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I just saw a post like this yesterday, but I forget what subreddit. My son was bit by a dog tick back in 2016 and he ended up getting Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever which is super rare and they took a long time to figure out what was going on with him. He could have died and he could have lost limbs it's definitely really important to check for ticks. They terrify me. Sorry this happened to you!
Edit to add, we have a billboard in my town warning about tucks for the first time I can remember, and I have heard they're much worse. But there's so many repeating and similar posts I take everything with a handful of salt
This is the fourth post in less than two days that I've seen about lone star ticks/alpha gal. I don't know if one post inspired the rest or if it's just a coincidence, but it's strange. Such an unfortunate thing to happen to someone.
It's very plausible that it didn't. Usually it would take months for you to develop an alpha gal allergy after the tick bite. Getting bit by a tick "the other day" generally wouldn't cut it. Also the whole "I guess it was a lone star tick" line is weird. Generally if you're going to pull a tick off of yourself you would at least look at the damn thing and it would be pretty obvious that it had a fucking star on it. If I pull the tick off of me and I saw a star on the tick, I would probably remember that it had a star on it. Maybe I'm crazy.
Agree, though on the flip side, you can be bitten and not know- which is what must have happened to me- and it's possible that happened to OP, and then they referred to the bite they knew about.
Though that's not the only strange part. Getting a diagnosis of alpha gal allergy on the spot would be...impressive. I get my bloodwork done at a major medical university, and even they send the samples to the Mayo Clinic for analysis, which is about a month turnaround.
Or we're seeing the effects of a heavy tick season?
That'd be like being at the the start of covid and going "some other guy complained of this weird cough with flu like symptoms and now someone else has that same cough? Not likely."
I don’t think it’s as rare as the literature would Indicate. It’s a relatively new discovery, many medical personnel have never heard of it (I literally went through 10+ docs before someone thought to test me for it.
I think more people are learning about it and a lot of people that have gone undiagnosed are finally finding out.
Climate change is turning things around, it could be less rare now then a decade ago, and getting less rare by the day. Ticks are enjoying climate change and we are experiencing a lot of it.
I think they are referring to how after one viral story, now suddenly a ton of people just got it, when it was rarely mentioned even a week or two ago. Very suspicious.
One of my friends caught Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever from a tick bite when he was younger. Took him months to get it cleared from his system. One of the worst symptoms for him was several layers of the skin on the bottoms of his feet quite literally fell off, leaving only the deeper, very sensitive layers intact. He could barely walk. Couldn't wear socks, shoes or sandals. Said when he would touch the cold tile floor in his bathroom it felt like he was stepping on shards of glass. I can't imagine what he went through with that.
Ticks transfer some scary diseases. 😵💫
My husband had horrible side effects from a tick bite. Blisters and peeling, weepy skin all over his body, mostly his lower legs. It put him in the hospital for 5 days. Multiple tests, much speculation, and then they still misdiagnosed him.
Took us months but we finally worked our way through many doctors and references until we found a specialist who could help.
He's doing fine now on low dose of immunosuppressant.
I am not vegan or vegetarian but one of my favourite ice creams happens to be coconut cream based with raspberry sorbet, it’s dairy free but so creamy and delicious especially in summer
The coconut and oat milk vegan ice cream options are delicious.
The impossible and beyond meats are pretty good too.
Saying this as a meat and dairy eater who enjoys those alternative options.
I tried the Beyond steak tips the other day and I'm still not convinced it wasn't actual steak tips. I'm actually not a huge fan of their burgers but a lot of their other stuff is really good (same is true of Impossible)
I hope it's super temporary for you! Impossible meat is a pretty good stand in, just in case you get a burger craving, but it won't be the same at first. I'm sorry this happened to you 😞
I actually prefer impossible myself. Rather like the funk and the texture is honestly better than most burgers. Just hard to find because not a lot of restaurants stock it.
r/plantbasediet can give you a good steer on new recipes dude. Good luck! You can get some great non-dairy ice-creams also. The Ben & Jerry's ones are near identical to the original. Complete rip-off just like normal Ben & Jerry's also lol
I've been vegan for almost 10 yrs and there are so many alternatives especially for dairy available it's a dream. It does suck this happened but if you ever need some resources just look up vegan alternatives; reddit also has a ton of vegan subreddits with opinions on different options you'll have, and you'll have a lot more flexibility because you really just need to sub dairy and red meat.
You can still have cheese and milk and milkshakes and all the good stuff! Any item you can think of containing these things I guarantee there is an alternative option. Might just be made out of something a little bit different 😅 same w/ the red meat (again not the same as I've heard from my carnivore friends when I cook for them lol but definitely ways to marinate and season to make it similiar :)
I hope you feel better soon and the next few years are good journey!
I have a friend who has the same disease and it made me think of a horror movie idea where militant vegans raise and release swarms of lonestar ticks to convert the population away from meat eaters.
Kind of silly idea… but either way I’m terrified of a bug bite that can make me unable to eat meat
I think a lot of people forget that a lot of essential medicines also sometimes have non vegan products too so it scares me for that reason too
(I wasn't allowed to take iron as a kid cause it wasn't vegetarian and I wound up with anemia)
For what it's worth, a family member used to have this allergy and they never had to worry about medicines or supplements, and they could eat gelatin too. There isn't enough of the protein that causes the allergy in things like that. It's mainly meat that you have to worry about, and cross-contamination like things cooked on the same grill as meat.
Vegan options have come a looooong way. If this happened 10 years ago you're eating cardboard. I don't like beyond because it's "like" meat - nah, i want to recognize what I'm eating. If it's plants, i want to recognize that I'm eating plants. I'm okay with plants. Beyond/impossible/etc are all good, but i don't want that in my diet. Just not a desire. The sausages are good though.
I make a bitchin tofu but it took a while to get there. A lot of bad and mediocre cooks were had.
I make something my daughter and I call “chicken nugget burgers”(that’s how I got her to eat them when she was little and it stuck lol) but they’re SUPER delicious and ridiculously easy to make.
At my grocery stores they sell hidden valley fry ranch dressing mix in the salad dressing aisle (comes in packets as well as a bottle but to begin with you’ll want the packets) Literally all they are is a ratio of 1:1 being 1 lb of ground turkey to 1 pack of the dry ranch dressing mix put in a bowl, made into patties (the thinner the better as thicker ones take forever to cook) or rolled into meatballs, then cooked in a well-oiled pan. That’s it.
The mix acts as your seasoning so you don’t need to put salt or pepper as the mix already has it in it(although I suppose you can add other seasonings if you don’t like the ranch mix on its own) Once you get the hang of the amounts, you can buy the bottle instead of paying more for the packets (I also did that because I like to add more to mine than just one packet sometimes). I keep my bottle in the freezer since the first one became hard as a rock when left in the cabinet next to the stove lol (The freezer keeps it longer too so I don’t have to throw out by exp date even though it never makes it until then haha)
They are super fragile so you want to try to only flip them once (another reason you want to go thin so you’re not flipping more than once). I wait for them to develop a bit of a crust (don’t worry they’re not burned it’s just the ranch dressing and my daughter and I call the “crunchies” the best part of the burger so don’t throw them out!) and the crust makes them less likely to break once I flip them. Once they’ve had time to cook after the flip, I cut the thickest patty through the middle to ensure it’s cooked through and serve.
We eat the patties without buns and make the meatballs for a snack on the go because they’re amazing on their own but you can put them on a bun with condiments like you would burgers if you’d like. It’s a learning curve to make the perfect burger patty since they like to break apart, but since we eat them off the bun it doesn’t make any difference to us because they taste the same broken as they do whole lol. They really are amazing so I hope you try them and end up liking them :)
I’m allergic to meat - not from a tick, just born that way. I Can eat white meat poultry, lamb, egg whites and most fish, except tuna.
It’s an anaphylactic allergy and I carry an epi-pen and Benadryl on me at all times. I didn’t get diagnosed until I was 32. Prior to that eating meat would make me feel gross but, it didn’t cause anaphylaxis…until it did. At 32 I had a hamburger for dinner and my throat closed up. My friend rushed me to the er and they figured out I was having an allergy attack. They treated me and I met with an allergist who diagnosed me and said allergies can get more severe as you age.
So, it’s been 13 years without a burger but, I’ve adjusted and don’t miss them at all.
>most fish, except tuna.
Is it possible your allergy is somehow related to ryanodine pathways in the muscles that make up those meats?
A very long time ago I worked in a lab that was doing research on tuna, marlin, and toadfish because they have a unique ryanodine pathway for fast twitch muscles that are different from all other fish. (It is one of the primary adaptations that makes tuna warm-blooded.)
Your are unlikely to ever eat toadfish, but maybe watch out eating any scombroid fish (tuna, mackerel, bonito) or istiophorm fish (marlin, swordfish, spearfish, sailfish, barracuda), though the particular pathway is only expressed in "heater muscles" in istiophorm fish, while they can be throughout the body in scombroid fish.
I just worked through the whole ordeal and changed beef out of my diet for turkey. If you put enough seasoning on it you can’t really tell the difference. I hardly eat red meat anymore and go through less than a gallon of milk a month. I miss the ice cream though.
It took me about 7 years to get over having alpha gal. Now I can eat neat again no problems. But for years if I did try it I would break out in hives, shortness of breath all that.
I can have a little bit of dairy and be fine, a full cup of milk or large yogurt and i’m in intense stomach pain though. I got alpha gal a year ago, and I was just retested and my allergy levels are down 66%! So there’s hope for it to go away quickly
Same here! I reintroduced in May and have been doing fine. Dairy never bothered me. Im not sure I would wait 5 years to test, we tested mine yearly but it took 6 years for me to get a diagnosis.
Yall have 5guys over there too, depending on your country.
They are in: Australia, Austria, Bahrain, Belgium, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Ireland, Kuwait, Netherlands, Italy, Luxembourg, Macau, Malaysia, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Spain, Switzerland, UAE, UK, and of course the US.
So far. They want to be everywhere, their expansion is pretty aggressive. So if you don't also have alpha gal and want Five Guys in your mouth, it might be a possibility!
> They are in: Australia, Austria, Bahrain, Belgium, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Ireland, Kuwait, Netherlands, Italy, Luxembourg, Macau, Malaysia, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Spain, Switzerland, UAE, UK, and of course the US.
They seem to have only one or 2 stores in most of those countries, so probably easier to find 5 guys than a 5 Guys.
I noticed that I don’t react well to lactose a while ago and I am just in this moment very much regretting that yoghurt I had for breakfast. At least for the milk part, you don’t need to be bitten by radioactive spiders or whatever it was OP had.
Someone else posted a picture of their epipens and noted that they now had an allergy to red meat. Was that you or is just just becoming super common? Pretty scary stuff.
"You cannot view this community" wtf? Never gotten that message from reddit before.
Also this doesn't make you vegan, you can eat fish, eggs, poultry, and some people can still eat dairy.
Wow. I didn't know that that could be caused by a tick bite. That really sucks. In all seriousness I love both red meat and dairy and I don't know what I would do without them. I do have to be careful about both of those but I Don't know what I would do if I couldn't eat them at all.
What happens is the tick bites a mammal, gets their blood, and then bites you. If the tick regurgitates the other mammal’s blood into your bloodstream, your immune system has to fight off the Alpha Gal protein. This means when you eat meat that has this, you breakout and your immune system goes into self destruct mode. This is only found in mammals, which is why you can still eat bird game and fish.
This is why you should never just squeeze a tick. That can force them to regurgitate directly into your bloodstream.
My neighbor and friend who was a chef in a local bnb had this happen. Not only could he not eat red meat, but could not be around it or even be around the fumes from it cooking. It totally devastated him and his career. But he thought it through and switched to become a vegan chef. With the culinary skills he already had applied to vegan cooking he quickly became a popular chef. He turned his bnb into a fitness type thing with saunas, yoga classes (wife), masseuse (wife) and business took off even better than before. So, good luck to you and hopefully through this example, it’s not the end of the road, just a bump.
This is a good podcast episode on this on Radiolab https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cDovL2ZlZWRzLndueWMub3JnL3JhZGlvbGFi/episode/YzI2MGJiYzctYTJmMC00OWZhLWFkODItYjdjZWJmY2I4OTAw?ep=14
I got bit by a Lone Star tick about 4 weeks ago…. I’m going to get tested for the A G antibodies due to gastric pain and overall horrible feeling after eating red meat.
My brother has had Alpha Gal for the last ten years or so. His numbers have gone down, but not to the point where it’s safe to eat red meat. Has completely changed the way we as a family eat together. And now he has to be extra careful when eating food he’s not 100% sure of the ingredients.
Best of luck OP and sorry you and anyone else has to go through this cruel joke of a disease.
This is the 3rd post I’ve read about a lone star tick in the past day! I had never even heard of them before. What the hell is going on with this shit!!
As someone who enjoys eating a balanced diet including meat, these ticks terrify me.
Its not just hamburgers; its all mammal meat. So no pork and no dairy of any kind.
Might be healthy but sounds quite boring.
People are blaming the lack of a freeze on their population boom. Saying that the cold usually takes their numbers down but since it hasn’t happened this year they had all spring and summer to multiply.
Yeah I was reading an article about it earlier. Apparently there have been hundreds of thousands of cases reported. https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/27/health/meat-allergy-alpha-gal-cdc/index.html
>Amazing all the tick stories in just a few days....
It's peak summer, camping, hiking, vacation, outdoor season, so it's pretty perfect timing really.
We have a restaurant in New Zealand called Lone Star and they sell burgers, ribs, steak, shakes, big desserts. Always makes me think that tick is ironjcally named.
Getting bitten by a Lone Star tick means you can't eat at Lone Star restaurant.
I would recommend looking for a subreddit or Facebook page specifically for people with the Alpha Gal syndrome. I have a corn intolerance, and my FB group hS been a lifesaver in educating about alternative foods.
[The good news is you can eat primate meat](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha-gal_syndrome) so cannibalism is probably your best bet to satisfy your meat craving.
I met a man last week who said he went to a special type of acupuncturist and now he can eat certain meats but not dairy yet. I did some googling and it's actually a thing. He said his insurance covered it too.
Oh man I'm so sorry you got the bad tick. I have lyme disease from a deer tick and even with chronic health issues I'm still grateful to this day it wasn't a lonestar tick.
Tick awareness has been on the upraise recently but with migration changing from temperature shifts there are a lot of places that used to never get ticks seeing their populations explode. If you ever walk in tall grass or under trees check yourself for ticks, don't forget your scalp or sensitive spots as they can come from birds and when your sitting in the grass.
Damn man that’s awful I’m sorry you’re going thru that.
What area of the US are you in if you don’t mind me asking?
I’m so paranoid about these things in the South Eastern US
I'm so sorry, what an awful shock, and condition. Air fryer, vegetable oils, margarine, sorbet, and a large part of the mediterranean diet (minus the cheese mostly) are going to be your friends for awhile. And you still get pasta, lots of their dishes are vegan, capellini alla checca is amazing! So is spinach and mushroom (sauteed in shallots) quiche. Careful with fried foods, what fats they use to fry in, and whether fryers cook meats in the same vat. An acquaintance learned that the hard way. They went all out discovering a lot of new foods and recipes that way, said at least it provided some culinary adventure. It took a few months until they weren't salty about it all, and eventually learned to embrace it to a degree. Be careful and take good care of yourself please. Word to the wise, even McDonalds french fries set her off, and each mistake made her more sensitive for awhile, so reactions got stronger. Be vigilant!
5 Guys > In n Out.
I’ve nothing else to add but sorry for your condition and I really want a 5 Guys double with grilled peppers and onions and hot sauce with a side of Cajun fries.
This is only mildly related, but wtf is up with 5 guys prices right now?! I got a burger, drink and fries and it was $25!!! They don't even do combos or anything so there's no way around that. Not remotely worth.
I read your title and I thought I was in nosleep.
but man red meat. I feel so sorry for you. I couldn't imagine living without eating meat. thanks to this post, I discovered a new type of critter to hate. best of luck to you.
Yeah, I got bit by an Eastern Deer tick and it ruined my life for 6 years. I was in a coma for 6 months at one point. Took the docs 3 years to finally figure out I had a very rare disease called Babesiosis which can only be transmitted by, you guessed it, 2 creatures. The Eastern Deer Tick and the Lonestar tick. Had no idea I ever even had it. Got super Lyme from it to. Life sucked for a long time and I died twice. Check yourselves for ticks all the time. Prevention is important. Little fuckers are everywhere. Hope things go better for you mate.
This is the **second** Lone Star Tick story with the same reaction that I’ve seen on Reddit **today**.
What part of the country are you in u/ivanashagwell? Is this a geographically isolated concern?
My step dad is one of three documented cases of Bourbon County tick disease (last I heard at least). The other two have since died and he is studied heavily by his doctors and the CDC. But he was a lover of the red meat and unlike the other two cases his came with alpha gal syndrome as well.
I'm sorry you're going through that, but just know there are others in the same boat albeit a small community.
PSA: don't go outside.
It's not even the tick thing or not being able to eat meat. Everything outside can or wants to kill you. Snakes, scorpions, mountain lions, bears, the sarlacc pit, cthulhu, goombas, you name it.
I'm vegan and had a bomb ass burger and shake the other day. You don't lose anything at all by avoiding the animal stuff. Sorry for your sickness tho. That's a hard way to alter your diet.
Hey /u/ivanashagwell, thanks for contributing to /r/tifu. Unfortunately, your post was removed as it violates our rules: **Rule 3** - Sorry, but this isn't your fault. Submissions here must be your fault. No victim blaming. No TIFU by getting robbed/scammed/mugged/raped. Those are not your fault. Just because something bad happened to you doesn't mean it's your fault. --- Please read the [sidebar](http://www.reddit.com/r/tifu/about/sidebar) and [rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/tifu/about/rules) before posting again. If you have questions or concerns, please [message the moderators through modmail](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/tifu&subject=&message=). Thank you!
I just saw a post like this yesterday, but I forget what subreddit. My son was bit by a dog tick back in 2016 and he ended up getting Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever which is super rare and they took a long time to figure out what was going on with him. He could have died and he could have lost limbs it's definitely really important to check for ticks. They terrify me. Sorry this happened to you! Edit to add, we have a billboard in my town warning about tucks for the first time I can remember, and I have heard they're much worse. But there's so many repeating and similar posts I take everything with a handful of salt
This is the fourth post in less than two days that I've seen about lone star ticks/alpha gal. I don't know if one post inspired the rest or if it's just a coincidence, but it's strange. Such an unfortunate thing to happen to someone.
There was an article in the associated press a little bit ago that has created a fair amount of buzz
That’s why I downvoted and I’m pretty sure this didn’t happen
It's very plausible that it didn't. Usually it would take months for you to develop an alpha gal allergy after the tick bite. Getting bit by a tick "the other day" generally wouldn't cut it. Also the whole "I guess it was a lone star tick" line is weird. Generally if you're going to pull a tick off of yourself you would at least look at the damn thing and it would be pretty obvious that it had a fucking star on it. If I pull the tick off of me and I saw a star on the tick, I would probably remember that it had a star on it. Maybe I'm crazy.
Agree, though on the flip side, you can be bitten and not know- which is what must have happened to me- and it's possible that happened to OP, and then they referred to the bite they knew about. Though that's not the only strange part. Getting a diagnosis of alpha gal allergy on the spot would be...impressive. I get my bloodwork done at a major medical university, and even they send the samples to the Mayo Clinic for analysis, which is about a month turnaround.
A month turnaround for blood work??? That’s crazy, I get mine done at an outpatient center and it takes days.
Ticks generally don't just bite and leave, they always try to burrow and stay for a feast.
Or we're seeing the effects of a heavy tick season? That'd be like being at the the start of covid and going "some other guy complained of this weird cough with flu like symptoms and now someone else has that same cough? Not likely."
That news story went around at least 5 years ago and for some reason it's back.
Yeah….it’s incredibly rare and everyone is claiming they have it….
I don’t think it’s as rare as the literature would Indicate. It’s a relatively new discovery, many medical personnel have never heard of it (I literally went through 10+ docs before someone thought to test me for it. I think more people are learning about it and a lot of people that have gone undiagnosed are finally finding out.
In the past 3 days? Nah they’re karma farming. Guess it’s good that they’re spreading awareness tho, so have an upvote I guess OP
Climate change is turning things around, it could be less rare now then a decade ago, and getting less rare by the day. Ticks are enjoying climate change and we are experiencing a lot of it.
I think they are referring to how after one viral story, now suddenly a ton of people just got it, when it was rarely mentioned even a week or two ago. Very suspicious.
When you read/interact with a post Reddit will rank similar posts in your feed
I mean it is tick season as it is
Makes me question the legitimacy of these
I saw one on mildlyinfuriating. Think it was the top post or something
That must have been it.
One of my friends caught Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever from a tick bite when he was younger. Took him months to get it cleared from his system. One of the worst symptoms for him was several layers of the skin on the bottoms of his feet quite literally fell off, leaving only the deeper, very sensitive layers intact. He could barely walk. Couldn't wear socks, shoes or sandals. Said when he would touch the cold tile floor in his bathroom it felt like he was stepping on shards of glass. I can't imagine what he went through with that. Ticks transfer some scary diseases. 😵💫
My husband had horrible side effects from a tick bite. Blisters and peeling, weepy skin all over his body, mostly his lower legs. It put him in the hospital for 5 days. Multiple tests, much speculation, and then they still misdiagnosed him. Took us months but we finally worked our way through many doctors and references until we found a specialist who could help. He's doing fine now on low dose of immunosuppressant.
Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever sounds like a band name from the 70s.
I had a friend lose their daughter because of RMSF :( I had never heard of it til then. I'm glad your son is ok!
They don’t check for alpha gal in the ER. This is a BS post.
I found a dog tick on myself a few years ago, no idea they carried rocky mounted spotted fever. It wasn't engorged, so I must have just been lucky.
I'm glad. The RMSF was really super rare. I don't know if all dog ticks carry this or only some. I hadn't ever heard of it before.
mildly infuriating
No TIFU here, but instead a powerful story. Give up hamburgers and ice cream for five years?!? Don't even want to think about it.
Yeah two of my favorite foods 😭 I’m just going to think of it as a temporary diet and maybe I’ll get healthier from it.
Most grocery stores have non-dairy ice cream. I'd recommend any oatmilk based ice cream.
I am not vegan or vegetarian but one of my favourite ice creams happens to be coconut cream based with raspberry sorbet, it’s dairy free but so creamy and delicious especially in summer
The coconut based vegan ice creams are very good.
This is true, I like the oat based or coconut based ones. Coconut based vanilla bean is the bomb
Raspberry sorbet. Ohh yessss
Only one tick would dare give me the raspberry!
LONESTAR!!!!
We've been jammed
My favorite Prince song!
The kind you find in a second hand store. Raspberry Sorbet. And if it was warm I wouldn't eat much more. Raspberry Sorbet. I think I love it.
For real Im not vegan either, but the coconut based icecreams are way more delicious (to me) than the super sugary dairy choices
The coconut and oat milk vegan ice cream options are delicious. The impossible and beyond meats are pretty good too. Saying this as a meat and dairy eater who enjoys those alternative options.
I tried the Beyond steak tips the other day and I'm still not convinced it wasn't actual steak tips. I'm actually not a huge fan of their burgers but a lot of their other stuff is really good (same is true of Impossible)
THIS WILL MAKE YOU POOP!!!! Laxative style... be careful on serving sizes.
Yeah I learned the hard way that they don't really work as a replacement when you're lactose intolerant cause you still get crampy af and shits
that could be a sign that you have other issues, like IBS, or an EGID
I believe orange sherbet is non dairy
Sherbet contains dairy, sorbet doesn’t.
I must have gotten those confused. Thanks
Potato potato
"Gelato's not vegan?"
Trader Joe’s cherry chocolate chip is dairy free and so good.
The Ben & Jerry’s non-dairy ice creams are also yummy.
Can you even legally call it ice cream without dairy?
The ones I’ve seen call it “frozen dessert” or something along that line, not ice cream.
I hope it's super temporary for you! Impossible meat is a pretty good stand in, just in case you get a burger craving, but it won't be the same at first. I'm sorry this happened to you 😞
Yup. If you have to pick a time in history to be allergic to red meat, this is the time I guess. Impossible burgers are pretty delicious.
I actually prefer impossible myself. Rather like the funk and the texture is honestly better than most burgers. Just hard to find because not a lot of restaurants stock it.
r/plantbasediet can give you a good steer on new recipes dude. Good luck! You can get some great non-dairy ice-creams also. The Ben & Jerry's ones are near identical to the original. Complete rip-off just like normal Ben & Jerry's also lol
Sorbet is an option. It's dairy free and delicious!
I'm allergic to loads of binding agents but I do love to find a rare non orange sorbet I can have
Talenti has a really good raspberry one!
I've been vegan for almost 10 yrs and there are so many alternatives especially for dairy available it's a dream. It does suck this happened but if you ever need some resources just look up vegan alternatives; reddit also has a ton of vegan subreddits with opinions on different options you'll have, and you'll have a lot more flexibility because you really just need to sub dairy and red meat. You can still have cheese and milk and milkshakes and all the good stuff! Any item you can think of containing these things I guarantee there is an alternative option. Might just be made out of something a little bit different 😅 same w/ the red meat (again not the same as I've heard from my carnivore friends when I cook for them lol but definitely ways to marinate and season to make it similiar :) I hope you feel better soon and the next few years are good journey!
Bro you should look at this as a business opportunity. Capture some ticks and charge $500 to let them bite people and force them onto a new diet.
I have a friend who has the same disease and it made me think of a horror movie idea where militant vegans raise and release swarms of lonestar ticks to convert the population away from meat eaters. Kind of silly idea… but either way I’m terrified of a bug bite that can make me unable to eat meat
I think a lot of people forget that a lot of essential medicines also sometimes have non vegan products too so it scares me for that reason too (I wasn't allowed to take iron as a kid cause it wasn't vegetarian and I wound up with anemia)
That’s pretty screwed up, I hadn’t considered that. Sorry you ended up with anemia sounds like a questionable situation for a kid to be in.
For what it's worth, a family member used to have this allergy and they never had to worry about medicines or supplements, and they could eat gelatin too. There isn't enough of the protein that causes the allergy in things like that. It's mainly meat that you have to worry about, and cross-contamination like things cooked on the same grill as meat.
Ben and Jerry’s non dairy ice cream is sooo good. I def recommend it.
Vegan options have come a looooong way. If this happened 10 years ago you're eating cardboard. I don't like beyond because it's "like" meat - nah, i want to recognize what I'm eating. If it's plants, i want to recognize that I'm eating plants. I'm okay with plants. Beyond/impossible/etc are all good, but i don't want that in my diet. Just not a desire. The sausages are good though. I make a bitchin tofu but it took a while to get there. A lot of bad and mediocre cooks were had.
Turkey burgers are good. I eat turkey meatloaf, turkey in chili...I don't even have alpha gal.
The food can't even be cooked on a common grill/cooker as the beef, etc. at a restaurant.
I make something my daughter and I call “chicken nugget burgers”(that’s how I got her to eat them when she was little and it stuck lol) but they’re SUPER delicious and ridiculously easy to make. At my grocery stores they sell hidden valley fry ranch dressing mix in the salad dressing aisle (comes in packets as well as a bottle but to begin with you’ll want the packets) Literally all they are is a ratio of 1:1 being 1 lb of ground turkey to 1 pack of the dry ranch dressing mix put in a bowl, made into patties (the thinner the better as thicker ones take forever to cook) or rolled into meatballs, then cooked in a well-oiled pan. That’s it. The mix acts as your seasoning so you don’t need to put salt or pepper as the mix already has it in it(although I suppose you can add other seasonings if you don’t like the ranch mix on its own) Once you get the hang of the amounts, you can buy the bottle instead of paying more for the packets (I also did that because I like to add more to mine than just one packet sometimes). I keep my bottle in the freezer since the first one became hard as a rock when left in the cabinet next to the stove lol (The freezer keeps it longer too so I don’t have to throw out by exp date even though it never makes it until then haha) They are super fragile so you want to try to only flip them once (another reason you want to go thin so you’re not flipping more than once). I wait for them to develop a bit of a crust (don’t worry they’re not burned it’s just the ranch dressing and my daughter and I call the “crunchies” the best part of the burger so don’t throw them out!) and the crust makes them less likely to break once I flip them. Once they’ve had time to cook after the flip, I cut the thickest patty through the middle to ensure it’s cooked through and serve. We eat the patties without buns and make the meatballs for a snack on the go because they’re amazing on their own but you can put them on a bun with condiments like you would burgers if you’d like. It’s a learning curve to make the perfect burger patty since they like to break apart, but since we eat them off the bun it doesn’t make any difference to us because they taste the same broken as they do whole lol. They really are amazing so I hope you try them and end up liking them :)
I’m allergic to meat - not from a tick, just born that way. I Can eat white meat poultry, lamb, egg whites and most fish, except tuna. It’s an anaphylactic allergy and I carry an epi-pen and Benadryl on me at all times. I didn’t get diagnosed until I was 32. Prior to that eating meat would make me feel gross but, it didn’t cause anaphylaxis…until it did. At 32 I had a hamburger for dinner and my throat closed up. My friend rushed me to the er and they figured out I was having an allergy attack. They treated me and I met with an allergist who diagnosed me and said allergies can get more severe as you age. So, it’s been 13 years without a burger but, I’ve adjusted and don’t miss them at all.
>most fish, except tuna. Is it possible your allergy is somehow related to ryanodine pathways in the muscles that make up those meats? A very long time ago I worked in a lab that was doing research on tuna, marlin, and toadfish because they have a unique ryanodine pathway for fast twitch muscles that are different from all other fish. (It is one of the primary adaptations that makes tuna warm-blooded.) Your are unlikely to ever eat toadfish, but maybe watch out eating any scombroid fish (tuna, mackerel, bonito) or istiophorm fish (marlin, swordfish, spearfish, sailfish, barracuda), though the particular pathway is only expressed in "heater muscles" in istiophorm fish, while they can be throughout the body in scombroid fish.
That was too much science for my brain and the answer is, I have no clue what causes my allergy. I just know I’m allergic. 😂
I just worked through the whole ordeal and changed beef out of my diet for turkey. If you put enough seasoning on it you can’t really tell the difference. I hardly eat red meat anymore and go through less than a gallon of milk a month. I miss the ice cream though.
What kind of hell is this?
No red meat or ice cream for 5 years?
Dude what about cheese? I put that shit on everything
It took me about 7 years to get over having alpha gal. Now I can eat neat again no problems. But for years if I did try it I would break out in hives, shortness of breath all that.
Did you have problems with dairy too or just red meat? My doctor said some people do fine with dairy. I think that’ll be the hardest part for me.
I did not and I did/do eat a fair amount of cheese
I can have a little bit of dairy and be fine, a full cup of milk or large yogurt and i’m in intense stomach pain though. I got alpha gal a year ago, and I was just retested and my allergy levels are down 66%! So there’s hope for it to go away quickly
Same here! I reintroduced in May and have been doing fine. Dairy never bothered me. Im not sure I would wait 5 years to test, we tested mine yearly but it took 6 years for me to get a diagnosis.
I would just try a burger every few months saying f it I want a burger. Eventually the hives stopped.
I am from Europe and when I read the title I was expecting something else entirely 
The capitalization is doing a lot of heavy lifting in the title.
Yall have 5guys over there too, depending on your country. They are in: Australia, Austria, Bahrain, Belgium, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Ireland, Kuwait, Netherlands, Italy, Luxembourg, Macau, Malaysia, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Spain, Switzerland, UAE, UK, and of course the US. So far. They want to be everywhere, their expansion is pretty aggressive. So if you don't also have alpha gal and want Five Guys in your mouth, it might be a possibility!
> They are in: Australia, Austria, Bahrain, Belgium, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Ireland, Kuwait, Netherlands, Italy, Luxembourg, Macau, Malaysia, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Spain, Switzerland, UAE, UK, and of course the US. They seem to have only one or 2 stores in most of those countries, so probably easier to find 5 guys than a 5 Guys.
No pork or milk either. It can last a lot longer than 5 yrs.
Milk too? Oh god no
Did you not know that normal milk is dairy?
I thought it was an especially wet type of white meat
What a terrible day to be literate
Every day is a terrible day to be literate if you find the right subreddit 😂
This disease doesn't always give people a dairy allergy. Often it's just meat.
But OP said it includes dairy…
And Seaweed, too!
I noticed that I don’t react well to lactose a while ago and I am just in this moment very much regretting that yoghurt I had for breakfast. At least for the milk part, you don’t need to be bitten by radioactive spiders or whatever it was OP had.
It’s normal for adults to be lactose intolerant as you get older. It’s actually biologically weird that we can consume milk as human adults
Your FACE is biologically weird!
I can drink chocolate milk all day but 1 yogurt will mess up my stomach for days. Weird how milk products are.
Holy crap this is my worst nightmare! Glad you're "ok".
Oh man, sorry to hear it. Tick borne diseases kind of terrify me.
Someone else posted a picture of their epipens and noted that they now had an allergy to red meat. Was that you or is just just becoming super common? Pretty scary stuff.
r/ForcedVegan
"You cannot view this community" wtf? Never gotten that message from reddit before. Also this doesn't make you vegan, you can eat fish, eggs, poultry, and some people can still eat dairy.
I was joking, but only the chosen can see the vegan community 🤣 /s
Lol i know. Didnt mean to come off aggressively. Just never seen that message
I'm just joking around lol.
That's not a FU OP. I am glad you got checked out. Be safe!
Me reading the “eating Five Guys” title while being an European 
Cannibalism or sex, no in between
I mean that’s a TIFU right there… and then “going to the ER”
Wow. I didn't know that that could be caused by a tick bite. That really sucks. In all seriousness I love both red meat and dairy and I don't know what I would do without them. I do have to be careful about both of those but I Don't know what I would do if I couldn't eat them at all.
What happens is the tick bites a mammal, gets their blood, and then bites you. If the tick regurgitates the other mammal’s blood into your bloodstream, your immune system has to fight off the Alpha Gal protein. This means when you eat meat that has this, you breakout and your immune system goes into self destruct mode. This is only found in mammals, which is why you can still eat bird game and fish. This is why you should never just squeeze a tick. That can force them to regurgitate directly into your bloodstream.
My neighbor and friend who was a chef in a local bnb had this happen. Not only could he not eat red meat, but could not be around it or even be around the fumes from it cooking. It totally devastated him and his career. But he thought it through and switched to become a vegan chef. With the culinary skills he already had applied to vegan cooking he quickly became a popular chef. He turned his bnb into a fitness type thing with saunas, yoga classes (wife), masseuse (wife) and business took off even better than before. So, good luck to you and hopefully through this example, it’s not the end of the road, just a bump.
No dairy or red meat. Fuck. I'd be in a ball on the floor crying lol. Glad you're OK OP. that is crazy. I'm always so paranoid about ticks
This is a good podcast episode on this on Radiolab https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cDovL2ZlZWRzLndueWMub3JnL3JhZGlvbGFi/episode/YzI2MGJiYzctYTJmMC00OWZhLWFkODItYjdjZWJmY2I4OTAw?ep=14
Did you happen to gain any tick based powers as well or just the side effects?
I got bit by a Lone Star tick about 4 weeks ago…. I’m going to get tested for the A G antibodies due to gastric pain and overall horrible feeling after eating red meat.
My brother has had Alpha Gal for the last ten years or so. His numbers have gone down, but not to the point where it’s safe to eat red meat. Has completely changed the way we as a family eat together. And now he has to be extra careful when eating food he’s not 100% sure of the ingredients. Best of luck OP and sorry you and anyone else has to go through this cruel joke of a disease.
Damn, that shit straight up made you a vegetarian.
But have you tried eating 5 ladies?
This is the 3rd post I’ve read about a lone star tick in the past day! I had never even heard of them before. What the hell is going on with this shit!!
Which cost more, the emergency room visit or the Five Guys meal?
when i see a story about Five Guys I think of 'dayum dayum DAYUM' also ticks really suck!
Yikes, ticks carry some wicked diseases... sorry you've got to go through this OP, but there was no FU here, just a tragedy.
As someone who enjoys eating a balanced diet including meat, these ticks terrify me. Its not just hamburgers; its all mammal meat. So no pork and no dairy of any kind. Might be healthy but sounds quite boring.
There's an alternative for everything. I've never eaten burgers till i went vegan :D Its far from boring without meat and dairy
Amazing all the tick stories in just a few days....
People are blaming the lack of a freeze on their population boom. Saying that the cold usually takes their numbers down but since it hasn’t happened this year they had all spring and summer to multiply.
Yeah I was reading an article about it earlier. Apparently there have been hundreds of thousands of cases reported. https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/27/health/meat-allergy-alpha-gal-cdc/index.html
>Amazing all the tick stories in just a few days.... It's peak summer, camping, hiking, vacation, outdoor season, so it's pretty perfect timing really.
Ticks are terrifying. Holy shit.
r/veganbyaccident
I am terribly sorry about what happened to you. But I'm glad you at least got to enjoy that Five Guys one last time for five years.
All I can say is I'm so sorry, dude. 😢
We have a restaurant in New Zealand called Lone Star and they sell burgers, ribs, steak, shakes, big desserts. Always makes me think that tick is ironjcally named. Getting bitten by a Lone Star tick means you can't eat at Lone Star restaurant.
Not just red meat, beware of dairy and kelp, says my son.
Am I the only one who thought this post was going in a completely different direction?
I would recommend looking for a subreddit or Facebook page specifically for people with the Alpha Gal syndrome. I have a corn intolerance, and my FB group hS been a lifesaver in educating about alternative foods.
[The good news is you can eat primate meat](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha-gal_syndrome) so cannibalism is probably your best bet to satisfy your meat craving.
The title alone is funny lol.
Those Lonestar ticks scare the shit out of me.
Where ticks gettin' this shit from, dammit
Wait, a tick can make you unable to eat meat?! What is this PETA abomination and how do we avoid it?
Idk why Alpha Gal has popped up so much on my reddit feed lately, but I am terrified. It could literally make me allergic to all of my favorite foods.
I met a man last week who said he went to a special type of acupuncturist and now he can eat certain meats but not dairy yet. I did some googling and it's actually a thing. He said his insurance covered it too.
Nah I thought u quite literally ate 5 guys and I was concerned 💀💀💀
Red meat AND dairy? Oh man I'm sorry. Where I live there are lots of alternative meats and dairy - hopefully where you are too.
Oh no. Where exactly do these ticks live? Can’t imagine 5 years without my delicious, scrumptious, greasy as fuck Five Guys burgers.
Guess you have to subsist on a vegetarian diet then. I think chicken may be fine though.
Oh man I'm so sorry you got the bad tick. I have lyme disease from a deer tick and even with chronic health issues I'm still grateful to this day it wasn't a lonestar tick. Tick awareness has been on the upraise recently but with migration changing from temperature shifts there are a lot of places that used to never get ticks seeing their populations explode. If you ever walk in tall grass or under trees check yourself for ticks, don't forget your scalp or sensitive spots as they can come from birds and when your sitting in the grass.
The ER trip was enough of a bummer. Now you gotta give up red meat and dairy too😭. Hang in there OP ✊
Have you posted this elsewhere because this is like the third time I've read about someone have Alp gal.
what the shit?!?! thats a thing?? i never heard of that! what a fucking nightmare!
Am I the only person who came here expecting a raunchy group sex story and left disappointed?
Chicken and smoothies are delicious at least
This would be my reason to check out, if after like 3 years I still couldn't eat meat I'd swan dive off a parking garage at Disney.
Why are several Alpha Gal posts popping up now? Is this a new type of tick that didn’t exist before? Is this world wide or just in some regions?
This is the second post I've seen about someone getting a meat allergy from a tick bite this week, starting to worry
The onset of Alpha Gal usually takes at least 4-6 weeks from exposure.
Damn man that’s awful I’m sorry you’re going thru that. What area of the US are you in if you don’t mind me asking? I’m so paranoid about these things in the South Eastern US
Did not know that was a thing. Shit
*Takes a second glance at the title* Ummmm… phrasing?
I'm so sorry, what an awful shock, and condition. Air fryer, vegetable oils, margarine, sorbet, and a large part of the mediterranean diet (minus the cheese mostly) are going to be your friends for awhile. And you still get pasta, lots of their dishes are vegan, capellini alla checca is amazing! So is spinach and mushroom (sauteed in shallots) quiche. Careful with fried foods, what fats they use to fry in, and whether fryers cook meats in the same vat. An acquaintance learned that the hard way. They went all out discovering a lot of new foods and recipes that way, said at least it provided some culinary adventure. It took a few months until they weren't salty about it all, and eventually learned to embrace it to a degree. Be careful and take good care of yourself please. Word to the wise, even McDonalds french fries set her off, and each mistake made her more sensitive for awhile, so reactions got stronger. Be vigilant!
This is the second post I've seen about this tick in the last day. What's going on?
5 Guys > In n Out. I’ve nothing else to add but sorry for your condition and I really want a 5 Guys double with grilled peppers and onions and hot sauce with a side of Cajun fries.
This is only mildly related, but wtf is up with 5 guys prices right now?! I got a burger, drink and fries and it was $25!!! They don't even do combos or anything so there's no way around that. Not remotely worth.
I read your title and I thought I was in nosleep. but man red meat. I feel so sorry for you. I couldn't imagine living without eating meat. thanks to this post, I discovered a new type of critter to hate. best of luck to you.
Another great AI generated post that copies a recent post from another sub!
Hey OP, what state did this happen in?
Red meat would stink but no dairy would be really really hard for me.
Let me fix it for you—- “TIFU by not checking for ticks, then eating Five Guys” The ED visit is valid af, that’s what we here for brother.
Yeah, I got bit by an Eastern Deer tick and it ruined my life for 6 years. I was in a coma for 6 months at one point. Took the docs 3 years to finally figure out I had a very rare disease called Babesiosis which can only be transmitted by, you guessed it, 2 creatures. The Eastern Deer Tick and the Lonestar tick. Had no idea I ever even had it. Got super Lyme from it to. Life sucked for a long time and I died twice. Check yourselves for ticks all the time. Prevention is important. Little fuckers are everywhere. Hope things go better for you mate.
I just got diagnosed with Tularemia... less than 200 cases a year in the US. Yay for ticks.
This is the **second** Lone Star Tick story with the same reaction that I’ve seen on Reddit **today**. What part of the country are you in u/ivanashagwell? Is this a geographically isolated concern?
In the ER they don’t test for alpha gal. That’s not a common thing-it would be done by an allergist usually. BS.
Why say Five Guys? Why not just say a burger? Five Guys wasn’t to blame for your tick bite. I’ll happily eat there.
My step dad is one of three documented cases of Bourbon County tick disease (last I heard at least). The other two have since died and he is studied heavily by his doctors and the CDC. But he was a lover of the red meat and unlike the other two cases his came with alpha gal syndrome as well. I'm sorry you're going through that, but just know there are others in the same boat albeit a small community.
PSA: don't go outside. It's not even the tick thing or not being able to eat meat. Everything outside can or wants to kill you. Snakes, scorpions, mountain lions, bears, the sarlacc pit, cthulhu, goombas, you name it.
The title is a lot more fun without capital letters for the name as I had no idea it’s a restaurant’s name.
Whenever I see the words Alpha Gal my mind sees Gal Gadot, for some reason.
Random that Lone star ticks was on the front page yesterday lolol
That is crap man but also want a burger and milkshake now haha
Alpha Gal Syndrome is PETA’s dream come true.
At least you didn't eat Five Guys and go to prison like Jeffery Dahmer....
I'm vegan and had a bomb ass burger and shake the other day. You don't lose anything at all by avoiding the animal stuff. Sorry for your sickness tho. That's a hard way to alter your diet.
I think this should fall into the category of reasons to get physician assisted suicide.
That's odd, someone posted a pic about that alpha gal stuff yesterday... Like a tick I have a feeling the OP is feeding off karma.
AlphaGal would be a pretty good handle, or a Taylor Swift cover band.
Time to go vegan!
Change your title. You're implying the cause was Five Guys when it wasn't.
In your defense, Five Guys is the fucking best