Adverse reaction to probiotics (histamine intolerance?)

[MarbleWarbler]

One last note, unrelated to what's been mentioned before.
I'm currently trying to figure out why I have an awful reaction to vitamin A.

Every time I take it I get muscle aches, soreness, fatigue, brain fog, and overall just feel like I physically got beat up.
The reaction is repeatable and severe. This lasts for about 12 to 24 hours.
This happens with doses I've tried from 10,000 IU to 25,000 IU sourced from fish liver oil.
Thus far I have no idea why this is.

I was hoping someone here may be able to shed some light on this.
I would like to be able to have vitamin A in my supplement stack.
Especially because of what I've read here:
https://nutristart.com/3-nutrients-can-heal-ailments/

It may be relevant that I used Accutane when I was around 18 or 19. It worked wonders to clear up the acne I had as a teenager permanently. Before that I had been on antibiotics for acne for about 2 years. I believe this obviously screwed up my gut bacteria.
If I'm not mistaken, Accutane works like an extreme dose of a synthetic vitamin A. Perhaps this is tied to why I have a bad reaction to it now?

 

[Johnmac]

Some random comments on the previous posts:

* There are several lists of pro- & anti-histamine probiotics which contradict each other. A definitive list would be nice - e.g. a table with a histamine column & a tyramine column.

* A problem with buying a probiotic food or supplement with histamine-degrading bacterial species in it is that other species in it may be pro-histamine. For example the Enzymatic Therapies one discussed above contains

Bifidobacterium longum
Lactobacillus plantarum
Bifidobacterium lactis
Lactobacillus acidophilus

The first two are supposedly anti- - but we don’t know about the last two (and Lactobacilus are often pro-).

Sauerkraut has L. plantarum (pro-) - but it also tends to contain other species that may not be pro-.

Another example: I ate lots of coconut cream yogurt that I cultured from Vaalia (dairy) yogurt, because I wanted the L. rhamnosus GG strain that has good data behind it on gut-fixing. It worked brilliantly, & I can recommend it as a way to transition from limited diets such as low-FODMAP to regular food.

However, after a while I got horrendous histamine symptoms. I assume this was from Vaalia’s other two strains – L. acidophilus & B. lactis. I can’t find them on any pro- or anti- lists, but I’m assuming at least one of them might be pro-.

A way around this (you’d think) would be to culture just the L. rhamnosus. However most strains don’t make brilliant yogurts. This is why nearly every commerical yogurt has the yogurt-making 'basics' of L. acidophilus, S. thermophilus & L. delbreukii (formerly known as L. bulgaricus) - or at least two of them. Then they add any special, therapeutic ones (e.g. rhamnosus) to that mix.

But the therapeutic species commonly don't make brilliant yogurt by themselves. L. reuteri, for instance (effective against ‘autism’ symptoms in mice) cultures up pretty good slime.

* My discovery is that you don’t actually need much yogurt to get an effect. I now have 1 tsp of Vaalia a day, which helps my gut a lot but doesn’t give me histamine symptoms.

* Other ways of dodging histamine problems:

(i) According to Chris Kresser: use soil-based organisms such as those in the PrescriptAssist supplement.

(ii) My experience is that probiotic supplements don't cause histamine problems anyway - only foods. (Which incidentally may suggest that CFU counts are way higher in foods than pills.)

(iii) Others recommend amasi, the Zulu probiotic, which allegedly uses Lactobacillus plantarum, Bifdocaterium lactis, and Bifidobacterium longum - all histamine-degraders.

* In my recent phase of culturing up dozens of species to see which did what, I noticed an unexpected effect of much calmer mood. It might have been L. casei shirota from Yakult that did this - not sure. But it may also have been the synergistic effects of many strains. IMO any therapeutic strain you are using needs an ‘orchestra’ of others behind it - variety. That background variety IMO is as important as the 'soloist'.

* I attach my doc tabulating what the studies say about what species help with various health conditions; which food/supplement products the species come in; & finally all the species each product contains.