One bite from a lone star tick can permanently end meals of beef and pork.
When lone star ticks feed on mammals, such as mice, rabbits or deer, they ingest alpha-gal sugars. Later, if the ticks bite and feed on humans, they inject the alpha-gal sugars with their saliva into their human host.
The alpha-gal allergy to red meat can lead to a rash, hives, itching, swelling, shortness of breath, headaches, abdominal pain, diarrhea and vomiting. With severe cases, a person may sufferInitially, alpha-gal syndrome was hard to diagnose because the allergic reaction occurs many hours after meat is ingested. In addition, the allergy to red meat lasts a lifetime and can become worse over time.Keith Tremel from Edgewater, Md.
Tremel’s doctor had never heard of alpha-gal and looked it up on his laptop while Tremel waited. The diagnosis was indeed alpha-gal syndrome. “It was not comforting when I realized I knew more about alpha-gal than a medical professional,” he said in an email.“Before my diagnosis, I loved bacon cheeseburgers. My wife and two kids both like bacon, and my son enjoys steak, so cooking that for them can be a little bit of torture.
William Gimpel, a retired entomologist from the Maryland Department of Agriculture, was bitten awhile ago by a tick in the Northern Neck of Virginia. But he wasn’t officially diagnosed with alpha-gal syndrome until six years ago.Gimpel’s allergic reaction to red meat was severe. He said in an email: “I developed hives, fainted, my blood pressure dropped, and I told my wife on the way to the ER that I could not see. That has been my most serious reaction.
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