Why Alpha-Gal Wise exists
Hi, I’m Erik. We live in rural Oklahoma, where tick bites are just part of life. My wife Susan and I both get bitten all the time. Lone star ticks are fast, quiet, and easy to miss until it’s too late.
In 2024, Susan was diagnosed with alpha-gal syndrome, an allergy to a sugar found in mammals that’s triggered by lone star tick bites. At first it was just beef. Then it was all red meat. After a few more bites, she now reacts to red meat, dairy, and even everyday things like shampoo and laundry detergent. Her sensitivity is so high that she can’t use 85 to 90 percent of the products in a typical American supermarket.
Suddenly every trip to the store meant squinting at labels, looking up ingredients we’d never heard of, and still wondering if we got it right. Mammal ingredients hide in places you’d never expect: gelatin, glycerin, lanolin, “natural flavors,” and more.
So we built the app we wished we’d had. You pick your own triggers, scan a barcode, and Alpha-Gal Wise™ tells you what in that product might be a problem for you. That covers food, medicine, and the products you put on your skin.
Free, because staying well shouldn't be a subscription.
Alpha-Gal Wise™ is free to use and built on our own dime. Running it costs us real money for servers, product data, app store fees, and the business costs of publishing a health app, so if it helps you, a small tip keeps it going for everyone. Thank you.
Product information in the app comes from open data projects: Open Food Facts, with its Open Beauty Facts and Open Products Facts projects, and openFDA. Thank you to their contributors. See Data sources and credits.
Not medical advice. Alpha-Gal Wise™ helps you read labels, but it isn’t medical advice. Always check the actual label, and check with your allergist.
A quick note: I’m an old-school programmer, so if it’s underlined, it’s a hyperlink that leads somewhere.
Contact
Email: support@alphagalwise.com
Mailing address: available on request.