I had another rough day yesterday with inflammation. I can't claim with certainty that the inflammation is directly related to my Alpha Gal diagnosis but I can't help but wonder. When I have these rounds, it will start in a target area, which is usually my left shoulder. I have had this problem for years and years, just like I had the hives episodes for years and years. I used to call it *lightening strikes* through my shoulder as it would feel like electricity pulsing through my body radiating outward like lighting. And sadly it spreads over my whole body until even my hair hurts as odd that sounds. If I reach up and touch my scalp it feels very much like sunburn. I don't get a rash or redness or anything. Just misery. When I get a full blow episode of whatever this is, it hurts to move and I just want to go to sleep. Sometimes I sleep it off. And that just doesn't make sense to me that I could sleep it off. So that makes me wonder if it is dietary. Most of the time though I do take a couple of Ibuprofen when I finally resign myself to sleeping it off.

I need to get better about keeping a food diary so I can make connections on issues like this and get to the bottom of it. Yesterday I ate at Taco Bell. I had a bean burrito -- perhaps it had animal fat in the beans? I'll have to look into that. The other thing I had there was a Potato Griller -- it had sour cream on it. I had thought I wasn't having issues with dairy like others afflicted with Alpha Gal but I am truly beginning to wonder.

I hate to call it an Alpha Gal diet but I don't know how else to term it. Basically, being forced to drop mammalian meat from my diet, has resulted in 16 pounds dropped and still losing. I have to say, I found it hard to believe because truly, I have tried all sorts of ways to lose weight and struggled so hard. Despite my best efforts, I only lost 5 to 10 pounds for my trouble and it always boomeranged back on. It has been quite a pleasant side effect of my dietary change to be losing weight and seeing it remain off.

I rather suspicion this is likely a temporary thing and will level out once I get a steady menu. In truth, there are some days that I don't eat much 1) because I don't crave food like I used to; and 2) Not being able to eat something that I want is sort of a put off and I end up eating lightly.

Last night however, I had a craving that I could indulge within my Alpha Gal limitations -- I wanted hot, freshly baked chocolate chip cookies. So, I snagged some ready bake cookie dough from the grocery store and baked a dozen. I didn't eat them all by myself - my hubs shared them with me. They were awesome with ice cold milk. So far,  am fortunate to still be eating dairy.

Legumes — a class of vegetables that includes beans, peas and lentils — are among the most versatile and nutritious foods available. Legumes are typically low in fat, contain no cholesterol, and are high in folate, potassium, iron and magnesium. They also contain beneficial fats and soluble and insoluble fiber. A good source of protein, legumes can be a healthy substitute for meat, which has more fat and cholesterol.

 The same site goes on to list a variety of legumes and what dishes they are commonly used in. It is well worth the read. On the second page of the article it gave some tips about beans/lentils/peas that don't have to be soaked before cooking:

Lentils, split peas and black-eyed peas don't need to be soaked. In addition, some legumes are "quick-cooking" — meaning they have already been pre-soaked and redried and don't need extra soaking. Finally, canned legumes make quick additions to dishes that don't require long simmering. Just be sure to rinse prepared and canned legumes to remove some of the sodium added during processing.

But all this did make me wonder, if *legumes* include beans, peas and lentils -- what are lentils? I know what beans and peas are. So, I did some more digging...

According to the World's Healthiest Foods website:

Lentils are legumes along with other types of beans. They grow in pods that contain either one or two lentil seeds that are round, oval or heart-shaped disks and are oftentimes smaller than the tip of a pencil eraser. They may be sold whole or split into halves with the brown and green varieties being the best at retaining their shape after cooking.  

Ok, so I guess that is a little clearer....

Went to our favorite Mexican restaurant today. It's been a very stressful week running up and down the highway between my house and daughter's house -- she lives 65 miles away. I have a little Cottage there that she has decided to move into so I've been moving out stuff I had stored in it and helping daughter clean it up. Had the water turned out only to find out it has a water line break that has to be repaired. Plumber can't come until mid-week. Sigh...

On top of all that stress, the window on the driver's side broke a cable and fell down in the door. The passenger side window had already done the same and was pulled up and shimmed in place pending getting a new door mechanism to fix it. We salvaged one from an old van of my mother's but it got broken before installation and after all the trouble of putting it in place, it didn't work. So, this week, Mom and brothers found a place to salvage parts for both doors and I went to brother's house to have them installed. Took about 3 hours to do and it was a nice visit. And I was so happy to have both windows operating -- that is very important when your air conditioner doesn't work. It's an old van -- 1997, so what can I say? I've been eyeballing those *red neck coolers* where you use a styrofoam ice chest, a frozen milk bottle and a battery operated fan but I haven't put that into practice yet.

Back on point of this post, I wanted *comfort food* and for me, that is food at our favorite Mexican Restaurant. I've always loved chicken and cheese and rarely ate beef so being diagnosed with Alpha Gal Allergy didn't disrupt my patronage or food choices there. However, I did decide to get something other than my usual chicken dishes -- I went for a plate with a Chile relleno and a cheese enchilada -- or so I thought.

The food came and I was ready for it and dived right in. I snagged a fork full, was talking to hubs and poked it my mouth. It was delicious and as I chewed, I realized it wasn't just cheese -- it had BEEF in it! I immediately pulled the enchilada open and sure enough, it was a beef enchilada full of cheese sauce. I called the waitress over and explained to her that I can't have beef and that it was supposed to be cheese. She apologized and said she would bring me it to me right away. In a matter of minutes she reappeared all apologetic again and placed before me another enchilada...but it wasn't cheese either! Thankfully, it was chicken so I ate it. The rest of my meal went off without incident.

It has been six hours now since that fateful accidental bite of beef and so far so good. I think I am going to skate through this round without incident. I hope I don't end up eating those words.

Good night all. Looking forward to an Alpha-Gal-Licious day tomorrow. I'm thinking beans and cornbread with a slice of onion....

Eyeballing the recipe on this blog post -- only mine will be minus the bacon...sigh.....

When you tell friends you can't eat meat, their first thoughts are 'oh, so you're vegetarian now? or are you vegan?' The answer is yes/no and maybe.... Then I tell them it is because I have Alpha Gal allergy and of course they want to know what that is. So, let's start there. Here's a definition from Wikepdia:

1. Alpha-gal allergy
2. Alpha-gal allergies are a reaction to Galactose-alpha-1,3-galactose, whereby the body is overloaded with immunoglobulin E antibodies on contact with the carbohydrate. Alpha-gal is found in all mammals apart from primates. Wikipedia

You're thinking, HUH?, right? Basically, here it is in a nutshell -- ticks have a form of sugar in their saliva called galactose-alpha-1,3-gallactose. When they bite a person who is sensitive to that sugar, their body goes on the defense and generates an abundance of IGE antibodies ready to fight the problem. What complicates the issue is that sugar is also stored in mammalian meats and it doesn't dissipate with cooking. When an AG allergic person eats meat, the reaction occurs several hours later after consumption because it takes the digestive process that long to break down the meat allowing the offending sugar into the blood stream. Therefore, a person who eats a typical evening meal of meat awakens in the middle night to a horrendous flood of histamines causing a reaction of hives. In extreme cases, even deadly anaphylaxis shock.

The befuddling thing about this allergy is that it is sporadic -- one time a person might eat mammalian meat and be fine, even for weeks, months or years and be fine. But then one day, BOOM, serious reaction. As they learn more about Alpha Gal they gain a better understanding of how it works. Some people get tick bit once and they have symptoms forever afterwards. Some have ebbs and flows with the allergy based on how often they get bitten by ticks. There has even been one reported incidence of a child recovering completely. What a lucky, lucky boy!

The Lone Star Tick in particular is known to cause this allergy but it may not be the only tick since there are cases reported in places in the United States and abroad where the Lone Star Tick isn't a native resident. Considering Lymes Disease and Rocky Mountain Fever caused by ticks and now Alpha Gal, I would say, no tick is a good tick.

Being bit by a tick and contracting Alpha Gal allergy is truly a case of once bitten, twice shy.

You will see it often called the *red meat* allergy but that's a bit of a misnomer, because it also includes pork which people commonly think of as the *other white meat* due to great marketing strategies by the Pork Producers competing with the poultry industry. The more accurate term is *mammalian meat* allergy with mammals being any animal that nurses it's young. I once thought I could describe it as hoofed animals because it includes beef, sheep, pork, goat, buffalo, venison, big game, etc. But it is important to know that it also includes rabbits and squirrels which don't have hoofs. Horse would also be included but as an American, I don't think of horses as meat but in case someone out there lives in places where they do, they are mammals as are cats and dogs.

So, if mammals are off the table, what does that leave? Everything else! There is all manner of plant based proteins and yummy ways to prepare them, such as beans and legumes which readily come to mind. But let's not forget to talk about the actual meat sources that do remain on the list as edible options - chicken, turkey, fowl, fish and seafood. While it might seem like a small list, it is actually quite a lot. And a particularly awesome meat AGers can have? Emu! Which I'm told looks, cooks and eats just like beef! I have read raving reviews that people have served it to others and they couldn't tell the difference between it and beef. I am anxious to try it. In fact, I've found a listing for an Emu farm about 2 hours from me, so I have tentative plans to go there the next available Saturday. I will be sure to do a post or two on that adventure and maybe even some videos.

This is just the tip of the ice burg of what Alpha Gal is.  Every individual stricken by it has a unique set of symptoms and reactions and sometimes complicated by additional unrelated allergies. Or perhaps they are related and there just isn't sufficient research yet to link them.... Some AG sufferers can eat dairy and some violently react to it. Some can have pork and those lucky dogs continue to gnosh on bacon while I can only dream of my bacon days gone by. And as if all that isn't complex enough, there is something called *pork/cat syndrome* which isn't truly Alpha Gal but it is equally unpleasant for those afflicted.

What is a person to do if diagnosed with Alpha Gal? Take a deep breath, educate yourself, make adjustments and know that there is most definitely a high quality life awaiting you after your Alpha Gal diagnosis. You just have to get through it to get to it. Or, as my Daddy said when he was alive, *keep on keeping on*.

Now with my Alpha Gal diagnosis, I have to consider my dining out options very carefully. First, I have to figure out which places might even have suitable vegetarian/vegan options and secondly, whether there might be cross contamination risks. Not always, but usually burger joints are pretty much out, especially for fellow AGers that are effected by the molecules in aromas. Yes, even the aromas of mammalian meats cooking can trigger reactions in some that are super sensitive. Thankfully, so far, aromas are not an issue for me. We will see if that changes. I'm hoping it doesn't...

Today, we had errands to run and at times like that it would have been our custom to grab a bite to eat while out and about. That hasn't been so easily doable since my husband's preferred foods clash with my AG limitations. However, we found out that Mazzio's has some new lasagna dishes. A roasted vegetable one, a chicken Mediterranean one and a *make your own*. I decided to go for the vegetable lasagna. According to PizzaMarketPlace.com, Roasted Veggie Lasagna is made from ricotta cheese-filled pasta blended with Asiago Alfredo sauce, roasted red peppers, caramelized onions and oven-roasted tomatoes. You can read more of PizzaMarketPlace's article about Mazzio's lasagnas and family pasta bakes here. I tried looking on Mazzio's website for nutritional info but didn't find it.


Here is what my lasagna looked like. I have to say, it was very tasty and generous helping for me. I only ate half of it. Although it came with a piece of garlic toast, I ate the cheese sticks with marinara sauce appetizer and polished it off with iced tea. I'm a light weight sweet tea drinker, a traitor to my southern roots, I drink my tea half strength -- half sweet/half unsweet.

This was my dining adventure for today.