Lance's personal journey with Alpha-Gal Syndrome, a tick borne allergy to red meat and dairy
Howdy Everyone!
I wanted to share a little about my personal health and wellness journey because I think it may be supportive for our community and raise awareness of a mysteeeeeerious syndrome.
A little over a year ago, while traveling in Ecuador, I awoke in the middle of the night to what felt like anaphylactic shock. My heart was beating super fast, tingling all over my body, hard to breathe, a quick drop in blood pressure, and passing out. My beloved, knight-in-shining-armor Amy, delivered an Epi-pen, and then my brother delivered another Epi-pen! And I ended up (with police escort - it's a long story) in a tiny Ecuadorian town clinic overnight; and, just to help you with the suspense here… yes, I made it..whew 😰!
See, I carry Epi-pens because I am very very allergic to wasp venom and have had 3 episodes of anaphylaxis over the years. This thing felt just like that, only thing was, as far as I knew, I hadn't been stung by any wasps.
So this began a year-long journey where I had 3 more of these random losing consciousness episodes. No wasp stings, no anxiety, nothing out of the ordinary, nothing that seemed to tie them together. One happened in the morning while I was working on my computer, others happened in the middle of the night.
I got a cardiologist, an integrative physician, a regular old fashioned physician, I worked with my acupuncturist and shamanic healer. I did ALL the tests and ALL the things and…. everything… “unremarkable." Which of course is the best news, except as you may know, when you are trying to figure out random episodes of losing consciousness or the like. I was, like so many of my patients a medical mystery!
One of the biggest challenges was that I was having some PTSD. I wasn't sure when these “attacks” were going to happen. And there was immense grief over not being able to trust my body any more.
Then a few weeks ago, in the late evening, a few hours after dinner, I started having some of this PTSD.. Am I feeling those symptoms a little? Am I going to have another attack? And… I didn't. But the next morning I was thinking about all of the episodes again, and it struck me, AHA!! I had eaten steak around 4 or 5 hours before the attacks happened. I went straight to google and put in “allergy to steak” and viola! I met a newish, but growing tick born syndrome called Alpha-Gal Syndrome.
“Alpha-gal syndrome (AGS), or mammalian meat allergy, is a tick-induced allergy to galactose-α-1,3-galactose. This sugar, commonly known as alpha-gal, is found in all mammals except for humans and some primates” - (article)
Now to be honest somewhere in the recesses of my mind, I had remembered hearing about a weird tick bite that made people not like meat anymore - but in truth it makes people ALLERGIC to meat and products from non-primate mammals!
Unlike most food allergies, where reactions happen instantly, reactions here happen 4-8 hours after eating meat. And this fit my experience exactly.
I had my doc order the alpha gal test. She had her doubts. I mean, Ive been eating meat and dairy for this whole year and only a few times have had any reaction. But the test came back positive for alpha gal.
Now, I am both relieved to finally know the cause of the “random" close to death experiences, and I am also grieving the need for these specific dietary changes. I mean, I have spend 12 years as a Vegetarian and 3 years as a vegan in my past, so I am no stranger to not eating meat, AND chicken and fish are still on the menu, but a guy's gotta grieve not being able to eat mammals sometimes.
Alpha galactose is present in things like gelatin (so some marshmallows and supplement capsules) and found in the non-mammal world in Dulse seaweed which is where carrageenan comes from and is SO much of our food/products like toothpaste!
Most MDs have not heard about this… yet. The average time to get diagnosed with this is 7 years!!! Not everyone has anaphylaxis, hives or any other normal allergic reaction is possible.
So, if you know someone with mysterious allergic reactions that may be related to eating meat - pass this info on! And, keep hiking, BUT protect yourself from ticks!
Thanks for reading!!
Love
Lance
Lance Isakov, Village Builder, Acupuncturist, Shamanic Medicine Practitioner
P.S. Join us tonight for our Integration Circle. It's a place to come together and share around expanded and non-ordinary state experiences.
P.P.S. We have some exciting news! We have added a new out-of-this-world acupuncturist to our stellar acupuncture team! I can't wait to introduce you to Samantha in the next few weeks!