Its strangeness contributes a lot to scepticism when first presented with it. I have to admit I had this "you're making it up" reaction to allergic people. I literally thought, when I was a kid, that nut-allergy is overblown, people who claim that they're allergic to X is actually just fussy eaters, etc. (Now I know better)

As an example, I have contact dermatitis (red rashes, itchy) when I wear leather watches. If the watch has a plastic band or metal band, then it's fine. But leather always does it for me.

Part of me is thinking: is this because it's made from a mammal's skin?

But another part of me is really thinking: am I taking this too far? Maybe it's something else?

The worst thing is there's no doctors that would confirm my hypothesis. Reading online the symptoms of people who have this type of allergy is very different (people always list irritated bowel or skin rashes after eating meat), whereas for me when I eat beef (or even just soup made by using beef bones), it's actually: hard to breathe, my nose runs constantly (and effusively! - I am always amazed at the volume of snot that I can produce during the allergic times)

I have this reaction with other types of meat as well, but chicken is fine. It made me think a lot about what I eat.

Since the reaction has been mild, I've been adventurous at times, when I really craved steaks. My doctor hearing about it afterwards was aghast: she said I should never, ever do that again and I might die.

And really the child in me is still thinking: is this overblown? Would I really die from it?

It's so frustrating not knowing -exactly- what can I do or not do. It either goes from: you're going to die, to OK pop these Desloratadine pills and you're going to be fine, to "I don't think it's allergies, you have -X disease-"

Ooh, I get that with pepperoni, especially bad with the 'snack' type of pepperoni stick. Not other preserved meats, just pepperoni. I mentioned it to a doctor and they absolutely just sighed and said "Yeah, well, bodies are weird, maybe don't eat pepperoni then?".

I have the same reaction to some spice (plus tongue blood blisters) and I cannot figure out which. Usually it's some poor-quality take away.