My dad has two of the most bizarre sets of allergies I have ever encountered in my life. I'm sure they must be out there somewhere, but I personally haven't come across another person whose particular allergy afflictions are anything like his at all. They don't make any sense to me at all--they don't even make sense to the allergists he occasionally saw when he was young.
He's allergic to dogs and cats, but not all dogs and cats. Unlike most pet allergies, it has nothing to do with their dander. It might have something to do with their fur, but I really have no idea. He's more allergic to cats than to dogs and even just being in a house with a cat--without seeing or coming into direct contact with the animal itself--can cause a reaction. But he isn't allergic to every cat. Sometimes he's less allergic to one than another. His reaction is quite normal--his eyes and face swell slightly, he gets sneezy and coughs, and his throat sometimes closes up--it's just that some cats he's really bothered by and others not at all. It has nothing to do with their fur length or anything since he's sometimes intensely bothered by short-haired cats or completely fine with a big fluffball. The same is true for dogs, that some he's perfectly okay around and others give him a horrible reaction and it has nothing to do with their fur length. Weirdly enough, he isn't allergic to breeds that have hair and not fur. (Non-shedding dogs like poodles and terriers have hair.) He's never been bothered by my mom's dog, even though he blames her (the dog) for the Yankees having never won a World Series championship since we adopted her.
I've actually inherited this trait from him. It's way less prominent in me since I'm almost never allergic to an animal and only found out I could be when I was nineteen. I was dogsitting in the neighbourhood and found my hands would get really itchy after petting the dog. I'm even more reactive to cats (when I'm reactive at all) than to dogs, but I didn't learn that until a few months ago. This one was a very small, very short-haired Siamese cat and I found myself feeling a 'full' sensation in my throat a few minutes into cleaning and feeding. I had no idea what it was but I knew it was probably not good, so I had to call my dad at work and ask him what it felt like when your throat starts to close up. "Well how do you feel right now?" "Like I have a throat full of cotton balls." "Yep, your throat closed. Get out of that area and go take some Benadryl."
His other allergies are food allergies. But it isn't like a normal food allergy, especially in the way he reacts. He doesn't break out in hives or swell up or anything--he just throws up immediately. He can't keep them down and for some reason his stomach violently rejects them. There are only three things that do this to him and they're all completely unrelated. They are: pineapple, coconut, and liver. Just those three things. He can't eat them or anything that tastes like or is made with them.
I've never seen either of these problems in another person in my life. I'm starting to wonder just how much of a freak of nature I really am.
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