So, the other day I may well have given myself a tyramine crisis.
Occasionally when sleep deprived I find a LOW DOSE of tincture of nutmeg to be beneficial for (what, in my case at least, passes for) normal function. In this instance I added 6 drops of the same old nutmeg tincture I've been using to my morning cup of coffee at about 10am.
(EDIT: I also strained off the olive oil infusion from the whole nutmegs around this time and rubbed a teaspoon or two into my hands. This possibly will have been a small contributory factor to the circumstances.)
I proceeded to carry out a reasonable day's work with slightly more heavy lifting than would be prudent and eventually came to eat my evening meal at maybe 8pm. This consisted mostly of two fair-sized, cured herrings - matjes, to be precise - on rye bread. This I'm fairly certain was followed by some salami on bread. And I just remembered - I also finished off a few mussels in brine that I found in the fridge. Hmmm... Whether I rounded this off with some ripe cheese, I really can't remember but it's as likely as not that I did.
The reason I struggle to remember is consequent to what unfolded over the subsequent hours:
*a piercing headache
*very high fever, unfortunately not measured
*pounding heartbeat (also not measured)
*visual 'hallucinations' in the forms of colours and lines but very disordered - no hint of regular geometry nor anything figurative at all
*pain in all my joints
*extreme thirst
*frequent urination (thankfully I was sufficiently mobile to be able to take care of this!)
Most of these symptoms concur with the onset of a 'flu-like illness, which is also highly possible, considering how I now feel some four days later. However, given the extreme nature of the headache, heartbeat and hyperthermia, it seems reasonable to infer that combination of a known MAOI (nutmeg) with known tyramine sources can indeed lead to a tyramine crisis.
When that little voice inside me said, "you know, maybe this isn't such a good idea..." I should have listened instead of thinking, "this food all needs using up, I'd hate to throw it away."
I will list three additional factors that may have played a part in this:
*I had also been drinking skullcap (
Scutellaria galericulata) tea for a couple of days up to this point. This may contain bioactive flavonoids that contributed to the metabolic disruption.
*That day's work also generated a certain amount of fairly unpleasant dust which probably contributed to acute sinusitis, and thus worsened the headache. It may even have carried the fomites of a long-forgotten virus.
*The bottle of nutmeg tincture was down to its last few mL, possibly being more concentrated by evaporation of the alcohol, leading to a higher than normal dose of (mysterious and possibly MAO inhibiting) nutmeg alkaloids. I think I shook the bottle as well.
I'm starting to feel better now, fresh lemon and ginger tea has really helped so maybe it was just the flu. Probably both.
It would be fair to say that nutmeg followed some hours later by cured herrings would be capable of killing someone. Please take more care than I did.
“There is a way of manipulating matter and energy so as to produce what modern scientists call 'a field of force'. The field acts on the observer and puts him in a privileged position vis-à-vis the universe. From this position he has access to the realities which are ordinarily hidden from us by time and space, matter and energy. This is what we call the Great Work."
― Jacques Bergier, quoting Fulcanelli