What is Your MCAS Rescue Plan?

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 to mast cell activity in your body.

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With all of these possible ways to create mast cell overreaction, it is important to have a plan in place for when you are experiencing a symptom flare. Mast cell reactions can happen immediately after exposure or incident, or take up to several days to develop. So, you need to be aware of your exposures, and track what might be causing your symptoms. That is why I recommend symptom tracking.

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What is an MCAS rescue plan?

A rescue plan gives you step-by-step instructions to follow when you are experiencing mast cell activation symptoms or histamine intolerance.

Ideally, you have a physician or functional provider following your care, and they will help you develop a rescue plan tailored to your constitution and your 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, 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 try to find a provider to help you.

What is your typical symptom progression?

Knowing your symptom progression in a flare is the 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/pain sensations on the skin of my limbs spreading to more of my body.

Then, general inflammation increases, and I develop a sense of heaviness in my whole 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 then I will start to have body aches, chills, and flu 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 example is my rescue plan, and it will not be suitable for anyone else. I offer it as an example of what you could create with your physician or functional provider given your typical symptom progression.

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 reacting mildly to pollen in the air, and that instigates 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 realize 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 l 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 start 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 starting 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 how to create your own MCAS rescue plan.

What is on your MCAS rescue plan?

I’d love to have your reply below!