I've been living with it for near 20 years. I have it mild and am not one of those people who will have a reaction by eating chicken off a grill that beef was cooked on prior. I don't fully even believe that to be possible but it could be I suppose. Could also be psychological. Have the hives once and get paranoid from there out. Some people are like that. I noticed the initial MSM articles about it years ago were all about people who almost died because a spatula used on beef was used on their chicken. Same MSM people are telling us that cows are gonna kill us all. I do know from personal experience that the allergy is real though.
Cleaned up mo-in-law's 5 acres of woods in North FL back in the day and got a lot of tick bites, seed ticks and Lone Stars. After that, I would wake up at about 2am with the hives which lasted a couple of hours but at that point, had no idea what it was. We tried new laundry detergent and bed sheets but that made no difference. I searched the web for food allergies and all happened within 15 minutes of consumption so I searched delayed food allergy and found the two doctors at a medical university in Virginia had discovered the Alpha Gal fat cause. One of them actually had it himself which helped them find that it was set off by tick bites, specifically Lone Star here.
At the same time, two doctors in Australia discovered the same thing but with a different tick that we don't have here. They also don't have Lone Star. It's been discovered elsewhere since.
It's generally thought that this allergy has been around forever but no one could figure it out due to the delayed reaction. On the other hand, Lime disease was possibly caused by scientists releasing modified ticks. Who knows?
I've noticed that over time, with no new Lone Star bites, it gradually lessens and I can eat more mammalian meat, which is mostly beef for me because we don't eat a lot of pork. Ribs did set me off one time and the very worst time was homemade ham from a heritage breed. Definitely not "the other white meat".
I haven't eaten a full ribeye on nearly 20 years which is how I confirmed what was going on back then. Wife and I would have ribeye night every couple of weeks. Sure enough, 2-3 ribeye nights in a row, I'd wake up with the hives. NY Strip is my preferred steak now and half of one is my serving size.
Stumbled across a study from Turkey of all places where they desensitized two people by having them consume ever increasing doses of beef starting with some drops of beef extract. They made that themselves by boiling a certain amount of beef in a certain amount of water.
That's kinda what my non scientific practice has been for years. Steal one bite of the wife's steak this time. Two bites next time etc and working my way up to an actual serving. That lasts until I get a Lone Star bite.
If that happens, I'll grab some beef jerky or deli sliced beef or steak-um and spend the weekend munching on it staring with a little and working my way up. I don't weigh or measure it in any way. Then through the week, I'll continue that but go easy on increasing so I don't end up missing work. In two weeks, I'm good for an actual serving.
By the time they came up with a test for it, I pretty much had it all figured out, including the lessening effect over time. By the time I saw the desensitization study/program, I had already been doing that for years in my own very non-scientific way.
Here's the study - https://www.researchgate.net/publication/312956156_Successful_beef_desensitization_in_2_adult_patients_with_a_delayed-type_reaction_to_red_meat
I know, it's Turkey but it was some Turkish doctors taking care of some Turkish people and like I said, I've already been doing the same program for years, minus actual measurements of servings. Just going by God given instinct and the desire to not have to eat nothing but chicken and fish the rest of my life.
My latest reaction was to Tri Tip. First time buying it and when I sliced it, it kinda looks like ribeye in a way. I didn't eat much because I had found a Lone Star on me a few days prior. Found it because it had just gotten it's feeding tube in and caused an itch. Pulled off easy due to that so I was hoping it did nothing but I woke up at 2am with the hives. They only tasted an hour and I was able to go to work the next day, although I had low energy because even a mild anaphylaxis condition takes it's toll.
Been munching on beef jerky in ever increasing amounts ever since. I'm ready for NY Strip the next time I see it down around $10/lb.
I keep my grass short and spread Sevin granules around my little perimeter at the start of every tick season and don't do the woods until they're all dead from a good freeze. I haven't spread Sevin around the High tunnel area which is how I go the Lone Star bite. Need to do that soon.
AGS symptoms present in a lot of different ways.
For Daughter it mimics chronic fatigue syndrome. If she gets too much mammal protein she will be flopped out on the couch within a couple hours.
Mrs. Augie gets extreme nausea to the point of hurling if she gets too much. She had tested positive for beef allergy many years ago. She re-tested a year ago and the beef allergy was no longer present so she started eating more beef. It didn’t take long at all for her to get really bad sick on it so now she just doesn’t eat mammal meat. Very likely it was always AGS causing her issues.
Just to be on the safe side both are now carrying an Epi pen everywhere they go. It’s a very good idea for anyone with AGS to do the same. Apparently AGS can cause hypersensitivity to bee venom, which can kill you (or worse than kill you) if you’re allergic to it.
One of my buddies at work would go into convulsions if he ate more than a teaspoon of beef fat. He spent five years eating incrementally larger amounts of very lean beef and has mostly gotten over it, but he’s still very careful not to over-indulge.
I need to get tested myself. Several years ago I had a sudden onset of severe spongiform dermatitis. The derm clinic doc said “oh you’ve just gotten too much sun over the years and now your skin can’t take it.” They gave me TAC cream, told me to stay out of the sun, and sent me home. We switched to hypo-allergenic bath soap/laundry soap/dryer sheets/etc. Didn’t make much difference.
What did make a difference was cutting down my intake of mammal protein. I was getting a bit heavier than I like so I started doing intermittent fasting and practicing better portion control. I didn’t completely change what I was eating, but I substantially changed how much I was eating, and how often. A year after I started that the dermatitis was almost completely gone. To me that points in the general direction of AGS.
I’ve had half a dozen bites from lone star ticks this spring, the most recent was stuck to my right pinky finger when I woke up this morning. We keeps our pets vetted but I’m almost sure they bring the ticks indoors. I don’t like going scorched earth on bugs for a lot of reasons but when it comes down to me or the bugs I’m picking me every time. This might be the time to treat the house yard/garden/etc. with seven and/or triazinon and try to at least reduce the numbers of the cursed things up around the house.