According to doctors at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, chigger bites may cause a rare allergic reaction to red meat called alpha-gal.
The medical community has known for years that ticks can cause this allergy, however, case studies from Wake Forest Baptist and the University of Virginia suggest that chigger bites may also be responsible.
If a patient comes in telling me they ate red meat for dinner and then hours later woke up with anaphylaxis, I suspect an alpha-gal allergy, said lead author Russell Scott Traister, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor of pulmonary, critical care, allergy and immunologic diseases at Wake Forest Baptist.
“With those symptoms, doctors usually ask if the person has had a tick bite recently. But we started seeing patients with the same symptoms who said they hadn’t had a tick bite, only chigger bites.”
Unlike most allergic reactions that occur within minutes, a reaction to alpha-gal occurs after three to six hours. The only cure is to avoid all mammalian meat, Traister said.
Further studies are needed to know if the alpha-gal molecule is in the gastrointestinal tracts of chiggers to confirm that they, as well as ticks, can cause mammalian meat allergy.
“In the meantime, we want allergists to be aware that patients may report chigger bites, and based on that fact alone should not dismiss alpha-gal sensitization as a possible diagnosis,” Traister said.
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