How being bitten by a tick can leave you allergic to RED MEAT

A Czech man’s succulent dinner of spicy pork kidneys was nearly his last thanks to a bite from a creature the size of sesame seed. 

Medics have described a rare case of a man developing alpha-gal syndrome, or red meat allergy, from a tick bite.

While poorly understood, experts believe the little-known condition develops from a strange antibody reaction to the saliva injected into the body as the parasite bites down.

Experts warned, while rare, they suspect cases of the condition will rise as climate change increases the natural range of ticks capable of triggering the allergy. 

The unnamed 68-year-old man, who lived near the city of Pilsen, had tucked into his dinner of spicy pork kidneys one evening without any sign of a problem.

However, about an hour later, he was found by his wife gasping in his chair, struggling to breathe.

His wife called emergency services and, after his heart stopped, a phone operator talked her through how to do cardiopulmonary resuscitation.

By the time an ambulance arrived the man’s heartbeat had returned to normal, but he was still in a poor condition and taken to hospital.

During a physical examination medics found a tick embedded in his skin, which they extracted. 

Medics, who described the case in the European Journal of Case Reports in Internal Medicine, said initial test results of an elevated white blood cell count and a shadow of his lung initially led them to believe he was suffering sepsis from pneumonia.

However, while they gathered his medical history his wife mentioned the man had started to feel itchy after his lunch.

This made the team of medics suspect an allergic reaction was instead to blame.

Further blood tests with distinct markers suggesting the man had suffered anaphylaxis, a life-threatening allergic reaction, supported this hypothesis.

Accounting for his allergic reaction from something he ate, and the earlier extracted tick, the doctors then ‘connected the dots’ to the possibility their patient had developed alpha-gal syndrome.

Tests for the specific antibody that triggers the red meat allergy came back positive and the man was officially diagnosed.

Alpha-gal syndrome, colloquially called a ‘red meat allergy’, is technically triggered by a specific sugar of the same name and only found in the flesh of mammals, such as pork, beef, rabbit, lamb, and venison.

While sufferers must obviously shy away from burgers and steaks they also must beware of dairy and gelatine products which can also contain alpha-gal.

Alpha-gal syndrome symptoms are mostly consistent with other allergic reactions such as a rash and swelling of the mouth and throat, which can cause dangerous breathing difficulties, though other non-typical problems like abdominal pain are also recorded. 

Symptoms usually develop three to six hours after ingesting red meat as alpha-gal enters the blood stream during digestion. 

However, for reasons scientists are still exploring, the severity of the symptoms varies per case. 

It is known however that subsequent tick bites for people already with alpha-gal syndrome can make the allergy worse. 

What exactly triggers alpha-gal syndrome is poorly understood, as it occurs so rarely following a tick bite. 

Scientists are still trying to unpick if the chance of getting it is related to a quality of some ticks’ saliva, a quirk of some people’s immune system reacting to the saliva, or a combination of both. 

Further complicating matters is that tests for alpha-gal syndrome, which involve pricking a patient’s skin with beef or pork extracts following a tick bite, are unreliable, meaning people may not know they have it until eating red meat. 

Writing in the journal, the authors warned that cases of alpha-gal syndrome could increase as rising global temperatures expanded the range of many ticks. 

‘As global warming continues, we may expect tick-borne diseases to spread wider around the globe,’ they wrote.

With this case they said medics needed to increase their awareness of alpha-gal syndrome when treating patients suffering heart problems with no clear cause.

Experts are growing increasingly concerned about the spread of diseases carried by ticks and mosquitoes to traditionally cooler areas, like the UK, as average temperatures rise. 

There are an estimated 34,000 cases of alpha-gal syndrome in the US.

However, some suspect as many as 10million Americans may be living undiagnosed with a minor form of the condition.

Cases in the UK are very rare, with only a handful ever reported in medical literature.  

Alpha-gal syndrome was discovered in 2001 when Dr Thomas Platts-Mills, a medicine professor at the University of Virginia, was working on a monoclonal antibody drug when he noticed it causing anaphylaxis in a few patients. 

After failing to treat a person with the drug, called Cetuximab, an investigation found the antibodies were being attacked by separate ones inside the body.

Further investigation revealed the drug’s antibodies had AGS in them because they were grown using animal cells.

Perhaps the most famous person to publicly acknowledge suffering from AGS is mystery writer John Grisham, who caught it after a tick bite and no longer eats meat.