“My body slowly but surely started rejecting foods one at a time”, Young woman says she has a diet consisting of only 5 organic foods after she became allergic to nearly every food group in existence following a tick bite
The 33-year-old woman says she has a diet consisting of only five organic foods after a tick bite. The woman said that the tick bite, that she didn’t even feel, left her with severe allergies. Now, she claims she can only eat black beans, frozen spinach, frozen blueberries, rolled oats and chicken. She experienced allergic reactions to nearly everything she came into contact with, including perfume, fertilizers, secondhand cigarette smoke, air fresheners, other chemicals, foods, stressful situations, medications, heat, and even sunshine. The mother became so malnourished and dehydrated that doctors advised her she had only months to live.
The 33-year-old woman from Alabama, Summer Carroll, said that if the organic foods are not from a specific brand (Greenwise), it will trigger a serious allergic reaction, ending up in anaphylaxis, the Mirror reports. Carroll said that her allergies are reportedly caused by a condition called Alpha-gal syndrome that makes people allergic to a particular sugar molecule found in most mammals. She was diagnosed following a tick bite.
According to the health officials, Alpha-gal allergy is known as “meat allergy” and results in a delayed onset of symptoms following meals that include mammalian meat products. Health officials said that when a tick injects alpha-gal into the bloodstream, the immune system releases IgE antibodies that recognize the invader and overreact when the body is subsequently exposed to the alpha-gal carbohydrate.
The 33-year-old mother from Alabama told the Mirror: “My body slowly but surely started rejecting foods one at a time, even the organic ones. So now it has to be this specific brand as I have tried these products in other organic brands only to end up in anaphylaxis. That’s one of the reasons it’s so hard to travel or leave the state because the store that carries that brand of food – Publix – is only in the southeastern states.”
Unfortunately, eve the smell of cooking meats can trigger a reaction. Carroll also said that some foods also caused swelling, hives, dizziness, brain fog, heart palpitations and nausea, and numerous other symptoms.
The 33-year-old woman told the Mirror that she even developed Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever. According to the health officials, it’s a tick-transmitted disease and mast cell activation syndrome, a condition characterized by excessive allergy-like symptoms.
As her immune system was on overdrive reacting to alpha-gal exposure and attempting to fight Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, the 33-year-old woman also began suffering from Mast Cell Activation Syndrome. She experienced allergic reactions to nearly everything she came into contact with, including perfume, fertilizers, secondhand cigarette smoke, air fresheners, other chemicals, foods, stressful situations, medications, heat, and even sunshine.
The mother became so malnourished and dehydrated that doctors advised her she had only months to live.
Summer Carroll told the Mirror: “I began to lose the ability to move my joints. Extreme neuropathy started to set in – a never-ending, unimaginable burning as if my skin were melting off of my body, that began in my feet, working its way up my legs. I lost my ability to walk. Every moment and every heartbeat was torture.”
This surgeon looked me in the eyes and said, ‘how much of this is even real?’ The surgeon then proceeded to tell me that he felt this was just all in my head. I’ve been told often that I am too pretty to be sick. This is mind-blowing to me because I didn’t know that being pretty makes you invincible to illnesses.”
On several occasions, the doctors even prescribed medications that contain animal products. The 33-year-old mom told the Mirror that she now treats her symptoms with medical cannabis, which she advocates should be legalized for smoking use in her home state.
The young woman shares updated about her condition on her social media account. The last update was 2 weeks ago and she reportedly wrote:
“I recently published a book called “Canary in a Bubble” that shares my journey with tick-borne disease and mast cell activation syndrome. My body slowly but surely started rejecting foods one at a time, even the organic ones. My food would just come right back up, and more symptoms would accompany: horrible GI (gastrointestinal) pain and swelling, facial numbness, hives, dizziness and faintness, brain fog and confusion, heart palpations, facial and throat swelling, swelling in different organs, lethargy, weakness, joint and bone pains, the D word that no one likes to talk about, extreme tremors, sweating, nausea, and other symptoms I’m sure I’ve forgotten about.
You could kind of relate it to the worst food poisoning you have ever experienced times ten and then just add in all the other symptoms that I mentioned on top of that, and you may have a clearer picture of how horrible these reactions were. My doctor had personally never seen anything like what I was going through. She prescribed a new medication for me to try and ordered more blood work. The new allergist came in, the blood work came back and showed that I tested positive for Alpha-gal syndrome.
Months passed, I had cut out all items that could cause an Alpha-gal reaction, but I was still experiencing crazy symptoms, and my body started rejecting foods that had absolutely no mammalian byproducts in it. Additionally, my body became extremely reactive to chemicals, scents, cigarette smoke, and fumes from cooking. As my symptoms began to drastically progress, I was tested for Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever. To our surprise, it came back positive, I wondered how this could have possibly been missed. I mean, you would assume that if someone tested positive for one tick-borne illness the doctor would check for other tick-borne illnesses and coinfections, right?”