Stop eating any possibly triggering foods. Drink chamomile tea if it is evening |
| Level 5 Multi-system involvement and self-perpetuating mast cell activation | Take 2 capsules Nettle-Quercetin every 2 hours, plus 2 extra turmeric capsules. Take additional Hydroxyzine if symptoms develop during the night |
Treating individual symptoms
Here is a breakdown of how I treat individual symptoms:
| Symptom | Remedy |
| Anxiety/depression | Take 2 capsules of Nettle Quercetin every two hours until resolved |
| Flushing | Take 2 capsules of Nettle Quercetin every two hours until resolved |
| Flu-like symptoms | Take 2 capsules of Nettle Quercetin every two hours until resolved |
| GI symptoms: Liver/gallbladder pain Gas/bloating Belly pain | Take 1 squirt of GB Tone Take 1 dose Homeopathic Sulfur 30c Take 2 capsules Tri-Salts, 2 capsules Nettle Quercetin, and 1 squirt GB Tone |
| Heart palpitations | Drink 1 cup of lemon balm tea |
| Hives | Take one extra Claritin tablet; then take two capsules of Nettle Quercetin every two hours until resolved |
| Inflammation/edema/pain | Take 2 capsules Nettle Quercetin and 2 extra turmeric capsules |
| Insomnia | Take 1 squirt Relax Tone; drink chamomile tea; and/or take 2 additional Hydroxyines |
| Migraines | Take 1 squirt Head Soother and 2 capsules Nettle Quercetin every two hours until resolved |
| Neuropathy | Take 10 mg. Hydroxyzine then appropriate remedy for restless legs |
| Restless legs | Zincum metallicum: Traditionally used for legs that feel weak, twitch, or feel restless, often with a need to move them constantly. Rhus toxicodendron: Traditionally indicated for restlessness that forces the person to walk, with relief from moving, often accompanied by aches or stiffness. Arsenicum album: Often traditionally used for restlessness associated with anxiety, burning sensations, or a need to keep moving. Sulphur: Traditionally used when the restlessness is accompanied by heat in the feet or itching. Coffea cruda: Traditionally considered suitable if the restlessness is accompanied by an overactive mind and sleeplessness. |
| Sulfur cycle dysfunction: (Bloating and gas, Joint pain, Smoky body odor, Sinus discharge) | Daily Epsom Salt baths Reduce sulfur intake One dose of Homeopathic Sulfur 1M followed by a 6c dose each day until resolved |
The next level would be to go to the ER or use an Epi-Pen, and luckily, I have never needed to do that. But I have that in my mind if my symptoms were to continue to worsen. I have found that the cycle of increasing symptoms causes me to be anxious, which causes more symptomatology, which causes everything to get worse. So staying on top of the early measures in my rescue plan is key to making sure the later stages of my symptom progression don’t develop.
How to determine where you are on your symptom progression?
It is often difficult to tell where I am in my symptom progression because it doesn’t always follow the same order, and there can be layers of symptom flaring happening simultaneously.
For instance, I could be mildly reacting to pollen in the air, which can trigger flushing. If I don’t catch it right away, and I ingest food that causes a reaction, I might progress to the next level and start having hives before I realize what is happening. So if I know I am having two symptoms, I would take 1-2 extra D-Hist and a Claritin. And if I didn’t figure out what was happening until I was suddenly having three or four symptoms, I would take 2 D-Hist, a Claritin, and take steps to reduce my stress and rest.
You might be coming down with a cold and not know whether it is an MCAS symptom or an illness. And so if I start experiencing cold symptoms, I automatically begin my rescue plan, because either way, mast cells will be activated by the presence of a cold or other mast cell symptoms. So the safest bet is to start the rescue plan.
Realistically, it is impossible to say exactly where you are in your symptom progression, whether there are layers of symptoms compounding, or if it is an illness. So, the safest course is to start working through your rescue plan, log your symptoms and what you take when, and watch for whether you are beginning to turn around.
It is an art, not a science, and you will know best what it feels like in your body.
Resources
This informative post by Mast Cell 360 offers guidance on creating your own MCAS rescue plan.
Check out these circadian health tools!
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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
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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.
