January 27th, 2010
HISTAMINE AND ANTIHISTAMINES
HISTAMINE AND ANTIHISTAMINES. Histamine. Histamine is a decarboxilation product of the amino acid, histidine, that is gift in all complete proteins, and affects nearly all tissues. It may stimulate the graceful muscle. It produces dilatation of the capillaries, that in some instances is ex¬tended to arterioles (different parts of the vascular tree in general constricted), and stimulates glands, as well as the gastric glands and therefore the adrenal medulla. Histamine is inactive when taken by mouth, in all probability as a result of of destruction by the enzyme histaminase that is gift in the intestinal mucosa. Intravenous doses are followed at intervals some seconds by intense flushing of the head and upper trunk, fall in blood pressure, increase in pulse rate, and rise in the spinal fluid pressure. Indulge your senses with this three-piece assortment of our new Aromatherapy spa product: Relaxation Tub Salts, Relaxation Shower Gel, and Relaxation Massage Lotion. Once another thirty seconds the blood pressure and spinal fluid pressure come back to traditional and headache sometimes starts. The drug incorporates a important effect on the vessels of the interior carotid system.
Histamine is of value in the study of headaches of gener¬alized kind that are because of changes in the intracranial arte¬ries. It’s been demonstrated that the intravenous injection of 0.1 to 1.5 mg. of histamine phosphate, that acts pre¬dominantly upon the interior carotid system, produces pain in the head (headache) that is proportional to the degree of increase in amplitude of pulsation of intracranial arteries. The dural and extracranial arteries play a minor or negligible role in the pain. Horton, in 1936, described a kind of headache that he currently calls “histamine cephalalgia.” It’s quite kind of like the syndrome described earlier by Harris as ciliary or migrainous neuralgia, and additional recently by Gardner as greater superficial petrosal neuralgia, and by others as “cluster headaches.” The distinctive characteristic of this headache makes it easy to recognize clinically. Thus many times I have been asked “how to find a job?”. The idea was created that the head-ache is because of unharness of histamine.
It had been any presumed that a tolerance to histamine may be obtained by repeated administration of this agent. The favorable results with histamine therapy on this kind of headache, that were re¬ported by Horton, led to an in depth trial of histamine in varied types of headache. However, in the past fifteen years, treatment of migraine and different types of vascular headache with histamine, given either subcutaneously or intravenously, has not been successful in the hands of different investigators. Attention should be called to the fact that there’s a big selection of sensitivity to histamine in different persons and there’s no evidence that the variations are greater among the aller¬gic and nonallergic patients. From our expertise, the value of histamine in the treatment of headache has been exagge¬rated. Beneficial results, when obtained, can be explained on some basis different than desensitization to histamine.