Tick bites can cause all sorts of nasty afflictions. And if you’re bitten by a Lone Star tick, here’s one more to add to the list: a red meat allergy.
Laura Stirling, 51, a realtor who lives in Severna Park, Md., was diagnosed with the allergy last year. She got a tick bite while walking on a trail with her dog, Gunner, near her home.
“I found [the tick] 3 or 4 inches to the left of my hip bone,” Stirling recalls. She says at the time, she didn’t think much of it. “I just took it off and threw it away.”
Then, three weeks later, after she ate an Italian-style pork sausage for dinner, she had a horrible reaction. The reaction began about six hours after her meal, which is typical of this allergy.
“It was the middle of the night. I woke up covered in hives,” Stirling recalls. She woke her husband with all her itching and scratching. She felt light-headed, and she experienced stomachaches and other gastrointestinal troubles.
An allergist gave her a blood test to check for an alpha-gal meat allergy. When the test came back positive, she was told to avoid all red meat, including beef, pork and lamb. Some people who develop the allergy can no longer tolerate dairy products.
Photo: Robert Noonan/Science Source
Holy sh**. That’s horrifying
