“Red meat allergy” from tick bites is spreading both in US and globally
“Red meat allergy” from tick bites is spreading both in US and globally
cross-posted from: https://piefed.social/post/1116242
Woke ticks are out to turn the US South into soyboys
(did I do that right?)
Because people don't read the source anymore:
that nickname is misleading, because alpha-gal syndrome can cause strong reactions to many products, beyond just red meat.
The alpha-gal sugar molecule exists in the tissues of most mammals, including cows, pigs, deer, and rabbits. But it’s absent in humans.
the allergy also can be set off by exposure to a range of other animal-based products, including dairy products, gelatin (think Jell-O or gummy bears), medications, and even some personal care items.
it’s possible to get over the allergy if you can modify your diet enough to avoid triggering another reaction for a few years and also avoid more tick bites.
Yes. Tl;dr: avoid (more) tick bites
I find it disturbing people have forgotten about parasites because we got rid of most of them. Ticks are not "just like mosquitos", ticks have seriously dangerous pathogens, and even mosquitos transfer Malaria. Malaria. Which is - if I'm remembering correctly - killing more people in Africa per year than all other causes of death globally combined. That's including coal mining deaths (deadliest job), human war and murder (second-deadliest "animal" for humans is ourselves) and attacks by wild/domesticated animals, and heart attacks and strokes (most common death for the elderly).
I'm going to have to admit I don't know the death toll of Malaria for sure, but it IS or WAS the reason mosquitos are/were the deadliest predator for humans. Either way, I'd rather die than have my life turn into an episode of Monsters Inside Me.
Fun story: I once watched a lone star tick crawl into the headphone jack of my phone. After trying for hours to get it out, I did two google searches:
Thirty seconds later, it crawled out.
Probably more effective than opossum noises
Hhhhhhhhhhh
Ah yes, globally, but also in the US
You have a lot more pretentiousness than knowledge, my friend. The density of cases is much higher in the US than any other country, by nearly an order of magnitude. Besides, don’t people like you get happy when something is worse in the US?
Living in the middle of Y'all Quaeda, I'd think the local cousin fuckers would be more riled up about this. Eating steak is a point of passion down here, second only to worshipping Trump.
For the most part it's just ignored... I kinda anticipate a trend of folks acquiring the allergy, then literally killing themselves in denial.
RFK will save them...with leeches eheh. You vote for a snake oil salesman, you get witch doctors, have fun in the middle ages! :)
No, you're thinking of the plot of Escape from L.A.. This is like Escape from L.A. except nobody was able to the discover the fact that Trump committed voter fraud until he activated his evil E.M.P. beam while gloating that he cheated to the doomed world.
My experience has been starkly different from Sterile_Techniques and I'm also living in what might be termed as "the middle of Ya'll Quaeda" USA. So, it's interesting to hear that there's such a big difference in opinion / understanding on this topic.
For sure, 20 - 25 years ago it seemed like almost nobody had heard of it, and whenever someone said they were allergic to meat because of a tick bite, there was a lot of skepticism and denial.
However, these days, pretty much everybody knows someone who has this allergy, and that's no exaggeration. Even the most backwoods, anti-science, do my own thing, fuck your feelings kind of people are telling others to check themselves for ticks and/or taking steps to keep ticks off them because they're aware of all the risks from tick bites. Now, they might be claiming that it's government bio-warfare, related to 5G and/or covid, or some other unnecessarily contrarian bullshit, but they do take it seriously from what I've experienced.
Also, the good news is (or bad news I guess depending on your perspective) is that a lot of people seem to experience improvement of symptoms in time, so it's not necessarily a permanent thing for everybody. I don't know if it's just that some people continue to test the limits and end up inadvertently putting themselves through exposure therapy or if the immune response itself just naturally wanes over time, but several people I know who've had this for 5 - 10+ years say they can usually get away with a small amount of mammal meat, like maybe a hotdog now and then at a minimum, even though a small bite would have caused them a lot of trouble when they first developed the allergy.
Yes, but then there's Measles. I cry internally for those kids who died (along with so many others such as in Palestine, but now I'm just being too sad).
You have to understand it to be able to be successful at stopping it every time. Ticks are easy to understand, and even after well over 50 years of sabotaging the education system, no culture completely forgets the discovery of the viruses/bacteria we can't see without microscopes in just a few generations. When you tell someone "we found god's definition of us inside our own bodies, and it really is unique per person", religious zealots tend to care (even if it's because they want to prevent someone else knowing things).
Unfortunately, somehow "It's just Measles" became a thing, as if the Human Rhinovirus (Common Cold "Nose Virus" that lives in your sinuses 24/7/365) they're mistaking it for can't kill someone with a weakened immune system.
When vegans took actions too seriously
I'm no vegan but isn't this technically a good thing? Red meat has negative environmental impacts right?
isn't this technically a good thing?
Far from it. There shouldn't be anywhere near this many ticks as there are now. It's a sign that the climate is changing and that is getting warmer overall.
Where I live is considered to be the tick hotspot in all of Canada. 15 years ago it would be wildly rare to hear that someone had a tick on them. Now it's rare to hear the opposite. Go for a hike in the trails nearby and you can easily walk out with at least a few dozen on you.
And it's not just the temperature itself. It's that the climate is affecting everything in the ecosystem.
We're going to see crazy tropical infections and parasites migrating a bit more north every year, and we're not ready for it.
My first thought reading the headline was 'the Earth is healing,' LOL
I can just imagine the coming conspiracy theories.
Probably. In some situations where there are no predators and you have semi-wild herbivores roam (usually goats, they are the least picky eaters) to eat forest fuel to prevent forest fires, it might be an ecological solution. But otherwise, yeah, red meat is something to reduce, not sure if this will be enough.
This is the Earth saying NO MORE. The world would be a better place if all the food used to feed livestock went to humans instead.
Going to heal the world.
Hopefully, beef cultivation has destroyed almost all of the American Wests Riparian environments.
Vegans really should consider weaponising these ticks, like breed billions and fly around cities carpet bombing everything.
No more beef industry overnight
I love beef and steaks and beef tacos and beef all the things.
But I would support vegans weaponizing this.
Same, I wonder how quickly the beef industry will come up with a vaccine.
It would be hilarious to see the mental gymnastics of anti-vaxxers being okay with ONLY this vaccine
If suddenly beef wasn't an option, I think beef substitutes like quorn and stuff would start getting real good real fast
Noooo! Not tacos!
I ask only þat þey start in the middle of þe country and work þeir way out.
Or cheese and other dairy.
I feel like there would just be another set of injectable autoimmune drugs they love to sell to everyone these days.
That's a hilarious idea but courts would probably just legalize people owing anti-aircraft weapons.
I see I got a good amount of down-votes, I wondered if people would get that I'm just joking or not. I geuss not lol
Nice.
The saying from Jurassic Park "Nature finds a way..."
Idk if I'm allergic to red meat, but I do know that my body has a really hard time digesting it. It just sits in my stomach for an absurd amount of time and makes me feel so nauseated.
Haven't eaten any red meat in years because of it.
It just sits in my stomach for an absurd amount of time and makes me feel so nauseated.
I sort of thought that everyone experienced that.
I don't think that's what should happen lol
I mean, I can see old fashioned doctors saying to have a lil more red meat if she's anemic. My mom grew up eating a lot of red meat for her anemia. There's medicine for anemia now, however.
My stepfather is one of those people who wants meat and potatoes at every meal. I moved out of their place 3 years ago and I'm still not able to eat regular potatoes in any form because I ate so many while with my parents. Sometimes just looking at potatoes makes me mad.
My stepfather was told that he's at risk of a heart attack and/or stroke. He also has anger issues and smokes. Had his first heart attack in his 30s. Hasn't had any others yet, but yet is the keyword.
I have the same but only with beef. Pork and lamb are fine.
I think with the allergy it's the myoglobin which content defines what is a Red meat. (edit: it's not the myoglobin, it's a specific sugar structure, reading the article mightve helped) My issues to digest beef is more likely related to the structure itself, the "long fibres", because minced beef is completely fine.
Beef also contains a lot of protein, which upsets some people's stomachs. There's only so much protein you can digest at once, or so I read.
I can eat small amounts of pork. I haven't had lamb in like 20 years so idk how I'd digest it. Beef is my biggest issue. I'm essentially a pescatarian but have chicken every once in a while. My main sources of protein are fish and tofu and beans. My mom is wonderful enough to cook a separate meal for me when I come over for dinner and they're having beef there. Other members of my family and my friends just alter what they're making when they know I'm going to visit.
I think its crazy how many people get ticks where they go unnoticed long enough for it to bury and reach your blood. I wanna say it's a full 24 hours before that happens and even then idk how much it takes before this will effect you since even things like limes disease means it needs to be in you for even longer.
Idk about others, but I have had my fair share of ticks, but thankfully, never one go unnoticed long enough that it broke through. People really should check more. Showering is a great time to discover if you may have one on you.
I've been bitten by ticks many times, sometimes at once (from playing with a family friend's dog). They're surprisingly light for such a large creature.
You haven't lived somewhere the ticks are really bad then.
There is a point especially with ticks too small to see with a negative eye that you will simply not catch them all even if you catch 99% of them.
I honestly am not sure if I live in a bad area or not. During peak times, spring and fall, I will find several on me and the kids per year and a bunch more in the house, which were most likely dragged in by our dog. I feel like it's a lot more than some people, but it could be worse. I have never seen any that are that small, thankfully.
I got a tick bite. And I didn't even notice it. It was right on my arm. So it's not like I've just been sitting around feeding the fucker for the fun of it.
As the doctor told me. They can be very tiny, they latch on, and then you accidentally rub it off, never knowing it was there. And during that, it regurgitated and that's why you see the giant tick bite mark.
The real question. Is why people see a giant hollow red circle and just ignore it. It's a very distinctive mark, I don't know how you could miss it, unless it's on the back of your thigh or back. Go to the doctor, get penicillin. That's it.
And these days, if you know you live in a high risk area, you can get vaccinated.
I never saw any distinctive skin signs after being bitten.
I'll tell you why. Because it's fucking expensive.
I had what looked like a classic "bullseye" tick bite (several, actually). People told me "run, don't walk, to the ER". So I did.
The ER doc told me it was probably fine but I should see my doctor. $600. They had the gall to bill me $600 for telling me to go see a doctor. And that's with "good" insurance.
I still have no idea what caused those marks.
As a kid, I had a ticket on the top of my head just a bit back of center. Couldn't see it in a mirror, didn't feel anything weird right away. My mom noticed it at some point, but we had no idea how long it had been on there at that point. I was between 6-8 IIRC.
I always figured it's a sensory thing, different levels of skin sensitivity. I'm highly sensitive, so I imagine there are people who are much less sensitive. For me, I get tickled very easily (and I absolutely hate it.) Any light touch can trigger it. A gentle caress by someone's fingertips makes me want to jump out of my skin. Lately my skin's even become more sensitive to chemical irritants. I can't use the bandaids my boyfriend bought (which are pretty average and of a standard brand) because the glue in it now gives me a rash.
But the benefit of this sensitivity (and, I suspect, the reason this hyper-sensitivity was maintained in humans at all) is that I can feel ticks and most other bugs almost immediately. I'm not perfectly immune - they are sneaky little fuckers. Sometimes a lucky one is able to sneak onto my scalp undetected for a bit. I became aware of that after the last time it happened, so now I brush my hair and feel around my scalp as part of my "tick check" routine.
Ahaha, Gaia hypothesis confirmed.
Want to reduce human impact on biosphere?
Make is so they can't eat meat anymore. lol.