Imagine meeting the love of your life, entering a relationship with them, and then belatedly realizing your literal body rejects the union. It sounds like some kind of sick cosmic joke, but anecdotal evidence suggests it could be a reality for some. In recent months, a number of personal stories about women speculating they are essentially “allergic” to their boyfriends or husbands—their words, not ours—have cropped up on social media, fascinating and horrifying in equal measure.
Classically, this sort of interpersonal “allergy” comes to light through recurrent UTIs after sex. But that’s not always the case: In one of the more high-profile examples, ice skater Alex Murphy Klein found out she was “immunologically incompatible” with her husband Paul’s DNA after the couple had a hard time conceiving. The headline of the resulting People magazine article: “Woman Learns She’s ‘Allergic’ to Her Husband After Years of Trying to Get Pregnant.”
Hence the fundamental question posed in the headline of this story: Can you actually be allergic to another person? If so, does that allergy work the same as a food or pollen allergy, or does it represent a different biological pathway entirely? And finally, is it something you can treat, just as you might pop a Zyrtec if you have hay fever? Read on for all the answers—and to find out what to do if you ever run into this issue firsthand. (Spoiler alert: Don’t worry—it’s not exactly common.)
Can you actually be allergic to another person?
When we did a little digging to investigate the extent of this phenomenon, we discovered a trove of Reddit posts from desperate people who suspect their romantic partner is the root cause of their puffy eyes or hive-riddled skin. “My boyfriend is long distance from the UK. Whenever he visits me (or I visit him) my skin gets really dry and I get acne,” one user wrote in the subreddit r/DermatologyQuestions. “The first time she stayed over she woke up with an allergic reaction. Puffy/swollen irritated eyes and hives on her neck and chest,” another user recounted in the subreddit r/Allergies. “I (21f) used to have eczema when i was a kid up until i was around 11. I haven’t had any crazy flare ups until 5 weeks ago, when symptoms started showing up about a week after I started seeing someone new,” yet another user told r/eczema. In case you were wondering, the alleged trigger doesn’t always have to be a romantic partner, either: Tutors, friends, and strangers have all been implicated as well. But since a handful of social media posts isn’t exactly rigorous scientific proof, we also reached out to a couple MDs for their thoughts on this phenomenon.
“Yes, you can be ‘allergic’ to another person,” Nana Mireku, MD, a board-certified allergy specialist based in Texas and a fellow of both the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology (FAAAAI) and the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (FACAAI), tells SELF. To be clear, true interpersonal allergies are rare—many alleged cases probably involve some sort of environmental allergy (like an allergy to a specific personal hygiene product the person uses) rather than an allergy to the person themself—but they can and do occur.
What does an allergy to another person look like?
Several different mechanisms and conditions can be behind interpersonal allergies. Of these, one of the most intriguing is a syndrome known as “People Allergic to Me” (PATM), which refers to individuals whose skin gases supposedly provoke “allergy-like reactions” (think sneezing, coughing, eye redness, and runny nose) in others. Thus far, at least one published study has lent some credence to the idea: Japanese researchers analyzing skin gas profiles found that self-identified PATM patients exhibited a “significant difference” from non-PATM patients. Specifically, the study found the PATM patients emitted more petrochemicals, organosulfur compounds, and some aldehydes (including 39 times the normal amount of toluene, a chemical found in crude oil), among other distinctions—findings published in the scholarly journal Scientific Reports in 2023. While there hasn’t been much research on PATM thus far, cases have been reported in a number of countries, and the condition is slowly but surely amassing recognition within the medical community.
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