No More Mammalian Meat

Just What I Need - Another Problem

Got a call from Dr. Calm's office (my immunologist) today and I definitely have an "alpha-gal" mammalian meat allergy.  The hamburger I ate a few weeks ago was the cause of my anaphylactic reaction.  The jury apparently is still out on the c-kit mutation test for mastocytosis.  No more mammalian meats or mammalian meat byproducts or fats allowed! 

When I had the EMG done for the radiation induced lumbosacral plexopathy (try and say that three times in a row really fast - not hardly possible) Dr. Welby commented on my occipital nerve stimulator, saying I was a really special person to have one of those, meaning he didn't see THAT too often.  I told him my theory that I am the "nexus" of weird diseases, and I really want the merry go round to stop and let me off!  Well, now I have one more weird disease!

Guess my tick bites here in southwest Missouri (not far from Arkansas) have set me up to be fatally allergic to beef, pork and other mammalian meats!  Trying to have a sense of humor about it, I started getting a list together of new things I cannot eat:

Platypus
Whale
Dolphin (well, tuna was already off the list so no accidental dolphin eating here)
Venison
Rabbit
Squirrel
Possum
Elephant
Mice
Antelope
Bison
Elk
Seal
Manatee
Sea otter
Polar Bear
Dog
Cat
Tiger
Musk Ox

Apparently I could be a cannibal, because human meat does not contain "alpha-gal" nor do the higher apes like chimpanzees and gorillas.  Ummm, baked gorilla - no thanks.  I think this about makes eating out in a restaurant impossible as I am about out of foods that cannot be cross contaminated in a kitchen.

Proteins I can still eat (deadly allergic to seafood and fish so they are off the list):

Snake
chicken
Alligator
Chicken
Turtle
Chicken..
Turkey
Chicken....
Grouse
Chicken......
Parrot
Chicken........
Lizards
Chicken...........
Quail
CHICKEN...........

I think I'm getting carried away with chicken, which is the protein I eat the most of anyway.

You know, when something is restricted from your food list you start yearning for it even when it is something (like beef and pork) that you don't really eat that often.  I also started thinking of things I eat or take that have mammal protein in them - gelatin capsules for pills, pancreatic enzymes for digestion, refried beans, tortillas, jello, lunch meat - ouch!!  Too much for The Headache to handle!

My mom was doing better by this afternoon with her dizziness.  Hoping this means the antivert is working, and it is only an inner ear problem.  She is perking up a bit, more like her regular self.  This at least seems to be going well!  Yeah!

This week has not been good for me healthwise. Monday evening I was trying to sleep and in a lot of pelvic and back and leg pain.  I drifted off and was dreaming I was screaming in pain.  I woke up and I was actually laying there screaming "EEEEEEEEEEEEE" so I guess it wasn't a dream.  I did medicate and have stayed home the last two days partly because my Mom needed help, but also because I am in an incredible amount of pain.  In addition to the pain I am extremely nauseated and I have hives in batches several places on my body.  I went without pain medication most of today and the nausea was still there so the "medication is to blame" theory bit the dust.  I fear The Belly may be riled up in addition to everything else.  This is messing with my need to do things and be at work and concentrate and I am not happy about it one bit. Pain pain go away, come again another day!!!

I think Karma is working against me for some reason, or maybe it is because the evil thought crossed my mind that I might have wanted to eat a duck billed platypus for dinner or chow down on a poor manatee.  The ghosts of all those future chickens I will be eating are going to haunt me now!

Aargh!

Halloween In Michigan

Made it to Michigan.  The people here are sooooo nice!  I'm waiting between updates on the system to do my part and check data.  This will be a fairly long couple of days while my boss pulls in and converts data and I validate and test the data and then we balance to the client's old data.  I admire my boss because she does this time and time again, and has to write custom programs to pull data from a different system and make it make sense in our system.  The IT guys from the old system and the local IT dude (who is very very good) have been up working on this most of the night.  Now it is our turn!

I have two new epipens and some emergency prednisone, which I am to take at the first sign of more hives.  Dr. Calm told me to quit taking the higher dose of cyclosporine because my blood levels were too high.  I told him I didn't think it was quite doing the job and if I had a high blood level you would think it would have done better.  He is pretty sure that the severe stomach pain I had with this episode is just another part of systemic mastocytosis.  He said he might test me for hereditary angioedema  which the ER doc suggested, but my C4 levels were normal and they generally are high with that disease.

Dr. Calm also said we could test for "beef allergy" since basically the only food I had that day was a small hamburger (at a "safe" restaurant I had eaten at before) and I didn't even eat all of that.  He said if you have a beef allergy the allergic reaction might take a few hours to show up.   I don't eat a lot of beef (I have difficulty digesting protein because of The Belly) but it is something I eat consistently each week.  From an article I found ("The Baffling Bite of Beef Allergy" allergicliving.com) apparently I live in one of the few areas in the United States where a specific tick lives, and bites from that tick can trigger an immune response to beef.  Ewwww - tick bites!!  Ewww - ticks!  If this was the cause of my hiving problems I will be happy but grossed out.

I bought some food at the grocery store here to eat because I am going to have to be very careful about eating out.  I will faithfully take my epipens with me where ever I go.  I already can't eat seafood or fish, to the point that if I eat something that was cross contaminated with fish/shellfish protein I get very bad hives.  Pork is almost impossible to digest, and nuts don't digest at all.  Beef is the last protein I have to eat, and I am praying I am not allergic to it.

I am covered with red hives and I am so tired I can't hardly go.  I feel very sick, but I'm glad I was able to get to Michigan!  I at least have that much command over my body - a small triumph but a triumph none the less. I am sure my team could have converted without me here (I have no allusions of indespensability) but it would have been harder on them, PLUS the clients were expecting me to help with the billing and collections piece of the install.  They are such nice folks I didn't want to disappoint. I am just aggravated about my body not behaving at the last minute like that - not sure what I can do about it.  I am running out of things that actually work!  I have an appointment with Dr. Calm when I get back to Missouri, so maybe I can get some answers after more testing.

Will be working tomorrow on Halloween.  I didn't bring a pirate costume, though I wish I had because I like to say "Aargh me matey" but I do have a cute sparkley pumpkin shirt to wear.  I have great hopes I will be able to help get the client started entering visits in our system as the data I have been checking off and on while I type this has all been perfect.  My boss does a fantastic job with a really hard task!!

By the way, they said "hoot" a lot here, like "don't give a hoot",  which is almost as good as saying "Aargh me matey".   They said this area is known as the thumb of Michigan. The weather is clear but nippy.  It is beautiful here and the motel we are staying at is a "hoot" too!