Editor’s Note: Last week, The News-Gazette spoke to people in Rockbridge County affected by alpha-gal syndrome (AGS), a tick-borne allergy to red meat. This week, we look into how residents are living with the syndrome and existing and emerging treatments. A separate story inside examines prevention.
By Allie Goolrick
Hollis Grimm, 27, of Collierstown, first started experiencing a slew of alarming symptoms in early 2024, including shortness of breath, headaches, rashes and heart palpitations.
Grimm, the father of three young boys, said he spent a full year going to his primary care doctor repeatedly, only to have his symptoms misdiagnosed as anxiety.
“I was fully convinced at the time, I was like, ‘I’m gonna die at the age of 25 for absolutely unknown reasons,’” Grimm said.
Then, in December , he went into anaphylactic shock on his wedding anniversary and had to be rushed to the hospital by ambulance. “They had no idea what it was,” he recalled. “Then I’m the one saying, ‘Hey, can you test for alpha-gal syndrome? You know I do work outside for a living.’” Grimm works outdoors in the telecommunications field and said he picks off ticks daily while at work, so he was aware of AGS. But his story, and the stories many other News-Gazette readers have shared, demonstrate a difficult reality: often, a patient’s first step toward getting the right treatment for AGS is asking doctors themselves to get tested for the syndrome.
According to Lexington nurse practitioner Elizabeth Berry, who has treated a number of AGS patients, medical personnel were not required to report AGS cases to the Virginia Health Department until last year. Until mandatory reporting began on Sept. 24, 2025, AGS testing in Virginia was often inconsistent and not covered by insurance.
“Really, it’s been so underdiagnosed, we have missed so much of it,” Berry said. “It may take a couple of years for a full picture to come in of how prevalent this is.”
Ongoing Vigilance:
Once Grimm had a clear diagnosis, his doctor told him to avoid all mammal products, which cleared up his worst symptoms quickly. Still, nearly three years later, he remains allergic to red meat and dairy products, and he develops some symptoms just by the smell of meat cooking.
“If I’m making a hot dog or something for one of my kids, I react to the fumes,” Grimm said. “Just the smell of it cooking in the air is enough to trigger a response.”
After working with a doctor who didn’t seem to understand AGS, Grimm decided to switch to another local doctor who has the syndrome himself and could help him manage symptoms better. Now, he always carries over-the-counter “rescue” antihistamines like diphenhydramine (Benadryl), but it’s still not easy.
“I’m just kind of hanging in there, you know, dealing with it, just doing the best I can,” Grimm said.
Current Treatment Methods
The first defense against AGS is for patients to avoid all red meat and dairy products as well as products that contain pork gelatin like gummy candy and lotions that contain lanolin, which is produced from the glands of animals who have wool.
Dr. Thomas Kerkering, chief of infectious diseases with the Carilion Clinic health care system in Roanoke, said that AGS patients should have an EpiPen for emergency epinephrine with them at all times. Long-acting antihistamines can help with milder reactions but are not a substitute for epinephrine for more serious symptoms. Kerkering also recommended that all AGS patients be under the care of an allergist and potentially a gastroenterologist, in addition to their primary care provider.
Patricia Womelsdorf has relied heavily on her allergist, a doctor at University of Virginia’s Division of Asthma, Allergy & Immunology, since a scary anaphylactic shock reaction in December. Womelsdorf said Dr. Jeff Wilson regularly tests her alphagal sugar levels, which have lowered over time. Wilson has now advised her that she may be able to reintroduce some meat in about eight months (though Womelsdorf isn’t a big meat eater).
But one of the key issues in treating AGS patients is that everyone seems to have very individual reactions to the alpha-gal molecule that can change over time, for better or for worse.
Jay Gilliam, 74, who lived in Rockbridge County for decades before a recent move to Henrico County, has been dealing with AGS for around 16 years. His reaction to meat products involves hives, tunnel vision and a drop in blood pressure, which he described as miserable. But over the years, he’s learned to feel a reaction coming on and act quickly.
“It’s kind of a tingling in the scalp,” Gilliam said. “As soon as I feel that, I take Benadryl. It does minimize the discomfort if you can kill symptoms when the allergic reactions begins.”
He found that cutting out most red meat products and carrying around his antihistamines has worked for years to manage symptoms.
But then in May of this year, he suddenly began having terrible stomach pain.
“It was very debilitating. At one point I went to the emergency room because it was just miserable, but they didn’t know what the problem was,” Gilliam said.
Worried about his family’s history of colon cancer, he had several tests that didn’t reveal much. His doctor finally said he thinks that it may be a new symptom of AGS. Gilliam is still waiting for final testing, but said he’s terribly disappointed that he now has had to change his diet again.
“All of a sudden, I have to exclude dairy. I stopped eating any kind of milk or yogurt,” Gilliam said. “Cheese is definitely the hardest thing to give up.”
Seeking Alternative Solutions
Avoiding meat and other mammal products may sound simple, but for some patients, the major changes in lifestyle, coupled with the fear of accidentally coming into contact with the wrong thing, can be debilitating.
Gina Ramos said that her boyfriend, Johnny Swink, was diagnosed with AGS after a terrible anaphylaxis reaction that left him unconscious in May of last year. Ramos said the diagnosis has been life-altering and scary: The couple must now avoid cross-contamination in the kitchen and be extra diligent when dining out.
“Because of this, we’ve had to completely change the way we prepare meals at home, where we shop, and even which restaurants we can safely visit,” Ramos said.
After hearing a friend’s wife had some relief through an emerging acupuncture treatment, Swink decided to try the method. Soliman Auricular Allergy Treatment (SAAT) is a form of ear acupuncture.
And yes, that means having a needle stuck into your ear.
Maryland acupuncturist Dr. Nader Soliman developed the SAAT method around 2014. The procedure uses tiny needles inserted into the ear in a treatment that aims to reprogram and block the body’s immune over-response to allergens, including alpha-gal.
Suzanne Phillips with Ohr Acupuncture and Wellness in Lexington and Deborah Farley with Acupuncture Works LLC in Lynchburg are both acupuncturists trained in the SAAT method. Neither would discuss the full details of the procedure, which is proprietary, but Farley said SAAT uses a process called bioenergetic testing to determine a positive allergy response in the body and then try to block the allergen’s signal. A needle is inserted into the outer ear for several weeks and when removed, the ideal outcome is remission from AGS.
“When we’re placing that needle (in the ear), it is actually blocking the body from the signal of the allergy,” Farley said. “In three weeks, the body has been desensitized to not recognize the allergy.”
A 2021 study posted in a journal published by the American Academy of Medical Acupuncture found that 96% of participants receiving the SAAT treatment went into remission.
However, SAAT has not been approved or endorsed by the Food and Drug Administration and there have been no clinical trials to verify its effectiveness. Despite seemingly positive results in some limited studies, Carilion’s Dr. Kerkering advised that it’s best to stick with the mainstays of current treatment until the acupuncture method is tested on a much larger scale. A person’s antibody response to alpha-gal can wane over time, which may create false positive outcomes for people who receive SAAT, Kerkering said.
“So, yeah, it may turn out to be fantastic, and it has promise,” Kerkering said. “But clinical trials are needed to sort this out.”
In Phillips’ view, some doctors’ doubts about the acupuncture treatment may stem from inherent tensions between Western and Eastern medicine. “The Eastern medicine framework is very different,” Phillips said, “so I’m not at all surprised that someone trained solely in Western medicine is unwilling to recommend something that wasn’t a part of their paradigm.”
Berry, the nurse practitioner, said she leaves whether to try an alternative treatment or not up to her patients, especially if it will do minimal harm. “Every provider is going to have a different opinion on that, you know, what they’re comfortable with recommending to a patient,” Berry said. “But I feel like a lot of these holistic treatments can be very beneficial for patients.”
Mixed Results
By December of last year, Dalton Coffey’s family was getting desperate for a solution.
The 18-year-old son of Rockbridge Area Recreation Organization director Chad Coffey was diagnosed with AGS in the spring of 2025. He’d since lost 20 pounds.
Dalton, who is slated to play baseball this fall at Southern Virginia University, went through the SAAT procedure in Lynchburg in December 2025. Chad Coffey said his son has been symptom-free for eight months and is slowly regaining the weight he lost. He’s still not fully back to normal, but Coffey said he’s definitely on the mend and looking forward to getting on the field.
Several other News-Gazette readers reported that they had success with the treatment, including Jane Stange, who said she suffered with AGS for six years until having SAAT.
“It has been more than a year and I can eat anything I want,” Stange said. “I am not cured of (the trigger that causes AGS reactions); I just don’t react to it. My life has been given back to me!”
But Kerkering warns that any seemingly positive results from SAAT may actually just be the result of people’s naturally waning antibodies over time. (It must be noted that all of the results mentioned in this article are anecdotal.)
Johnny Swink and Gina Ramos weren’t so lucky with SAAT. Swink’s treatment only lasted about a year before he had another reaction, though not as severe. Bloodwork showed he was still positive for AGS.
Another News-Gazette reader, Christy Dame, told us on Facebook that she had tried SAAT, but had gotten no result at all.
For Grimm, the SAAT method wasn’t worth the cost, as getting bitten by ticks is almost a daily occupational hazard with his job. With SAAT, patients are advised to avoid getting bitten again and may require further treatment if they are. A single SAAT treatment typically costs $250 to $450 for the initial treatment and is an out-of-pocket, uninsured expense.
Gilliam said he’s heard friends get relief from the treatments, but his reactions to meat products have been so miserable over the years he won’t risk re-introducing meat under any circumstances.
“I tell you the truth: I wouldn’t take a chance,” Gilliam said. “It’s so traumatic to have one of these episodes, I wouldn’t do it intentionally for anything.”
Looking Ahead
Both Gilliam and Womelsdorf were recruited into a clinical trial being conducted at UVA by Dr. Thomas Platts-Mills, who originally discovered AGS in 2007. They both give blood samples a few times a year which are then compared to people who have similar alpha-gal levels but don’t suffer from allergic reactions.
Womelsdorf, who studied biology and worked as an educator and principal for years, said she is fascinated by all that there still is to learn about the human immune system.
“You know, our immune system is as unique to us as our fingerprints,” Womelsdorf said. “Everybody’s so different. I think that’s why you know we need to know more about this. We know so little about the immune system, we really are just scratching the surface.”
Next week, we’re learning more about ongoing alphagal trials and talking to Virginia congressmen about several bills working their way through the Congress to address alpha-gal syndrome issues.
