Or are these just different names essentially for the same thing? Again, think of the iceberg, and the bulk of the iceberg below that waterline of easy clinical recognizability is what we’re terming collectively mast cell activation syndrome. Dr LA: Whereas, above the waterline, you’ve got the various allergic-type phenomena and then the rare disease of mastocytosis.
And the universal constant that I’ve been observing with mast cell activation disease actually is chronic inflammation. But it’s just to say that it is possible to see any or, unfortunately sometimes, even all systems in the body affected by the disease. That doesn’t say, of course, that every system will be affected by the disease.You mentioned in the musculoskeletal system a lot of pain, diffusely migratory pain. Even in the same patient, just from one point in time to the next, the disease can manifest opposite symptoms, which can really frustrate not only the patients but also the doctors trying to diagnose this.There can be skeletal issues like osteopenia and osteoporosis. When you think about the biology of this, where do mast cells reside in the body? So the integument, the GI tract, the respiratory tract—another environmental interface.