Allergies to red meat may likely be due to lone star tick bites that have been plaguing thousands of patients in Southeastern U.S. states, including Virginia, North Carolina and Tennessee. These bites are also affecting the deer population along the Eastern Seaboard.

According to a study conducted by Robert Valet, M.D., assistant professor of Medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, their Asthma, Sinus and Allergy Program (A.S.A.P.) clinic is seeing at least one case every week of patients complaining of an allergic reaction to the alpha-gal sugar that’s in red meat.

Meat allergies include beef, pork, lamb, venison, or any kind of meat from a mammal – even seal or whale. The allergic reactions can be just as severe as those suffered by peanut allergy sufferers.

Patients experiencing these new allergies to red meat after being bitten by a lone star tick complain of symptoms including severe itching, red hives, nausea, headaches, and swelling of the tongue, among others. People with this allergy can often have a delayed anaphylactic reaction four to six hours after consuming red meat. Such a delay can cause patients to be confused about relationship between red meat and the symptoms they experience.

Diagnosing patients with a red meat allergy can be done with a blood test, but there isn’t a reliable way to desensitize people after they’ve become allergic to this kind of food. Once they become allergic, they must avoid red meat, as well as milk in some cases.

“It certainly is a big disruption for a lot of people’s lives. Things like your classic barbeque really becomes off limits. We know that getting repeated tick bites causes the level of allergy antibody to rise and so we do recommend people with this allergy do good tick avoidance and carry an EpiPen if they do have an exposure to red meat and need to rescue themselves,” said Valet in a statement.