I recently had a patient that had recurrent hair loss and hair regrowth.  She noted that after eating certain foods she had a rapidly beating heart.  The rapid beating heart is called heart palpitations.  Here is an email from her reprinted with her permission.

A while back, I wrote you about my heart-racing episodes. You said that it was likely allergy related. So, I was trying to think what it could be. Not coconut, but maybe... why not? I have not really had an allergic reaction to anything specific. With our handmade soaps and lotions, coconut oil has not been a problem for me; Progestelle has not been a problem either.

Thanks to you, I think I have the heart-racing figured out now...

The other day I barely had anything solid to eat. Just a lot of grapefruit, kombucha, sauerkraut and at about 5pm a cup of kombucha from the bottom of the fermentation tank that was very high in yeast - where a lot of B vitamins are. Pretty soon my heart is pounding out of my chest. Thinking of your comment about an allergy, I thought, oh no! It is the kombucha! My favorite!

I got through the rough episode, that lasted well over 2 hours, and googled "heart racing - allergy". The results led me to tons of info linking the heart-racing to histamine intolerance. Everything I love, and all I had eaten that day is very high-histamine. Wow.

Connecting the dots back to a lifetime of intolerance of chocolate mousse, coffee, caffeine, green and black tea, chocolate (IBS, stomach upset and diarhhea), red wine (face swelling), un-explained body rashes, puffy eyes, heart racing, scalp burning and tingling... I think I made a breakthrough of understanding here.

Not sure of the exact diagnosis of course but already learning a lot about histamine intolerance and related issues. www.healinghistamine.com has given me a good start. Yay!!!

Goodbye ketchup, wine, beer, dried meat and fruit, aged cheese, deli meats, balsamic vinegar, leftovers, etc... for sure. I love avocado, grapefruit, kombucha and sauerkraut, and you are staying, though in smaller quantities. Management is not about elimination of all histamines, but more about moderation of the high, low and medium histamines. Kombucha and sauerkraut have done wonders for my digestion but I need to be very careful because they are high level histamines.

Dr. Eckhart, thank you so much for leading me to this discovery. I never forgot what you said and voila! You have saved me from ovarian surgery, gotten my hormones in balance and now saved me from possible heart failure or stroke.

Thank you thank you thank you Dr. Eckhart!!!