Uploaded August 2026 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
Another common mistake I see with histamine intolerance is putting too much weight on a single test.
Normal blood histamine does not rule out histamine intolerance or histamine overload. DAO testing gives us some information about one of the enzymes involved in breaking histamine down and genetic testing can add another piece to the histamine puzzle but none of these tests on their own answer every case.
A better question I'm always asking is why did you lose tolerance to histamine in the first place?
This is where I tend to come back to the history. I’m looking for what I often call the “never been well since moment". Where did things change for you where you saw a dramatic worsening of your health. Was it a course of antibiotics? A gut infection? Mega stress? Mould exposure? A major illness? Did the digestive symptoms start first, with histamine symptoms coming on later?
That timeline often gives us far more useful information than simply running every histamine-related test available.
Testing can absolutely and 100% be useful but I prefer to use the history and presenting symptoms to decide which test is actually worth spending the money to run. If someone has never been well since antibiotics and their symptoms point towards a fungal or bacterial overgrowth that gives us a much more specific direction, specific testing and specific treatment options.
Another common mistake I see with histamine intolerance is putting too much weight on a single test.
Normal blood histamine does not rule out histamine intolerance or histamine overload. DAO testing gives us some information about one of the enzymes involved in breaking histamine down and genetic testing can add another piece to the histamine puzzle but none of these tests on their own answer every case.
A better question I'm always asking is why did you lose tolerance to histamine in the first place?
This is where I tend to come back to the history. I’m looking for what I often call the “never been well since moment". Where did things change for you where you saw a dramatic worsening of your health. Was it a course of antibiotics? A gut infection? Mega stress? Mould exposure? A major illness? Did the digestive symptoms start first, with histamine symptoms coming on later?
That timeline often gives us far more useful information than simply running every histamine-related test available.
Testing can absolutely and 100% be useful but I prefer to use the history and presenting symptoms to decide which test is actually worth spending the money to run. If someone has never been well since antibiotics and their symptoms point towards a fungal or bacterial overgrowth that gives us a much more specific direction, specific testing and specific treatment options.
