A tick found primarily on Sydney's northern beaches and north shore is being blamed for a bizarre meat allergy that's spread among locals.
Immunologist Associate Professor Sheryl van Nunen from the Royal North Shore Hospital said she is seeing two new cases a week of tick-induced allergies to red meat.
One of Professor van Nunen's patients, Joy Cowdery, has been unable to eat red meat since suffering a tick bite while holidaying at Pittwater, on Sydney's northern beaches eight years ago.
Along with her inability to stomach red meat, Mrs Cowdrey also suffered a range of allergic symptoms including vomiting and abdominal cramps.
While Rachel Nazha's son, Adam, another of Professor Van Nunen's patients, had suffered chronic stomach problems for years every time he ate red meat.
They began when he was eight after a school camp in the Royal National Park where several students were bitten by ticks.
''He would be hunched over and couldn't walk. We didn't know what it was so we just started eliminating things, starting with chocolate, and it we worked out that it seemed to be meat but we'd never heard of a meat allergy,'' Mrs Nazha told the Sydney Morning Herald.
Eventually, they were referred to the Royal North Shore Hospital where the allergy was confirmed.
The allergy is caused when ticks introduce a carbohydrate called alpha-gal into a human's bloodstream.
While not all humans are allergic to the carbohydrate, the immune systems of those that are begin producing allergens to fight it off.
Delayed allergens are also produced by the body which then cause severe allergic reactions to all red meat.
Tick-bite season sees a two percent increase in the amount of cases that present to the Royal North Shore Hospital.
Dr Andy Ratchford, the hospital's director of emergency medicine, said that it's important people are aware of the allergy.
''People know about bees and peanuts, but by far the most common allergic reactions we see are to ticks and they can be just as life threatening,'' he said.
A critical issue is not to squeeze a tick but to kill or paralyse it with a freeze spray before removal to prevent it injecting its saliva.
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Cows and Sheep would reckon that tick the saviour of all bovine- and ovinekind, lol.
I reckon I must have been bitten too, my stomach is turning at the thought of food, any food, at the moment.
I have so much left-over ham and stuff in the fridge, and with OH away on a fishing trip, there's no way I can use it up myself.
I dread even opening the fridge.
The freezer is half-full of prawn heads and garbage collection is still a few days away.
