I recently read the article below and, although it pertains to humans, I thought there would be readers here who would find it interesting. https://www.theguardian.com/society...-severe-meat-allergy-on-rise-around-the-world This is the organisation that is referred to in the article and they provide a list of research articles. http://www.tiara.org.au/ A couple of things were of particular interest to me: 1. Freeze, don't squeeze (using an ether-containing substance) -- the advice given to removing a tick from your body (and I presume good advice when removing ticks from a dog's body). On the Tiara website, the person giving the presentation (there's a PPT presentation you can read and listen to) said that people show an allergic response to a tick AFTER they tried to remove it, with the thinking that removal causes the tick to secrete saliva into the host's blood (I'd imagine this could be true for not only allergens, but bacteria (biliary), too). 2. The allergy is to alpha-gal, a carbohydrate! One often hears that allergies are only to proteins.
Interesting. Particularly that anaphylaxis only really occurs in Australia, not yet in the US. Its all a bit early, isn't it, for them to really know what is causing the allergy? It sounds a little like mosquitos and malaria - with the tick being the "vector" for the allergy-inducing element - and some people are susceptible and some not (I think) I read this https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4313755/ Incidentally, medically I have never heard of it, its certainly not a "main stream" allergy.
I'd never heard of it either. And yet apparently the Royal North Shore hospital in Sydney are now seeing about two cases per week. I can't recall if for anaphylaxis or another allergic reaction. This is a particularly interesting bit, put very well in the article you posted: "Recognition of the association between mammalian meat allergy and tick bites has established a novel cause and effect relationship between an environmental exposure and subsequent development of a food allergy, directing us towards examining environmental exposures as provoking factors pivotal to the development of other food allergies and refocusing our attention upon causation of allergy in general." That, first you get bitten by the tick, then later, when you eat meat, you get the allergic response. A convoluted way! And kind of what I had in mind when wondering if vaccines cause allergies.
That's the really interesting bit. I am interested (not heavily, but still interested) in the whole diabetes issue. You are genetically predisposed, but need some "undefined" environmental factor to trigger its expression. Research never stops.
It's becoming more commonly known about here (Australia) in the areas where this tick occurs. It's thought there there's a link back to an animal that the tick has bitten earlier - the tick bites another animal, picks up the sugar molecule and stores it in its gut, then the sugar is transmitted to the human when the human is bitten and the human immune system reacts. Not as simple as that, but something like that. After this, some people become dangerously allergic to meat from mammals, and in some cases to dairy products and gelatine as well. This is only in Australia though, so no-one else should be worried. It is definitely best practice here for dealing with ticks on humans to kill the tick instantly with an ether-containing spray (eg. 'Wart-Off Freeze') then let it drop off. That way you can be sure it won't release saliva into the bloodstream, which is the critical thing to avoid. You can't guarantee that if you try to pull the tick out while it's alive. On Obi I would be comfortable just using an anti-tick product (we use Nexgard tablets) and a tick twister (tick remover) as dogs don't develop this allergic reaction. Our ticks are pretty nasty to dogs (they can cause paralysis and death from the toxin they inject) but the above combo is still good enough to deal with the tick risk in dogs.
