To pull an HN evergreen and reply to the overly specific instead of your main point: My wife developed "histamine intolerance" after a time of heavy stress, in a story that's scary similar to yours. It took her years to figure it out, from chance result on a super broad blood test. To confirm this, she changed her diet to be only low-histamine foods and it made all the difference. She went from "a single chocolate chip cookie makes me sick for 3 days" to "mostly leading a normal life, just watch what you eat" in half a year or so. Over time it helped her gut recover to the point that she now generally does not need to watch out much anymore, except in some periods when some old symptoms pop back up and she reverts to low-histamine diet for a while.
Statistically speaking this is probably not it and you considered/tried it already, but just wanted to bring it up in the off chance that you hadn't heard of this before. I mean doctors just said "irritable bowel syndrome! theres no cure sorry bye". She's been writing a low-histamine foodblog for some years, which includes a good starting point for what to eat and avoid: https://histaminefriendlykitchen.com/histamine-friendly-food...
For years I had the same gut issues described by others here, seemingly caused by a combination of factors. I'll share what helped me solve the problem.
The most effective thing for me seemed to be hitting the gym hard, lifting heavy and sweating a lot.
Alongside that, I went through a lot of trial and error with the foods my body would tolerate. I started with a low histamine/low FODMAP approach, various fasting methods, bone broths (collagen), probiotics (sauerkraut, kefir), etc., and slowly introduced various foods on top of that while noting what made me feel good or bad and basing my diet around that. Everyone is different so what worked for me diet-wise may not work for you.
Lastly, for my particular case, I think liver-boosting supplements like milk thistle and NAC helped significantly (and probably some others for any vitamin/mineral deficiencies, especially D3+K2). I suspect the root cause of my problems was toxic mold plus stress/trauma.
Thanks for sharing this, and pass on my thanks to Tania too.
It's just uncanny to see a whole lot of the "random" foods that make me feel bad on a single list, and that number next to the anchovies explains the post-homemade pizza feeling too...
Statistically speaking this is probably not it and you considered/tried it already, but just wanted to bring it up in the off chance that you hadn't heard of this before. I mean doctors just said "irritable bowel syndrome! theres no cure sorry bye". She's been writing a low-histamine foodblog for some years, which includes a good starting point for what to eat and avoid: https://histaminefriendlykitchen.com/histamine-friendly-food...