RICHMOND—Tick bites often go undetected until symptoms arise.

Charles Green, deputy commissioner for the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, ate a cheeseburger at lunchtime one day, and by dinnertime suffered a mild heart attack.

“I knew something was really wrong,” Green said.

It took five months for Green and multiple doctors to realize the symptoms were an allergic reaction to red meat and dairy from a molecule transmitted by the Lone Star tick.

Alpha-gal syndrome wasn’t high on Green’s “worry radar” as he worked on his King William County family farm in 2022.

“I was dressing for the summer weather,” he said. “But not dressing to avoid tick bites.”

Initial blood tests revealed elevated troponin, which suggests cardiac stress. Multiple procedures did not find anything amiss.

“In a last-ditch effort, I asked my primary care physicians to run oddball tests,” he said. “Luckily we included alpha-gal.”

The diagnosis was a game changer.

In addition to avoiding red meat and dairy, he also has to be careful with mammalian derivatives used in products like gel caps and lanolin lotions.

Subsequent tick bites can worsen or awaken the condition, Green noted, so now he wears layers and tucks in permethrin-treated clothing while working outside.

“It took months to figure out what was going on with me, while others go years without an answer,” he said. “If any person has unexplained symptoms, this awareness may help find a path forward.”

Sometimes tick bites happen out of season, like they did for the Gwaltney family in Giles County.

Jessica and Wes Gwaltney spent time outside on a warm winter day in 2022 with their two young daughters. They checked them for ticks, but didn’t find any.

Three days later, their 3-year-old daughter, Ella, felt one on her neck. It was a blacklegged deer tick, which carries Lyme disease.

The family called their doctor, who advised keeping an eye on the bite zone.

A month later, Ella complained of sore knees. “We asked the pediatrician to test her specifically for Lyme, and it was positive,” Wes said.

Antibiotics were prescribed, but were followed by headaches, stomach pain and night terrors. Ella was prescribed a more aggressive antibiotic.

One night she woke up not breathing, and that snowballed. Finally, an allergist helped the Gwaltneys navigate Lyme disease, and Ella was prescribed a steroid for flare-ups, which helped.

“We don’t want other families to experience this. Take tick bites seriously,” Jessica said.

To prevent tick bites, the Virginia Department of Health recommends:

• Walking in the center of trails, and avoiding brushing against weeds and tall grass.
   
• Keeping grass and underbrush cut down. Place a 3-foot-wide barrier of wood chips or gravel between lawns and wooded areas to restrict tick migration into recreational areas.
   
• Wearing light-colored clothing so ticks can be seen easily, and tuck pant legs into socks.
   
• Conducting tick checks on children and pets every four hours when staying outside.
   
• Applying insect repellents containing active ingredients such as DEET, picaridin, oil of eucalyptus, Bio-UD or IR3535 to exposed skin.
   
• Checking armpits, ears and hair, belly button, backs of knees and groin.

If bitten by a tick, Virginia Cooperative Extension recommends using tweezers to grasp the tick as close as possible to the skin, and pull slowly with even pressure. Wash the bite wound with antiseptic.

Drop the tick in rubbing alcohol, and keep it for a few months to identify it in case any disease symptoms develop.

Get help with tick identification through the VDH website at vdh.virginia.gov/ticks.

Media: Contact Green at 804-786-3501 or the Gwaltneys at 804-305-9491.