It was the summer of 2014 when our daughter, Carlee, was diagnosed with Alpha Gal.

After four or five trips in the back of an Emergency Medical vehicle, either passed out or struggling to breathe, blood was finally drawn before medications were given. The allergist could then, correctly diagnose her with Galactose-alpha-1,3 galactose syndrome. Alpha Gal, the red meat allergy.

In Carlee’s case, anything from a mammal created havoc in her body. People with Type A and Type O get Alpha Gal more often. Carlee’s blood type was A negative. She could not have meat from a four- legged animal, milk, butter, cheese, ice cream, etc. etc. etc. or she would run the risk of anaphylactic shock. Cross contamination was just as dangerous as having the steak on her plate. This is a difficult way to live with a husband and three children. Making her journey even more complicated: Carlee was battling brain cancer. That is what made the diagnosis so very hard to make. Emergency Room doctors kept telling her that her symptoms (not breathing) was most likely an anxiety attack attributed to having brain cancer. Alpha Gal Syndrome was officially identified and announced in 2009 by a research team led by Dr. Thomas Platts-Mills at the University of Virginia. Awareness was slowly moving from specialized immunology journals into the general medical population and began trickling down to the general population.

I was and I am: The General Population. As a retired Registered Nurse, I had a simple understanding of what Alpha Gal would mean for Carlee. Worse. I wondered what would happen if she suffered another tick bite. First, there would be no more walks through the beautiful woods outside Carlee’s home. The sweet family dog would be checked more closely for ticks. A company was hired to spray the property to possibly chase off or kill ticks. Carlee had Alpha Gal because a Lone Star tick had infested itself on her and created an allergy of catastrophic proportion. Other ticks carry disease and infections, which means a person can have Alpha Gal and Lyme Disease and Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever all at the same time. Ticks are dangerous.

Thanksgiving 2014 This is a picture of my “Why”

This was my WHY. Why would a retired nurse dive so very deep into a subject that had yet to really surface? Because I had suffered with Lyme Disease and Carlee had Alpha Gal and people I knew and loved had either been tick sick or could get tick sicknesses.

OBSESSED. I became and still have a tendency to be OBSESSED with ticks and the illnesses that come from them. Do all ticks carry illnesses? How many kinds of ticks are there? Why did God make ticks? How can we keep ticks off our bodies? If a pesticide kills ticks, how many ways can it hurt us? How many labels can I read standing in the middle of the Wal Mart aisle of insect repellents. Is a tick an insect? It was time to get serious. Really serious. The National Institute of Health serious. Big words and even bigger calculations of causes and effects. Charts and more big words. Finally, one article about repelling ticks with one essential oil was found on the National Institute of Health/ Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NIHCAM). This research was published in 2012 and I can longer find the original research online. I am seeing many herbalist list this essential oil as The Gold Standard in deterring ticks from finding us.

I immediately began searching for the ONE essential oil so I could buy it and save my family and the world from tick bites. Even though the research I had found was no longer available, it is not hard to remember one essential oil: Pelargonium Capitatum X Radens – a hybrid Geranium Plant. Alpha Gal was just being recognized in 2014 and I could not find anyone who sold this common Rose Geranium. Germany, however, was happy to sell me a nice quantity at a decent price. After all, if you could put a price tick sicknesses, the cost would be astronomical.

While I waited for this precious oil to arrive, I began to study ticks. Good Golly Miss Molly! There are over 900 species of these parasitic arachnids, divided by being either soft shelled or hard shelled. Ticks are not insects – they are a type of spider. Ticks do not have noses or teeth or antennae. And we cannot repel them. The best we can do is make it so they cannot detect us. Ticks have what is called “Haller’s Organ/Glands” located on their front legs in the forearm section.

YIKES! So how do they get in our hair and around our waistband? Or worse, our grandson found one on the tip of his ‘you know what’. Ticks sit among the tall grasses and wait for a warm blooded, CO2 exhaling mammal to wander by – then they jump on and find an easy place to burrow their heads into our flesh. If you have found a tick in your hair, it has climbed from your feet or ankles or calves all the way up to your head. Because ticks do not have teeth, you never really get a tick bite. And because they excavate and dig with their heads into your skin, it is very difficult to remove them.

The precious oil has arrived and I am ready to douse all my family and friends. It smells nice. How does it keep a tick from finding me? The Haller’s Organ/Glands cannot function properly when they sense Pelargonium Capitatum X Radens and the tick loses the ability to detect warm blooded, CO2 exhaling mammals. ***** BIG THING TO KNOW***** Cats cannot have this oil put on them. Dogs can bath in it, but it will absolutely, without a doubt, kill your cat. Cats lack an enzyme in their liver to metabolize this oil. Cats also cannot have peppermint oil, eucalyptus, tea tree oil and a whole list of other oils.

Okay, so what is the best method to disperse this tick deterrent oil. A Spray. NO. Too much gets sprayed not on the person, but on the floor or walls. Plus, the essential oil must be mixed with a carrier oil. Some essential oils can be used without a carrier oil. Other essential oils will burn your skin without the proper ratio of carrier oil to essential oil. After reading and looking at the copious notes I had taken, I decided on Organic Grapeseed Oil to be the carrier oil. It is a lightweight oil with plenty of Vitamin E and rarely blocks pores. About six months had passed and I am still studying ticks and ways to avoid them, deter them and not get tick sick. Again, I go back to see what else The National Institute of Health has to say about the subject. This is what I found: Toxicity and Synergic Repellency of Plant Essential Oil Mixtures with Vanillin against Aedes aegypti (Diptera: Culicidae). This is a study about mosquitoes and how to make the plant essential oil repellent to last longer. SO, by adding pure vanilla extract to plant essential oils, the potency of the essential oil lasts much, much longer. Some sources have noted that plant essential oils with vanilla work as well as DEET. At this point, I realize I can make a Tick Deterrent AND Insect Repellent all in one delivery system. Not only do we have a daughter with Alpha Gal, but we have seven grandchildren. Two of those grandchildren have extreme reactions to mosquito bites. And where there are ticks, there are insects that bite. Now to find which essential oils repel and/or deter mosquitos and other little biting insects. More research and reading and I decided on Lemon Eucalyptus, Peppermint, Lavender, and Tea Tree essential oils to keep insects from biting us. And as recommended by the National Institute of Health, Pure Vanilla Extract.

Flattop Mountain Herbs on Flattop Mountain in Greene County, Virginia

Now I have peace making this for my family. The first Tick and Insect Repellent Oil was finished by late Spring 2015. I decided the least wasteful way to use the oil was to apply it with a cotton round – a product used in cosmetics. I would put 15 organic cotton round pieces in a 4 ounce jar and cover them with the Tick and Insect Repellent Oil. Once completely saturated, I would screw the lid on. Our son and his family had a big jar of these saturated cotton rounds by their backdoor. The saturated cotton rounds went on Mission Trips, Beach trips and just about everywhere our family went. We smelled so good! And no one who wiped their ankles and calves got a tick on them. Applied to arms and legs and around the lower neck meant no mosquito bites. I have even experienced testimonies from family members that the dreaded “NO SEE ‘UMS” did not bite when the oil was rubbed on the neck!

So why is this Tick and Insect Repellent so different? It is different for several reasons:

The carrier for the essential oils is an oil – not water or alcohol, 100% oil. I used real essential oils. Maybe the most important reasons are using Pelargonium Capitatum X Radens as a tick deterrent, the added vanilla and the ratio of essential oils to the carrier oil. I use 15% essential oil (plus a tad bit more) and 85% Carrier oil. The reason I am sharing this recipe is because making little jars will not reach enough people fast enough to improve how we all can Stop Tick Sickness!

Please do not use any of these ingredients if you or a family member is allergic.

Also, I have no idea what medications you may be taking or what, if any, herbal supplements you may be adding to your diet. Please do consult with your physician and functional professionals before using any extra herbal products.

We grew tired of the cotton rounds saturated with oil and began making a salve.

The Tick and Insect Salve Recipe is on the website, as is, The Tick Deterrent Oil.

Flattop Mountain Herbs Presents Our Amazing Tick and Insect Repellent Oil

Flattop Mountain Herbs