Being allergic to other people is one thing (and it sounds terrible, honestly ). But imagine if the opposite were true – and everybody else were allergic to you . The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content.

It sounds like the monkey’s paw interpretation of an asthmatic’s lament, but it’s an oh-so-real phenomenon. It’s called “People Allergic To Me” – often shortened to PATM – and it means that, as one 23-year-old sufferer told Sky News in 2024, “I am the allergen.”

And the worst part of all? There’s no cure. No treatment. In fact, we barely even understand it at all.

A mystery problem

The internet may have many drawbacks, but at least we can say this: without it, we might never know that PATM is a thing. That’s because t

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