{"id":1283,"date":"2023-07-26T13:33:47","date_gmt":"2023-07-26T17:33:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.allergy-associates.com\/?p=1283"},"modified":"2023-07-26T13:33:47","modified_gmt":"2023-07-26T17:33:47","slug":"ice-cream-therapy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.allergy-associates.com\/?p=1283","title":{"rendered":"<strong>Ice Cream Therapy<\/strong>"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Finally, a medical therapy I can relate to.&nbsp; I love ice cream.&nbsp; Actually, it\u2019s not a medical therapy, but a safe mechanism to \u201ctest the waters\u201d in alpha-gal syndrome.&nbsp; This newsletter has previously discussed this uncommon condition that unfortunately is becoming more common.&nbsp; By way of reminder the syndrome is the new onset of anaphylaxis due to eating meat.&nbsp; It is a strange condition in that the allergic symptoms occur suddenly (hives, swelling, throat constriction) but are delayed 3 to 6 hours from the meat ingestion.&nbsp; It\u2019s kind of similar to touching a hot stove and then feeling the sudden pain hours later.&nbsp; The reason it develops is due to allergic sensitization from a tick bite.&nbsp; The other peculiar aspect of the syndrome is that the allergic issue usually doesn\u2019t develop for several months after the tick bite.&nbsp; Thus, people often don\u2019t associate the two.&nbsp; The tick saliva contains a molecule called alpha-gal which is also found in meat, especially beef and pork.&nbsp; The diagnostic test is to draw blood and see if there are antibodies to alpha-gal.&nbsp; An antibody level greater than .10 IU\/L makes the diagnosis \u201cpossible\u201d and a level greater than 2 IU\/L is definitive.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If a patient avoids further tick bites this antibody level can decrease over time.&nbsp; Once it has decreased enough then the likelihood for reaction goes away.&nbsp; So it is in this setting that the ice cream test comes in to play.&nbsp; High fat ice cream has a very small amount of alpha-gal, so if ingesting it turns out to be safe, then the patient can feel greater comfort returning to meat.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I guess I can justify my nightly ice cream dessert as a proof that I\u2019m not developing alpha-gal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Finally, a medical therapy I can relate to.&nbsp; I love ice cream.&nbsp; Actually, it\u2019s not a medical therapy, but a safe mechanism to \u201ctest the waters\u201d in alpha-gal syndrome.&nbsp; This newsletter has previously discussed this uncommon condition that unfortunately is becoming more common.&nbsp; By way of reminder the syndrome is the new onset of anaphylaxis due to eating meat.&nbsp; It is a strange condition in that the allergic symptoms occur suddenly (hives, swelling, throat constriction) but are delayed 3 to&#8230;<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"><a class=\"btn btn-default\" href=\"https:\/\/www.allergy-associates.com\/?p=1283\"> Read More<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">  Read More<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[626,566],"class_list":["post-1283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-ice-cream-therapy","tag-tick-bite"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.allergy-associates.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.allergy-associates.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.allergy-associates.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.allergy-associates.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.allergy-associates.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1283"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.allergy-associates.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1283\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1284,"href":"https:\/\/www.allergy-associates.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1283\/revisions\/1284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.allergy-associates.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.allergy-associates.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.allergy-associates.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}