Robert Whitfield MD explains how mast cells originate in bone marrow, migrate to tissues, and cluster at your nose, lungs, and gut. They activate from medications, surgery, latex contact, and drug allergies, with triggers that vary wildly between patients.
Mast cells are part of the immune system, and their job is to identify and fight foreign invaders. They're born in the bone marrow. They move to the periphery. They live in the areas of interface between ourselves and the outside world. So, like our nose, respiratory tract, GI tract, they live around, around our nerves.
That's really important because the triggers can be just a host of things. And maybe and that's that's the thing that, to me, when these patients came in, they were telling me, potentially, triggers. And so, like, anything can be a trigger. So obviously, we operate on patients. A medication, a something that may contact the surface of their skin can trigger them. Because obviously, we know about things like latex allergies, there'll be drug allergies. But, like, these are diverse triggers, right?
Absolutely.
