Imagine your body as a bathtub, slowly filling up with histamine. For most people, there is a steady drip from the faucet and a functioning drain. If you have histamine intolerance, it's as if someone left the tap open and the drain is blocked.
Before you know it, the tub is overflowing. Histamine overwhelms your system and you find yourself dealing with a range of frustrating symptoms.
Being aware of the problem is the first step towards clearing the drain and reducing your histamine levels. The next, is using histamine-lowering strategies to overcome your elevated histamine levels. Essentially, stopping that leaky faucet from continuously adding histamine into your system.
The million-dollar question for anyone with histamine intolerance is: “How long for histamine levels to drop?”
If you’re feeling overwhelmed by histamine overload, don’t worry—relief is possible, and we’re here to guide you through the process.
Understanding the Histamine Reduction Timeline
Histamine is an essential chemical produced by immune cells in the body. It functions as a neurotransmitter, regulates stomach acid production, and modulates the immune system (1).
It is also involved in the allergic response. When your immune system encounters an invader, histamine sounds the alarm, setting off a series of reactions. Once the invader has been dealt with, histamine is then neutralized by enzymes such as diamine oxidase (DAO) (2).
People with histamine intolerance typically have low levels of this all-important enzyme. Lower levels of DAO can occur for many different reasons, but the end result it that it leaves your dealing with chronically elevated histamine levels. In other words, it’s like having a bathtub with a blocked drain—and in those living with histamine intolerance, histamine accumulates until the tub overflows and causes all sorts of disabling symptoms.
The obvious solution to histamine symptoms is to reduce histamine levels. Unfortunately, histamine cannot be eliminated overnight. It takes time and dedication to action the histamine-lowering strategies to reduce levels to the point where your symptoms disappear.
Before we explore the steps you can take to speed up histamine reduction, it’s crucial to understand that the timeline can vary significantly from one person to the next. Several factors influence how quickly your histamine levels drop (3). It can be due to:
- Individual variations in histamine metabolism
- The severity of your histamine intolerance
- Your current histamine load
- The efficiency of your histamine-degrading enzymes—DAO and HNMT
With these factors in mind, let’s break down the typical timeline for histamine reduction:
Short-Term Histamine Reduction (1-72 Hours)
Antihistamines, or histamine blockers, can offer immediate relief that can usually be felt within 1-24 hours. However, they are only a temporary solution as they don’t address the root cause of why you're struggling with histamine overload in the first place. There's another issue you may face when you start to use histamine blockers: they can make the problem worse in the long run.
Dietary changes can be very effective, even in the short-term. By reducing the amount of histamine you consume, you can support your body's efforts in lowering your histamine load. We’ll talk about this again later. For now, know that you can begin to experience relief from symptoms as soon as 24-72 hours after making dietary changes (4).
Medium-Term Histamine Reduction (1-6 Weeks)
This is where the element of time comes into the histamine reduction-equation. Following a low-histamine diet for 1-4 weeks can lead to considerable improvements. You’re effectively giving your body a break from the usual supply of histamine at every meal.
It is also when gut repair begins. Since histamine intolerance originates in the digestive system, improving gut health can enhance your natural ability to break down histamine. This process takes between 2 to 6 weeks (5).
Long-Term Histamine Reduction (1-6 Months)
For long-term success, you’re going to need to dig deep. It can take up to 6 months to stabilize your body’s histamine response and keep your body's histamine load within tolerable levels. It might seem like a long time, but the relief from symptoms is usually enough to keep you motivated to stick with it.
Additional strategies that I'll provide you with below are intended to work together to stabilize your mast cells in the long run. Because mast cells are the cells responsible for producing, storing, and releasing histamine, they're important to target for long-term histamine relief. As histamine-laden mast cells turn over, they are replaced with new ones that have not yet been triggered by your immune system (6). It means that there's a lower risk of them breaking apart and releasing their contents of histamine and other inflammatory chemicals due to non-threatening compounds like your old mast cells were doing.
The question still remains: can you speed up the process?
4 Ways to Speed Up Histamine Reduction
As mentioned before, histamine can’t be reduced to normal levels overnight. But there are ways to lower elevated histamine levels at a faster rate.
Here are my 4 tried and trusted strategies for kicking to do just that:
#1 Follow a strict low-histamine diet
Some foods are high in histamine and others trigger its release. Other foods are also able to block the DAO enzyme from working properly. For that reason, when you eliminate these foods from your diet, you naturally reduce the amount of histamine your body has to break down, and also allow the DAO your body does produce, to work efficiently.
The idea behind the low-histamine diet is to focus on fresh, whole foods and avoid the following:
- Fermented products such as cheese, yogurt, kimchi, and sauerkraut.
- Cured, smoked, and canned meat.
- Shellfish.
- Vegetables like eggplant, spinach, and tomato.
- Fruits such as strawberries, nectarines, and bananas.
For a more comprehensive guide to following a low-histamine diet, click the button below to download our free guide to get started on your healing journey.
#2 Supplement wisely
Your body needs all the help it can get. Certain supplements can support the histamine-breakdown processes, allowing your to reduce your histamine levels at a faster rate. You can use one or a combination of the following:
- Diamine oxidase enzyme supplements can help reduce histamine levels in your gut.
- Vitamin C is a natural antihistamine.
-
Quercetin, which can be taken on its own or in a combination product such as Anti-Hist, is a potent natural antihistamine.
These are just three examples of supplements you can add to your routine to help you to heal from histamine intolerance. Consult with a healthcare provider experienced in the condition for advice on the supplements best suited to your needs.
#3 Prioritize stress reduction
It probably isn’t the first thing that comes to mind when considering your options for reducing histamine levels, but stress plays a significant role. Research reveals that psychological stress amplifies histamine release (7).
Making time to manage your stress and focus on relaxation is a key factor in reducing histamine levels. Your options are endless. Do something fun, take up yoga, practice gratitude, keep a journal, do some gentle exercise, spend time outdoors, or read a book. The idea is to do something you enjoy, and that brings you peace. It's these moments in your life that can help significantly with stress relief, and have overall important benefits on your health by supporting a sense of calmness in your nervous system.
#4 Improve gut health
At the core of raised histamine levels and histamine intolerance is an unbalanced gut. So it’s not a coincidence that so many symptoms of histamine intolerance affect the digestive system.
Part of the overall healing process is targeted healing of the gut. You can achieve gut healing by improving the integrity of the intestinal lining, rebalancing the gut microbiome, and by improving the movement of food through the digestive system.
A diet based on fresh, whole foods is pivotal to gut health. To speed up the gut healing process, you can include low-histamine probiotics, prebiotics, and nutrients such as L-glutamine alongside your gut healing diet.
Monitoring Your Progress While Healing From Histamine Intolerance
Track your progress as you implement these strategies. Keep a symptom diary and note any improvements, no matter how small. Healing is not always linear—you will have good days and bad.
Don’t be discouraged by the occasional setback. You might have a temporary flare up if you accidentally eat something high in histamine, have a stressful period at work, or be exposed to unavoidable environmental triggers.
Whatever you do, don’t panic. Simply return to your baseline low-histamine diet and stress-management techniques, and be patient as your body recalibrates.
Allow Enough Time for Histamine Levels to Drop
So, how long does it take for histamine levels to drop?
There’s no one-size-fits-all answer. But most people I've worked with see improvements within 1-3 months of consistently applying these strategies.
The bottom line is that healing from histamine intolerance is a journey, not a sprint. Use these strategies to help you along, be patient and kind to your body, celebrate small victories, and trust in the process. It will heal in time.
References
- Professional CC. What Is Histamine? Cleveland Clinic. 2023.
- WHITE M. The role of histamine in allergic diseases. Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology. 1990 Oct;(4):599–605.
- Hrubisko M, Danis R, Huorka M, Wawruch M. Histamine Intolerance—The More We Know the Less We Know. A Review. Nutrients. 2021 Jun 29;(7):2228.
- Sánchez-Pérez S, Comas-Basté O, Veciana-Nogués MT, Latorre-Moratalla ML, Vidal-Carou MC. Low-Histamine Diets: Is the Exclusion of Foods Justified by Their Histamine Content? Nutrients. 2021 Apr 21;(5):1395.
- Schnedl WJ, Enko D. Histamine Intolerance Originates in the Gut. Nutrients. 2021 Apr 12;(4):1262.
- Krystel-Whittemore M, Dileepan KN, Wood JG. Mast Cell: A Multi-Functional Master Cell. Frontiers in Immunology. 2016 Jan 6.
- Theoharides TC. The impact of psychological stress on mast cells. Annals of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology. 2020 Oct;(4):388–92.
Anita Tee
My name is Anita Tee. I'm a nutritional scientist specializing in histamine intolerance. I hold a Master of Science in Personalized Nutrition and a Bachelor of Science in Human Biology and Psychology.
For the past ten years, I have used my experience in nutritional and medical health sciences to create a scientifically backed, natural approach to healthcare that relies 100% on evidence-based research.
As I previously suffered from - and overcame - histamine intolerance, my focus is to increase recognition and expand the available resources and protocols for resolving the disorder. To date, I have helped over 4,000 individuals fully resolve or better manage their histamine intolerance symptoms.
