5 ms·

This happened to me following a tick bite, and I spent a year not eating mammals of any kind. Not eating beef or steak or pork or lamb is surprisingly easy on t

This happened to me following a tick bite, and I spent a year not eating mammals of any kind. Not eating beef or steak or pork or lamb is surprisingly easy on the surface and the choices are better than they used to be. But it's amazing how many mammal products have snuck their way into our food chain underneath, and those were the hardest things to avoid. Gelatin in liquid medicine capsules, pork-fat as a soup additive, chicken wings fried in beef tallow, the list goes on and on. And explaining to people in restaurants that you can't eat mammals because you'll swell up and die six hours later gets you a lot of weird looks. Mercifully, after a year of being absolutely clean, I got a clean bill of health from my allergist: no more alpha-gal proteins in my system, and I can now eat soup in a restaurant or order the wings without worrying I'll wake up choking to death later on. As a plus, I will say it improved my diet considerably and got me to think a lot about what I eat, so the experience was not without its benefits. That said, I wouldn't recommend the experience to anyone.

kibwen 6y ago
> And explaining to people in restaurants that you can't eat mammals because you'll swell up and die six hours later gets you a lot of weird looks. It's worth spreading awareness that there are way, way more things that cause allergic reactions than is commonly known. As a kid I grew up thinking that only peanut butter could cause allergic reactions. Now I know someone who has fatal reactions to dairy products, another with fatal reactions to eggs, and others with less severe reactions to mint, coconut, mango, latex, spermicide (imagine the circumstances where you discover that one)... The bottom line is, if someone tells you they have an allergy to something weird, just take their word for it.
- castillar76 6y ago
  I really wish more people would heed this. It's obnoxious, and I know people take advantage of it (and wish they wouldn't!) to claim allergies to things when they just don't like them. But it's just not worth playing with someone's health. I'm really lucky that people believed me when I told them I had to know what things were fried in or whether they'd used beef stock for that soup.
- animal531 6y ago
  Exactly. There are people that are allergic to light, to water...you name it.
Apofis 6y ago
It's a vegan conspiracy ! So did your system actually just slowly clean up whatever was causing it to create these 'alpha-gal proteins'? We're they an initial immune system response?
- castillar76 6y ago
  As I understand it, it's an immune system response rather than an allergen: your body sees the alpha-gal proteins as an invader, and develops an immune-system response to kill them off. So if you don't stimulate antigen production for a while, your body "forgets" and stops reacting to it. The problem is that that timetable for "forgetting" is different for everyone—some people get over it fast, some people it fades, and some people it never changes and no one yet seems to understand why. The allergist that treated me is one of the docs on several of the principal studies about it, and he's been seeing patients with this for the last 15-20 years. He said he's seen people that would react when Wendy's contaminated their fryer oil with a dropped hamburger, and one guy who's a dairy farmer that wouldn't react to his own cattle's products but would react to anything else. It's truly a weird reaction!
secondcoming 6y ago
That first soup must have been a nervous experience!
- castillar76 6y ago
  Hah! I actually had to have the initial test at the allergist's office. He had me bring in two sausage biscuits and eat them at 8:30, and then they watched me in his office for six hours to make sure I didn't react. I still felt nervous the first time I had a hamburger, though! :)
  - koolba 6y ago
    How juicy did that first bite taste after a year of abstinence?
    - castillar76 6y ago
      It was SO GOOD. I made sure to get good biscuits for the test too—I figured if that was the only sausage I’d have for another year, I’d make it count.
im3w1l 6y ago
How did you discover you had this allergy in the first place without dying?
- castillar76 6y ago
  By coming awfully close! I had a hamburger for dinner. An hour or two later, my ankles were itching fiercely and I assumed I'd run into some poison ivy while tending the yard, so I took some Benadryl (which may have saved my life). Around two in the morning, I woke covered in the worst hives I've ever seen--I looked like I'd been attacked by an alien life form. I slammed some more Benadryl, and then I passed out on the bathroom floor while talking to my wife, so she called 911. By the time the EMTs got there, my blood pressure was down in the 50s, and I was solidly in "how are you still conscious right now range". One ER visit later, I had an epi-pen and an allergist appointment. :) I count myself VERY lucky, and doubly so to have a wife who'd done lots of allergy research and knew how to respond!
raziel2701 6y ago
What's the reaction that would happen to you if you ate meat? How do you treat it if you accidentally ate some? Chicken was ok to eat? Why did it clear up after a year? Was it a year of medications or your body just dealt with it?
- castillar76 6y ago
  During that year, if I ate meat nothing would happen right away. Then the itching would start, from my ankles and working its way up as my whole body broke out in hives. After the first attack, I took it crazy seriously (discovering I had this involved going to the ER at 2 AM not breathing!), so the most that happened during that year was that I got some hives and then slammed a double-dose of Benadryl, which knocked it back (and knocked me out). Fortunately once I knew I had it, I could mostly avoid it, so the only times I had reactions were when I missed something (e.g. get a burrito and they accidentally slip a piece of beef in with the chicken). I carried an epi-pen for emergencies and a sheet of Benadryl tablets; never had to use the epi-pen (thank goodness!). No medications to take in the meantime, just dietary changes. The protein that causes this is only produced by mammals, so chicken and fish were totally safe. Weirdly, primates don't produce it either, so my allergist joked that if I were into eating monkeys or cannibalism, I'd be totally fine! They still don't know why it clears up in some people and not others--in some, it goes away in a matter of weeks, some people it can take a year or multiple years, and in others it never disappears at all. And having had it, I'm apparently susceptible to getting it again, so if I get another tick bite it could come back again.
TACIXAT 6y ago
This allergy is one of my big fears. I wasn’t aware that it could be fixed, is abstention what clears it up or is there some other procedure?
- castillar76 6y ago
  No fix for it that I've seen; just abstention and hoping it fades. I think they're doing some research on it, but messing with the body's immune system can be really bad mojo.

kibwen 6y ago

> And explaining to people in restaurants that you can't eat mammals because you'll swell up and die six hours later gets you a lot of weird looks. It's worth spreading awareness that there are way, way more things that cause allergic reactions than is commonly known. As a kid I grew up thinking that only peanut butter could cause allergic reactions. Now I know someone who has fatal reactions to dairy products, another with fatal reactions to eggs, and others with less severe reactions to mint, coconut, mango, latex, spermicide (imagine the circumstances where you discover that one)... The bottom line is, if someone tells you they have an allergy to something weird, just take their word for it.

castillar76 6y ago
I really wish more people would heed this. It's obnoxious, and I know people take advantage of it (and wish they wouldn't!) to claim allergies to things when they just don't like them. But it's just not worth playing with someone's health. I'm really lucky that people believed me when I told them I had to know what things were fried in or whether they'd used beef stock for that soup.
animal531 6y ago
Exactly. There are people that are allergic to light, to water...you name it.

Apofis 6y ago

It's a vegan conspiracy ! So did your system actually just slowly clean up whatever was causing it to create these 'alpha-gal proteins'? We're they an initial immune system response?

castillar76 6y ago
As I understand it, it's an immune system response rather than an allergen: your body sees the alpha-gal proteins as an invader, and develops an immune-system response to kill them off. So if you don't stimulate antigen production for a while, your body "forgets" and stops reacting to it. The problem is that that timetable for "forgetting" is different for everyone—some people get over it fast, some people it fades, and some people it never changes and no one yet seems to understand why. The allergist that treated me is one of the docs on several of the principal studies about it, and he's been seeing patients with this for the last 15-20 years. He said he's seen people that would react when Wendy's contaminated their fryer oil with a dropped hamburger, and one guy who's a dairy farmer that wouldn't react to his own cattle's products but would react to anything else. It's truly a weird reaction!

secondcoming 6y ago

That first soup must have been a nervous experience!

castillar76 6y ago
Hah! I actually had to have the initial test at the allergist's office. He had me bring in two sausage biscuits and eat them at 8:30, and then they watched me in his office for six hours to make sure I didn't react. I still felt nervous the first time I had a hamburger, though! :)
- koolba 6y ago
  How juicy did that first bite taste after a year of abstinence?
  - castillar76 6y ago
    It was SO GOOD. I made sure to get good biscuits for the test too—I figured if that was the only sausage I’d have for another year, I’d make it count.

im3w1l 6y ago

How did you discover you had this allergy in the first place without dying?

castillar76 6y ago
By coming awfully close! I had a hamburger for dinner. An hour or two later, my ankles were itching fiercely and I assumed I'd run into some poison ivy while tending the yard, so I took some Benadryl (which may have saved my life). Around two in the morning, I woke covered in the worst hives I've ever seen--I looked like I'd been attacked by an alien life form. I slammed some more Benadryl, and then I passed out on the bathroom floor while talking to my wife, so she called 911. By the time the EMTs got there, my blood pressure was down in the 50s, and I was solidly in "how are you still conscious right now range". One ER visit later, I had an epi-pen and an allergist appointment. :) I count myself VERY lucky, and doubly so to have a wife who'd done lots of allergy research and knew how to respond!

raziel2701 6y ago

What's the reaction that would happen to you if you ate meat? How do you treat it if you accidentally ate some? Chicken was ok to eat? Why did it clear up after a year? Was it a year of medications or your body just dealt with it?

castillar76 6y ago
During that year, if I ate meat nothing would happen right away. Then the itching would start, from my ankles and working its way up as my whole body broke out in hives. After the first attack, I took it crazy seriously (discovering I had this involved going to the ER at 2 AM not breathing!), so the most that happened during that year was that I got some hives and then slammed a double-dose of Benadryl, which knocked it back (and knocked me out). Fortunately once I knew I had it, I could mostly avoid it, so the only times I had reactions were when I missed something (e.g. get a burrito and they accidentally slip a piece of beef in with the chicken). I carried an epi-pen for emergencies and a sheet of Benadryl tablets; never had to use the epi-pen (thank goodness!). No medications to take in the meantime, just dietary changes. The protein that causes this is only produced by mammals, so chicken and fish were totally safe. Weirdly, primates don't produce it either, so my allergist joked that if I were into eating monkeys or cannibalism, I'd be totally fine! They still don't know why it clears up in some people and not others--in some, it goes away in a matter of weeks, some people it can take a year or multiple years, and in others it never disappears at all. And having had it, I'm apparently susceptible to getting it again, so if I get another tick bite it could come back again.

TACIXAT 6y ago

This allergy is one of my big fears. I wasn’t aware that it could be fixed, is abstention what clears it up or is there some other procedure?

castillar76 6y ago
No fix for it that I've seen; just abstention and hoping it fades. I think they're doing some research on it, but messing with the body's immune system can be really bad mojo.