Posted on 08/31/2018 10:44:35 AM PDT by blam
Former wife was allergic to soy. Had to get special bread because most contained lecithin, which comes from soy. She was also a chocoholic and almost all chocolate contains lecithin. To feed her chocolate cravings meant the expensive chocolate, chocolate without lecithin.
One of my neighbors at our marina is allergic to soy. I never knew soy was used in so many things until she started coming to our dock bbq’s and asking questions about what stuff was prepared with.
Sounds like a subset of people have the allergy to alpha-gal...cuz there are lot more people who have been bitten by ticks without reaction. May be human genetic mutation. Why no reaction to pts own muscle...meat? ....some people think rheum. Arthritis has similar genesis...i.e...viral infection in someone with genetic profile whose immune system attacks patients connective tissue and virus and wont stop after virus is cleared.
Lots of girls nowadays allergic to alpha-guy.
*I* have a mild allergy to pork and pork products.
When I was younger it was sometimes so bad that bread or fries cooked with/in lard made me very sick for days.
It took years for us to figure out what was wrong, and we still don’t have any idea why!
You have no idea how much I miss bacon!
Turkey bacon! (Sorry to hear of your allergies, though).
I’m not sure I ever had any really expensive chocolate. I hear it’s good, though. Too bad about your wife’s allergies, though. Soy is in tons of processed foods.
Sorry. Former wife.
I've been bitten numerous times and have heard of people becoming allergic to red meat after a tick bite. This terrifies me as I LOVE a nice juicy steak. Life is over if I won't be able to eat a burger.
My SIL has this allergy. It makes you allergic to the meat of mammals. She can eat poultry and fish. The doctor has told her that some people lose the allergy over time and some don’t.
I noted the …”former wife” bit.....just sayin’!
Lecithin is also found in egg yolks naturally...it is an essential fat also found in our cell membranes. Perhaps the soy based products aren’t pure chemical lecithin but have other soy impurities that might cause an allergic reaction.
I’m one of those 5000 American that are affected. Several years ago in FL, I started waking up with hives at around 1-2:00 am. Didn’t know what was going on, Tried new laundry detergent, no help. This would happen every two weeks or so. Started thinking about food allergies but those usually take affect in minutes, not hours. Scoured the internet and finally found something called delayed anaphylaxis. It was one of the first articles on this condition. Sure enough, our ribeye night was when it was happening. (back when we could afford them occasionally) A few months prior, I had been cleaning up my mo-in-law’s 5 acres of woods that she was planning to put a house on and I got tore up by ticks.
I’m one of the lucky ones. Some people have a bad reaction just by eating a piece of chicken or fish that’s cooked on the same grill mammalian meat has been cooked on. I’ve always still been able to eat a small amount of lean beef/pork. I had baby backs set me off once. A hamburger for lunch and beef sausage at night once.
After a while, a person can build up their immunity and I was pretty far along until we bought 8 acres of woods in MO. Got tick bites and got hives from a burger. The worst time was when I ate some ham of all things. I had eaten plenty of that without any problem but this was home raised heritage breed hog. Got the hives, took some Benadryl(even though it’s not fast acting enough by that time), felt weird, went to stand up and everything went dark. My wife slowed/directed my fall so I didn’t slam my head on a Dutch Oven at least. She said I seized for a few seconds. Regained consciousness, had to pee so I headed for the bathroom, woke up on the floor of the hallway. This time when I passed out, I lost control of my bladder. Glad I didn’t have to go #2.
I have an Epi-Pen now. We eat a lot of chicken. Plan on getting some goats as the meat is very lean. I can eat chuck burgers at the moment. I’ve gotten the woods a lot more tamed. I burn the property every spring and use Sevin granules a few times a year. Tick bites are pretty rare here now and it’s mostly seed ticks which don’t seem to be an issue. It’s the Lone Star and Dog ticks that do it and dog ticks are pretty rare here.
The doctors from Virginia they mention had just discovered this 2-3 months before I got hit with it. A couple of doctors in Australia discovered it around the same time. They have it over there too. Makes you wonder how many people have been affected prior to that and never knew what it was. Also makes you wonder if it’s always been that way or did something change with the ticks.
“University of Virginia’s researchers have also linked the alpha-gal allergies with a higher risk of heart disease. “
Hadn’t heard that one before. Wonderful. Slight irony. My dad’s first name was Alpha and I have 5 sisters. I joke with them that I’m allergic to Alpha’s gals.
Nitrite allergies also make it hazardous to eat processed meats and cheese. Also causes a reaction to certain brands of tobacco and ashes more than others.
We finally figured it out when there was a similar reaction to nitrite preservative treated spinach. Just avoid processed meats and take potassium if it gets bad.
Thank goodness they’ve been slowly phasing nitrite preservatives in some food brands.
Turkey bacon isn’t the real thing, but it isn’t bad either.
Wow, I feel for you.
I know a woman here in Nashville, whose doctor told her she was allergic to meat. Says she feels a lot better by avoiding it. This was 10-12 years ago. Don’t know if they had linked it to ticks by then or not.
I just read several research articles on this. Absolutely amazing how it works. If the tick bites an animal and picks up the Alpha-Gal Carbohydrate, and then bites and injects it in you, you develop antibodies that respond to the consumption of red meat. It does not affect consumption of chicken, fish or seafood.
Here is a web MD article
Researchers have discovered that a Lone Star tick bite can make some people react to the alpha-gal carbohydrate, a complex sugar found in red meat like beef and pork.
Understanding the Link Between Meat Allergies and Tick Bites
Alpha-gal syndrome isn’t listed on the CDC website as a tick-borne disease. Scott Commins MD, PhD, an associate professor of medicine and pediatrics at the University of North Carolina, says that makes sense, because this is more of an allergy than a disease. He is part of the team that first discovered that the Lone Star tick can cause a meat allergy. He did that while working at the University of Virginia with Thomas A.E. Platts-Mills, MD, the doctor who discovered alpha-gal was the cause of allergic reactions to a cancer drug.
a study published last week in Annals of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology reports the alpha-gal meat allergy was the most common known cause of anaphylaxis at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center between 2006 and 2016 — accounting for 33% of 218 cases reviewed.
Debendra Pattanaik, MD, lead author of the study and an associate professor of medicine at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center in Memphis, says an increase in the Lone Star tick population since 2006 is the likely cause of the jump in cases, as is a better understanding in the medical community that tick bites may cause the alpha-gal allergy.
“Our research clearly identified alpha-gal as the cause of anaphylaxis in the majority of cases where the cause was detected. Food allergies were the second leading cause, accounting for 24%,” Pattanaik says.
I would not be surprised to find that eco-terrorists and PETA people are spreading these ticks around.
I use ‘former’ rather than ‘ex’ because I believe that we may reconcile at some point even though I have not heard from her in years. God can make a way.
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