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Matt Kelly explains mast cell activation disorder using a bucket analogy: triggers accumulate silently until the system overflows and persistent symptoms appear. COVID is a commonly observed trigger that can precipitate onset.
Matt Kelly explains mast cell activation disorder using a bucket analogy: triggers accumulate silently until the system overflows and persistent symptoms appear. COVID is a commonly observed trigger that can precipitate onset.
Your whole life, the bucket's been getting more full with things that would trigger mast cells, but it's not full yet and overflowing, so your body doesn't notice symptoms or maybe minor symptoms. When that bucket of triggers gets full and then overflows, that's when you have mast cell activation that then will not stop. So it seems like it came on suddenly, but it's more like the last straw. Well, there was a billion other straws before, but they didn't overflow the bucket. They were there. And the last straw, boom, you overflow the bucket or you break the camel's back. So the problem with never better since a certain thing is you were working up to it. And then, for example, a really common thing now that we're seeing more research on is I didn't have mast cell problems, then I got COVID, and then now I have mast cell activation disorder.
