Thread: Southern Tick Bite Linked to Red Meat Allergies

-The painful reaction started in the middle of the night. September Norman of Hendersonville, Tennessee, remembers waking up "itching like a fiend."

"I thought something had bitten me and I tried drinking water to flush it out," she says. A couple of hours later, her lips and tongue swelled up. Frightened, she woke her husband. "He took one look at me and said we have to go get help." EMS workers later told Norman she might have died if she'd gone without treatment for another 20 minutes.

Once doctors learned that Norman, 56, had been bitten by a tick and had eaten a steak for dinner, she was tested for antibodies to a carbohydrate molecule named alpha-gal, which has been implicated in tick-related meat allergies. She tested positive.

A tick-related meat allergy has been quietly spreading across the southern and eastern U.S. over the past two decades, but in recent years the number of cases have steadily risen. A tick bite in some people can kick off a sensitivity to red meat that can result in symptoms such as itching, hives, swollen lips and breathing problems. The reaction can sometimes be life threatening.

"We know at this point that there are over 3,500 cases," says Dr. Scott Commins, an associate professor of medicine and pediatrics in the division of rheumatology, allergy & immunology at the Thurston Research Center at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. "I think there are many more."

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention doesn't have data on the number of people who have developed the allergy, but Commins estimates that in the areas where the lone star tick is common, 1 to 5 percent will develop it...

http://www.nbcnews.com/health/allerg...hy-now-n559346

Originally Posted by krystian

A tick-related meat allergy has been quietly spreading across the southern...

Originally Posted by krystian

A tick-related meat allergy has been quietly spreading across the southern...

Originally Posted by fuego

I was wondering if you were going to see this. No more steaks, ribs, burgers, etc... but fish and chicken would be still be ok. Maybe its time to move up North and become a yankee. ;)