Alpha Gal

[East ky logging]

It's an allergic reaction to red meat caused by a lone star tick. I was diagnosed with it a couple months ago after several months of breaking out in hives and eyes swelling up and and a trip to the emergency room for anaphylaxis. 
  As with any food allergy it's a major lifestyle change when you have to completely quit eating anything that you have eaten every day. Having to give up pork,beef and venison has been rough. 
 What i have read about it is that it usually goes away in a couple years. What makes it hard to figure out what it was is I never had a reaction till usually around 4-5 hours after I had eaten any red meat. 
 

[WV Sawmiller]

  Sorry to hear. Man that would be a big change! I guess you end up eating more fried chicken than a Baptist preacher. I guess chicken, fish and turkey are okay. How about rabbit?

[East ky logging]

I haven't eat rabbit in awhile but it's supposed to be something I can't eat since it's a mammal but if I knew I could eat one i think at this point I would run one down myself. :D 

[thecfarm]

That's my favorite food group.   

[barbender]

I've heard of a few people up here being diagnosed with this. They think we have lone star ticks, not because anyone has seen one, but because the disease they carry is showing up. I hope, with time, it clears up for you!

[lxskllr]

Sorry to hear that. It's definitely a big change, and especially galling due to being caused by a worthless bug. I'd do alright I think, but food acquisition would get more complicated. I used to be vegetarian, and still don't eat a whole lot of land meat, but I do eat some, mostly cause it's easy and tastes good. If someone fixed my food for me, I could easily go without meat, but I don't like cooking much, and good tasting vegetarian food is more work than good tasting meat.

[Wudman]

We are in ground zero for it here in Central Virginia.  They believe that chiggers (redbugs) can also transmit it.  My wife has it and can never remember being bitten by a tick, but she was eaten up by chiggers a year or so ago.  I have been having some gastro issues and that was the one test my gastroenterologist did.  It was negative for me.  Symptoms vary from person to person.  She had a wicked rash and hives.  I have a number of friends that have had life threatening anaphylaxis. 

Wudman 

[East ky logging]

I never had heard of chiggers transmitting it but I can see how it could very be possible. I know a lot of people don't realize how life threatening it can be when I tell some people about it they just think it's a minor inconvenience and say they'll eat what they want it's not a big deal. When you go into full blown anaplaxis and your blood pressure bottoms out and you pass out and crack a few ribs it gets your attention. 
 As far as people having different levels of it is exactly right I have a cousin with it that can't drink milk or eat cheese or any dairy products. Mine isn't that bad but sometimes when I drink milk I can get just a very light reaction. 

[alan gage]

They think we have lone star ticks, not because anyone has seen one, but because the disease they carry is showing up.

I'm quite a ways south of you but I'm also quite a ways north of the normal range of the lone star tick. But I found one embedded on me about 4 years ago.
We're also not in the range of the deer tick but over the last 5 years I've been seeing them regularly. Usually only one or two per season but last season I found about 5.

I asked my local vet about it to see what he'd been seeing and he said that anymore, as much as people travel with their dogs, you can't be surprised to find anything anywhere.

Alan

[alan gage]

Sorry to hear that. While that must be frustrating to deal with I bet it was even worse dealing with the symptoms before it was diagnosed.

I'm a vegetarian but I became a vegetarian by choice so it was an easy change to make. I would not have enjoyed being told by a doctor that I had to stop eating hamburgers.

Alan

[kantuckid]

Talking food allergies only: I was tested in 2001 or 2 by an ENT doc who specialized in allergies. He was an older guy from Wales and had a huge case history and employed a technologist who did that testing and allergy serums, etc.. I was said to be very corn allergic at that time but I never stopped eating, growing, etc.. I did allergy shots with them for two years based mostly on chronic seasonal allergies to molds, pollens and dusts, then told time to stop and let my body take over.
Fast forward to ~ 2006 or so, and I had reason to see a new allergy doc and was retested, showed zero allergy to corn FWIW but mostly the same otherwise. I have been doing allergy shots by self injection for more than the two years I did them before, but I am much older too.
They say it helps my immune system relative to my age and stay more comfy nasal wise.
If anyone here has seasonal allergies I'll be happy to share what works well for me over a several year period. Just msg me here.

[dougtrr2]

What makes it hard to figure out what it was is I never had a reaction till usually around 4-5 hours after I had eaten any red meat.

Our bodies have daily cycles and that could be part of it.  I was working late one night and ordered some chinese food.  I broke out in hives within the hour.  I didn't get concerned and they went away after a few hours.  I just figured I must be allergic to something in the food.  But, the next night I broke out in hives again, even worse.  I had eaten my normal diet.  The hives were bad enough I went to the emergency room.  They gave me a steroid shot and the hives subsided.  They never came back again and I have eaten chinese food since then.  A doctor my wife worked with guessed that the CAT scan I had with iodine sensitized my system.  Our bodies are pretty amazing things and I don't think we truly understand all that goes on
Doug in SW IA