Dr Afrin Writes Book on MCAS.

Remy

Administrator
Dr Afrin is a well known mast cell disorders specialist...and he has now written a book! I think MCAS is really common in the MECFS population and hopefully this will help the public understand the condition better as well as the treatments people have found helpful.

http://www.amazon.com/Never-Bet-Against-Occam-Activation/dp/0997319615

In 2008 Dr. Afrin started coming to understand that a newly recognized type of mast cell disease, now called mast cell activation syndrome (MCAS), was the underlying diagnosis in many patients he was seeing who were each suffering large assortments -- quite different from one patient to the next -- of chronic multisystem inflammatory illnesses of unclear cause.

Dr. Afrin soon gained experience that MCAS is far more prevalent than the only mast cell disease previously known to medicine (the rare disease of mastocytosis) and that most MCAS patients, once accurately diagnosed, can eventually find significantly helpful medications targeted at the disease.

The frequency and magnitude of the improvements Dr. Afrin has seen -- even the relief that comes from finally having a unifying diagnosis other than psychosomatism -- have spurred him to focus in this area, not only tending to the needs of his patients but also pursuing research to advance our understanding of the disease and helping to educate other professionals who in turn can help even more of the many people who have long been suffering not only the symptoms of the disease but also the natural concern of not understanding why one would be so unlucky to have acquired so many medical problems.

As it turns out, such patients are not so unlucky and truly have just one root issue (and a very common one at that), which has the biological capability to develop, directly or indirectly, into most or all of their previously diagnosed problems. There is a great deal yet to learn about this, but even with just the present very limited understanding, the opportunity to diagnose and help patients with MCAS seems to be enormous and Dr. Afrin felt a description of the disease, written for the general public, might help lead some MCAS patients on a journey to diagnosis and improvement sooner rather than later.

Dr. Afrin hopes this book will help people who might have, or do have, MCAS. A portion of the proceeds of purchases of this book will go to support research and education in this area.
 

Cort

Founder of Health Rising and Phoenix Rising
Staff member

Who Me?

Well-Known Member
Dr Theoharides has a YouTube video on mast cell and austism and mast cells in the brain.

I'm going to pursue that with the immunologist next week.

He developed Neuroprotek for this.
 

Issie

Well-Known Member
Dr Afrin has helped so many of us (even if we haven't personally seen him). It's great that he has a book out.

Issie
 

Veet

Well-Known Member
My MC symptoms are relatively benign. Once I uncovered MC as the underlying reason, I've been able to manage it using a simple, inexpensive supplement, royal jelly, as a mc stabilizer. Quite clearly I get mc flares when adrenals are stressed. I've only just understood that my POTS-lite symptoms are also, to some degree, mc, and have gotten some improvement by resuming royal jelly. Some resources I've found helpful:


http://www.chronicpainpartners.com/...ders-by-dr-theoharis-theoharides-june-2-2015/
Mast Cell Disorders: Theorharides for EDS group, June 2015. 2hrs; overlapping syndromes of MC

Symptoms of MC: Interview of 2 women

‘Brain Allergy’ and ASD - T. Theoharides, MD, PhD‬
Neuroprotek
Mastocytosis with Theoharis C. Theoharides, MS, PhD, MD, FAA‬

https://mastcellblog.wordpress.com/2013/11/12/canary/
 
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Remy

Administrator
Quite clearly I get mc flares when adrenals are stressed.
This makes a lot of sense because when cortisol is low, the hypothalamus releases corticotropin releasing factor (CRF) to stimulate the adrenals to produce more cortisol. When cortisol is too high, the hypothalamus is still releasing a lot of CRF. Only the Goldilocks position is good for cortisol. And hardly any of us are in that position unfortunately.

Guess what else has functional CRF receptors? Yup. Mast cells. So anyone with a dysfunctional HPA axis is likely to have mast cell issues to some degree, whether they recognize them as typical "allergies" or not.
 

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