Never Bet Against Occam Quotes

“It seems to be a relatively safe pain-reliever for MCAD patients to try, and especially in a disease in which both non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs and narcotics can often trigger symptomatic flares, it’s a good drug for the mast-cell-treating physician to keep in his back pocket, so to speak. Tranexamic acid “Tran´”
― Lawrence B. Afrin, Never Bet Against Occam: Mast Cell Activation Disease and the Modern Epidemics of Chronic Illness and Medical Complexity

“Because many MCAD patients suffer from progressive (and likely MCAD-driven) build-up of cholesterol-laden plaque in the arteries called atherosclerosis, it’s not surprising that many such patients come to be on simvastatin or one of its sister drugs (e.g., lovastatin or atorvastatin).  Interestingly, more recently it has been discovered that these “statin” drugs cause a mild general reduction in inflammation in the body, though how they do so remains a mystery. Singulair”
― Lawrence B. Afrin, Never Bet Against Occam: Mast Cell Activation Disease and the Modern Epidemics of Chronic Illness and Medical Complexity

“Because MCAD often leads to excessive levels of acid production that can lead to ulcer disease, sometimes a gastrinoma is suspected before MCAD is suspected,”
― Lawrence B. Afrin, Never Bet Against Occam: Mast Cell Activation Disease and the Modern Epidemics of Chronic Illness and Medical Complexity

“Secretin stimulation test “See´-kreh-tin” stimulation test.  This is a test, usually administered by gastroenterologists, that helps detect whether a rare type of neuroendocrine cancer called a gastrinoma is present.”
― Lawrence B. Afrin, Never Bet Against Occam: Mast Cell Activation Disease and the Modern Epidemics of Chronic Illness and Medical Complexity

“Within the class of neuroendocrine cancers, carcinoid is the most common specific cancer, but there also is a wide variety of other, much less common neuroendocrine cancers such as gastrinomas, somatostatinomas, VIPomas, etc.  All of the neuroendocrine cancers have symptoms which can partially mimic mast cell disease.  However, in the vast majority of cases of these rare tumors, the total range and duration of symptoms, and the pattern of progression/worsening, don’t come anywhere close to what’s typically seen in mast cell disease.  Nevertheless, in part because of the partial symptom mimicry, patients who are ultimately found to have mast cell disease often have been previously suspected of having – and thus have been intensively tested for, and sometimes even treated for – a neuroendocrine malignancy for which definitive diagnostic evidence cannot be found.”
― Lawrence B. Afrin, Never Bet Against Occam: Mast Cell Activation Disease and the Modern Epidemics of Chronic Illness and Medical Complexity

“Of course, even once mast cell disease is diagnosed, it can still be difficult to stabilize and reverse associated obesity simply via mast-cell-directed therapy,”
― Lawrence B. Afrin, Never Bet Against Occam: Mast Cell Activation Disease and the Modern Epidemics of Chronic Illness and Medical Complexity

“Since mast cell disease can drive accumulation of fat and therefore obesity in some patients,”
― Lawrence B. Afrin, Never Bet Against Occam: Mast Cell Activation Disease and the Modern Epidemics of Chronic Illness and Medical Complexity

“Janeway lesions “Jān´-wā” lesions.  Janeway lesions are tiny thin dark short lines aligned longitudinally along the nails.  They’re what you see when a tiny blood clot has been generated somewhere in the arterial bloodstream and floats downstream, ultimately getting stuck in a finally-too-small nailbed arteriole.”
― Lawrence B. Afrin, Never Bet Against Occam: Mast Cell Activation Disease and the Modern Epidemics of Chronic Illness and Medical Complexity

“Hep´-er-in.”  The very first mast cell mediator to be discovered (in the 1930s!), heparin’s principal function is to inhibit blood clotting.  As a result, in some mast cell disease patients, a flare of their mast cell disease can result in a micro-flood of heparin being released by their abnormal mast cells into the surrounding tissues, causing bleeding which often seems quite mysterious to the doctor (and patient!) because all of the usual tests for bleeding disorders don’t show anything wrong with the coagulation system.  This is because these tests look for systemic bleeding disorders, whereas mast-cell-heparin-related bleeding usually is just a local bleeding disorder confined to the particular tissue in which the abnormally activated mast cells are abnormally making and releasing heparin – so there truly isn’t anything wrong with the coagulation system”
― Lawrence B. Afrin, Never Bet Against Occam: Mast Cell Activation Disease and the Modern Epidemics of Chronic Illness and Medical Complexity

“When it gets to be severe enough, folate deficiency leads to decreased production of all blood cells (and the red blood cells that do get produced are much bigger than normal).”
― Lawrence B. Afrin, Never Bet Against Occam: Mast Cell Activation Disease and the Modern Epidemics of Chronic Illness and Medical Complexity

“Quercetin is a natural component of many foods in a normal diet (e.g., apples, onions, berries, red grapes, citrus, broccoli, and tea).”
― Lawrence B. Afrin, Never Bet Against Occam: Mast Cell Activation Disease and the Modern Epidemics of Chronic Illness and Medical Complexity

“It really all rides (see Chapter 27, Research Needs in MCAS) on whether we are able to confirm the preliminary findings reported twice now by Dr. Molderings’ group that mutations are commonly present in the mast cell regulatory elements of MCAS patients and that such mutations are the principal drivers of the aberrant mast cell activation in such patients.”
― Lawrence B. Afrin, Never Bet Against Occam: Mast Cell Activation Disease and the Modern Epidemics of Chronic Illness and Medical Complexity

“(Note again here the pattern of mast cell disease escalating its baseline misbehavior in the aftermath of a significant trauma.)”
― Lawrence B. Afrin, Never Bet Against Occam: Mast Cell Activation Disease and the Modern Epidemics of Chronic Illness and Medical Complexity

“commonly found amongst the extensive problem lists most MCAS patients acquire as they meander through the halls of medicine in search of a sensible unifying explanation for their assorted ills.”
― Lawrence B. Afrin, Never Bet Against Occam: Mast Cell Activation Disease and the Modern Epidemics of Chronic Illness and Medical Complexity

“like many MCAS patients, she had a complicated, virtually life-long history of multisystem unwellness of a generally inflammatory theme.”
― Lawrence B. Afrin, Never Bet Against Occam: Mast Cell Activation Disease and the Modern Epidemics of Chronic Illness and Medical Complexity

“many MCAS patients have been so ill for so long that they have come to accept various aspects of their illness as a baseline “healthy” (or at least “normal”) state for them.”
― Lawrence B. Afrin, Never Bet Against Occam: Mast Cell Activation Disease and the Modern Epidemics of Chronic Illness and Medical Complexity

“The severity of MCAS often permanently “steps up” to a higher baseline level following severe stress.”
― Lawrence B. Afrin, Never Bet Against Occam: Mast Cell Activation Disease and the Modern Epidemics of Chronic Illness and Medical Complexity