ANGLE COve, Minn. — In September 2021, I wrote about Paul Colson, the third-generation owner of Jake’s Northwest Angle Resort and a lifelong resident of the Northwest Angle, and in June of the same year he I started getting sick every time I ate red meat.
The first incident occurred after eating moose sausage.
“It was like a gastrointestinal illness,” Colson, now 53, said at the time. “It wasn’t serious, but I had symptoms like nausea and diarrhea, so I didn’t think much of it.”
A few days later, when Colson and his wife, Karen, grilled a pork steak, Colson became sick again, this time with a more severe rash. He recalls having the same reaction with a beef steak a few days later.
Something definitely wasn’t right.
Since fatty meats seemed to cause the strongest reactions, Colson wondered if maybe there was a problem with the gallbladder, since fatty foods are known to cause inflammation. he recalls.
Then I felt even worse after eating canned elk, which had no fat in it.
Colson said it typically took two-and-a-half to three hours to get sick. At that time, the reaction occurred within 20 minutes.
“My throat was literally starting to close in on me,” he said.
So much for the gallbladder theory.
To make a long story short, doctors at the Altru Clinic in Roseau, Minnesota referred Colson to a specialist in Fargo, North Dakota, and Colson tested positive for Alpha-gal syndrome in September 2021. . Alpha-gal syndrome is a tick-borne disease commonly caused by the Lone Star tick. , a species rarely seen in Minnesota and never recorded in the Northwest Angle.
Alpha-gal syndrome is caused when ticks transfer a sugar molecule called alpha-gal into a person’s body, according to the Mayo Clinic website. Animals such as cows and sheep have this molecule in their blood, and if a tick that bites a mammal then bites a person, the immune response can cause a mild to severe allergic reaction to red meat and other mammalian products. The website states that this may occur.
There is also evidence that deer ticks can transmit alpha-gal syndrome. The diagnosis came as a surprise, but Colson said her allergist told her there have been several cases of the disease in the Prairie Lakes region of western Minnesota.
“I said, ‘Have you ever seen anyone make it through?'” Colson said. The allergist’s answer is no.
Colson and his wife then joined a private Facebook group focused on alpha-gal, where they learned that others had success with acupuncture.
The closest facility specializing in that particular type of acupuncture was in the Chicago suburb of Northbrook, Illinois, so Colson booked a round-trip ticket from Duluth in late September and flew to Chicago the same day. is.
As the old saying goes, desperate times call for desperate measures.
“I flew there in the afternoon and she did a little test, which was so ridiculously ridiculous,” Colson said. “She put five little needles in my ears and gave me two little bottles called sublingual sprays to spray on her tongue.”
Colson said she was told to keep a “tiny needle”, just a few millimeters long, in her ear for at least three weeks, preferably four.
“I felt stupid, to be honest,” he said. “I thought I should have brought a chicken and a voodoo doll. It checks all the boxes.”
Despite the discomfort and inconvenience of having five tiny needles in her ear for four weeks, and despite using superglue to temporarily keep the bandage in place, Colson continued to work as an acupuncturist. I followed the instructions.
“I was very skeptical, but I had to try something,” said Colson, who grew up eating venison and hunts deer, elk and other big game. “Just avoiding mammal meat is not the solution. It was just, ‘I have to try something here.'”
After limiting his meat to grouse, chicken, waterfowl and fish, Colson fried up some venison in December 2021 and ate a slice the size of a thumbnail.
There were no negative effects. He tried the same thing his next two days with similar results.
Colson ate half a cup of red meat on the fourth day and a cup on the fifth day.
“There was no reaction at all. Nothing,” he said. “And I thought, ‘Wow, holy cow!'” Honestly, I was a little emotional because I grew up eating venison, so not being able to have that was really hard. .
“And if I have to eat turkey bacon, I can tell you it’s not worth it.”
Colson said believe what you want about acupuncture, but it worked for him. He now eats venison and other red meat without issue. Colson is careful about ticks when he’s in the woods, and he wasn’t bitten once that spring, so he still doesn’t know how he contracted the disease.
“It took about six months from when I first started reacting to eating meat again,” he said. “And literally no one can get over alpha-gal in six months. That’s not going to happen.”
