Should I be vaccinated against Covid-19 despite histamine intolerance? I had written a blog post about this and then launched a study. Of course, this is not a scientific study in the conventional sense, but rather an online survey of those affected in order to identify a trend and make it easier for others to make their decision.
We have now completed this study and I would like to describe the findings below.
A total of 183 patients took part, although unfortunately we had to exclude almost 80 patients because they had not received a correct medical diagnosis. Nevertheless, a few interesting details about vaccination were gleaned from the remaining 100 participants. So do our statements on vaccination against coronavirus remain valid despite histamine intolerance? Read for yourself:
The study results
The following data are summaries of the data adjusted as described above.
Of the 97 participants, 14 were male and 83 female. Only one vaccination was given to 75 people, two vaccinations to 22 people. Of these, only 4 were male. Only one person was vaccinated with the “Johnson” vaccine, but this person did not have histamine intolerance, but lactose and fructose intolerance as well as various allergies. The vaccination reaction of this person was very low. The remaining subjects received “AstraZeneca” (n=32), “BionTech” (n=60) and “Moderna” (n=4).
Only 22 people had a histamine intolerance (mostly paired with other allergies and intolerances), the rest had various allergies and/or intolerances.
Histamine intolerance only
This already shows how difficult it is to make statements here. Out of 183 surveys, only 22 can be used to answer the specific question about the tolerability of the vaccination in the case of histamine intolerance. But I want to subdivide this group even further.
Already experienced anaphylactic episode
5 of these patients had previously experienced anaphylactic shock. All of these 5 patients were female, received the vaccine from BionTech or AstraZeneca and were vaccinated once. Only 1 person received an antihistamine before the vaccination. Two of those affected had somewhat more severe symptoms; only one of these people required medical care 2 hours after the vaccination. However, this person has an allergy to certain medicines. The rest had mild to no symptoms.
No anaphylactic event to date
The remaining 19 people affected have not yet had an anaphylactic shock. 9 of them, i.e. around half, had taken an antihistamine before the vaccination. Here it can be seen that this probably made hardly any difference, since here, as in the other group without antihistamine, a similar distribution of the severity of the symptoms can be found. Most describe the vaccination symptoms as moderate (2.6), the reaction to this vaccination only slightly stronger than previous vaccinations (3.5).
Other intolerances
If you look at the rest of those affected, i.e. all those with lactose intolerance, fructose intolerance and the like and/or allergies, the picture looks similar. 44 only received the first partial vaccination, 9 already the second. Of these 53 people, only 20 do not have an allergy. This group of people without histamine intolerance showed that the vaccination was well tolerated (2.7) and was only slightly worse than other vaccinations (3.4).
Conclusions
First of all: these are not scientific findings, but trends derived from our online survey. Due to the small number and the type of survey, these are definitely not scientifically sound statements, but trends based on experience reports.
Nevertheless, the picture is quite clear: COVID-19 vaccination in intolerance patients has no different expectations regarding vaccination symptoms than in other people. The picture regarding allergies is similar to our experience and our surveys of recent years. People with intolerances tend to also have an allergy more often, although we do not know whether there is a connection here or not. Our assumption has always been that this group of people is better medically clarified and therefore an accumulation can be explained here.
In any case, there has been no accumulation of problems or symptoms in these people. The personal reports in the survey show that the symptoms subside quickly and that there are hardly any differences to other non-intolerance patients. The data also speak for themselves: the vaccination is tolerated to the same extent as by non-intolerant patients.
Histamine intolerance
Looking specifically at histamine intolerance, it has been shown that some patients who paid attention to their histamine barrel 1-2 days before the vaccination showed significantly milder symptoms than other patients. According to our survey, taking antihistamines did not bring any significant improvement. To be honest, I’m surprised, but that’s just the way the data is. From this we can cautiously deduce that it is best to eat a low histamine diet for one or two days before the vaccination and to bring a well emptied histamine barrel to the vaccination.
The recommendation “Anyone who has ever had an anaphylactic shock should talk to the vaccinating doctor and their GP” also remains valid, as does the recommendation “Wait at least 15 minutes after vaccination, do not go home straight away”. I would even extend this to 20 to 30 minutes. According to our data, histamine intolerance patients are not likely to have an anaphylactic event or severe histamine symptoms.
The conclusion of our survey: there is no increased risk of developing vaccination symptoms. There is only a minimally increased risk of developing moderate symptoms instead of mild symptoms. However, these are unproblematic and subside after a few days.
It cannot be argued that COVID vaccination should be avoided simply because of an intolerance, whether histamine intolerance or otherwise. The recommendation to get vaccinated therefore remains. Facilities for the management of anaphylactic reactions should be available at the vaccination site as a precaution.
