Ticked off: UVA physician connects the dots on a perplexing allergy to meat

[TexasTowelie]

UVA physician Dr. Thomas Platts-Mills discovered alpha-gal allergy, commonly known as the “meat allergy,” in 2002. One of the more perplexing human allergies, it occurs when sufferers become sensitized to alpha-gal, a type of sugar present in red meat. Alpha-gal causes a delayed reaction—an affected person may eat meat, then break out in hives hours later, or even have trouble breathing. And because the allergy is believed to be triggered by a tick bite, you can develop it as an adult, even if you’ve been eating meat all your life. While it’s often associated with beef, other meats like pork, lamb, or goat can cause the reactions.

“People think it’s just red meat, but it’s all mammals,” Platts-Mills informed a patient at the UVA Allergy Clinic this fall, in his patrician British accent. “Anything with titties and hair.”

The patient, Greene county resident Frank Morris, had been diagnosed with alpha-gal allergy about a year ago, after a pork barbecue sandwich sent him to the emergency room with a rapidly swelling throat. “It was a really scary thing that night,” he says. “I usually don’t like to go to the doctor…but I couldn’t breathe, I was fighting for air.”

Platts-Mills and his team took him off beef and pork, and Morris says he was doing well. But he was back in the clinic that day after starting to have more allergic reactions, this time to dairy products. Recently, a few sips of a milkshake had made his lips swell up.

Read more: http://www.c-ville.com/ticked-off-uva-physician-connects-dots-perplexing-allergy-meat/#.W_UHsdtKjRY

[Nitram]

1. Caused by a tick bite, I believe,