My Story
I was bitten by a Lone Star tick in June 2014 while pregnant with my third child. The bite concerned me because it was extremely itchy, but I never developed a fever or rash. My OB at the time advised me to monitor it but didn’t seem overly concerned.
My son was born in October 2014, and I returned to work in February 2015. Starting a new job—part-time, but still a big adjustment—with three kids at home was quite the transition. Around that time, I began experiencing daily stomach pain. I chalked it up to stress, postpartum hormones, nursing, sleep deprivation—any excuse I could find. Eventually, that spring, I visited my family doctor. He ran a full panel of GI tests and bloodwork, but everything came back normal. I was told it was likely stress and was diagnosed with IBS.
Life went on. The stomach pain persisted, but I had no other major symptoms. I lost a lot of weight, which I attributed to nursing a chubby baby and constantly chasing my kids around.
In April 2016, I became pregnant with our fourth child. It was a healthy pregnancy, though I experienced a lot of aches and pains—which I brushed off as normal for a fifth pregnancy in my mid-30s. Our son was born in January 2017, healthy and thriving. I breastfed him, and again, I began losing weight rapidly. But this time, the stomach pain was even worse.
By May, I started keeping a food journal to figure out what might be triggering my symptoms. I’d had minor issues with dairy in the past, but a Lactaid pill usually solved it. This time, even with the pill, dairy was clearly a problem. I reduced my intake, and it helped somewhat.
Then, in August, my father died unexpectedly. My pain intensified—again, I blamed stress. I returned to my family doctor in November. She ran food allergy tests and recommended I try a Low FODMAP diet. A few days later, she called with the results: I had moderate allergies to dairy, beef, and pork. Her advice was simply to avoid those foods—no mention of Alpha-Gal. But my husband immediately said, “You have Alpha-Gal.” I didn’t believe it—I wasn’t having anaphylactic reactions, after all.
I joined a Low FODMAP support group on Facebook, but I still wasn’t getting relief. Even goat cheese made me sick. Then in April, someone in the group shared that she had similar symptoms and had been diagnosed with Alpha-Gal. I asked my doctor to order the Alpha-Gal test—and sure enough, I finally had my diagnosis.
