Allergies?

I've heard that it's common for otherkin to have strange allergies, like to temperatures, sun, metals, etc, because of the energetic and density differences compared to the dimension they came from. I've read it on some otherkin related texts around the internet.
I've heard something similar from someone too, the same woman who looked at me and told me I was a faerie inside. She said something about people in spiritual path having allergies. Not directly related to otherkin but made me think about.

I, for example, have recently developed allergy to cold and humidity. Like, if I walk in the cold rain, my skin becomes red and itching. Or just in a cold day, with cold breeze etc. I never had it before and I find it so weird. I'm allergic to some metals too, I usually can't wear jewelry that isn't made of silver or gold or any good quality metal I guess, my ears will become red and itching too =/
And I also have a strange allergy on my hands, that the dermathologist has no idea what causes them. The itching come and go and the spots are the same on both hands. And one on my right leg of the same type. It torments me for about 2 years now! Uurgh!

Do any of you know something about it or have it youselves? Do you think it makes sense to be realated to otherkin?

aeryael Wrote:Do any of you know something about it or have it youselves? Do you think it makes sense to be realated to otherkin?

It could be Otherkin related or it could simply be that you've developed common human allergies. I've noticed that a lot of people tend to suffer during what's commonly called hayfever season in early spring when plants start blooming.

It's interesting that you bring this up as I have an appointment this afternoon with an allergist to try and get my own allergies under control. I've been led to believe that it's just simply common to develop them as people grow older but perhaps for some people there is supernatural stuff involved. I doubt it because as I've said allergies are fairly common, but it's possible. Personally, I think I'm just allergic to mold spores like everyone else.

Keep in mind that an allergy to something like metals could simply be your body reacting to a nasty chemical that the jewelry came into contact with or something like that. If it's possible, try seeing your family doctor or even an allergist. They may be able to better explain what's causing it and should be able to provide treatment too.

Also, the red marks on your hands. Are they small, round and itchy? And after a few days they go away only to be replaced by new ones? If so, and don't laugh because I have personal experience with them, they could be bed bugs. I had mysterious red bites that itched like crazy around my wrists and ankles for about a year and even a dermatologist couldn't figure out what they were from. It wasn't until my husband, king of internet information-finding, found it by accident that bed bugs had made comeback in the US and that's what was attacking me. So we got our apartment fumigated several times and the bites went away because we had finally killed the culprits.

Most of these "unusual otherkin allergies", as far as my experience tells me, appear a LOT more psychosomatic than anything else. Not to mention that the overwhelming majority of these "allergies" are self-diagnosed.

Yes, a lot of otherkin experience unusual symptoms, but so do a lot of non-kin, so to chalk this up onto being otherkin, seems to be more the easy explanation (or rather, the preferred explanation because we can "act" like it's physical "proof" of being otherkin) rather than anything properly studied as kin related.

Yeah, I never thought it could be otherkin related until I read about it in some places, so I decided to ask what you guys think.

Ellinox, the marks on my hands are not from bedbugs bites... by the way I didn't know such thing and bedbugs existed, I had to google it. Uuurgh! What nasty little bugs!! My marks are more like eczemas, but no one can tell me what causes them and the remedies the doctor gave me won't work! =(

Freetha: of course I'm not trying to make it any kind of "proof" lol, and I wouldn't be expecting anyone to do so, cause everyone can have one or other type of allergy. I just wanted to know if there's an actual study or personal experiences involving that, since it was stated on otherkin sites. Allergies are a pretty common thing, the spores thing for example. The metal allergy is something I've seen in other people too. But the temperature allergy for example is rather unusual for what I know and I haven't seen it in anyone else, and everyone I tell about it finds it weird.

I don't believe anything can be "just physical", and a physical issue is a result of something more insubstantial, as energy, emotions and the like. So an allergy, a physical intolerance to some substance may have a subtler cause and a reason metaphysically speaking. So if you're allergic to, say, a metal, what is there in your being that doesn't tollerate something about the nature of that metal?
(I'm sorry if I didn't use the right words to explain what I wanted o_o)

I think it's odd that I'm allergic to powerade but not gatorade...but I don't think it's anything otherkin related lol.

I think the vast majority of "symptoms" (such as allergies to metal, sun, or whatever) fall into one of the following categories:

1) A genuine allergy which is totally normal for humans, though perhaps unusual (eg me and mint - unusual, not unheard of)
2) Psychosomatic.
3) An intense dislike of something, or a reaction to something, which isn't actually an allergy or even remarkable at all.

I see absolutely no reason why having a non-human essence would cause someone's immune system to react pathologically to normal stimulants. On the other hand, there are plenty reasons why over-use of anti-bacterial cleaning products can stunt the immune system and eventually lead to allergies. As over-cleaning is becomming more common, it is likely for people to have more allergies than their parents, and therefore to see some of their totally prosaic health conditions as unusual.

Oh, and from the other direction - sun allergy is a genuine medical condition. It's also true that pale-skinned people tend to burn more (and more severely) than darker-skinned people. It's not a huge leap from "I'm a teenager and I feel different, and I burn lots" to "I could be a vampire, that would explain my issues with people, and my problems with sunlight, and I guess my depression just means I need to feed . . ." to lots and lots and lots of validation from seemignly well-meaning veterans on otherkin boards.

A lot of correlations are illusory.

Freetha Wrote:Most of these "unusual otherkin allergies", as far as my experience tells me, appear a LOT more psychosomatic than anything else. Not to mention that the overwhelming majority of these "allergies" are self-diagnosed.

Quoted for truth.

I was discussing this was a friend last night (who is not otherkin but knows of the community), and we were both of the opinion that these things are entirely human things to have. Say you have two people who identify as vampires - if one burns more easily in sunlight, it doesn't make them any more or any less of a vampire than the other person.

I don't think 'kinship has any physical effect on the human body (well ... would one consider phantom limbs physical? Although you don't have to be 'kin to get those either, I digress.)



~ Lishie

Not allergic to a single thing, here. Though, nickel--if it's a piercing--causes a reaction, but that's not related to Otherkin--lots of people are "allergic" to it. (We don't have any piercings becuase stainless steel is hell to find at some piercing places--and it has to be stainless steel for us).

Oh, we also get sick if we drink Tang.

--Shang

We have trouble with earrings, too - probably nickel allergy. I think other substances blended with gold and silver can cause problems too. For us, wearing 10K or 14K gold earrings fixes the problem. We know what side of the family it's from, though, and it's not the one that we think is full of 'kin.

We suspect that some 'kintypes are drawn to bodies with a predisposition for certain types of illness but we don't have a lot of data to back that up.

Last time we checked the results, House AVA's vampire survey found that about half of the vampires who responded had depression but that just makes me question the data. The symptoms of depression are similar enough to those of vampirism that, if that many self-identified vampires do have depression, it makes the vampire community look questionable indeed.

-Val

Shangrila Wrote:Not allergic to a single thing, here. Though, nickel--if it's a piercing--causes a reaction, but that's not related to Otherkin--lots of people are "allergic" to it. (We don't have any piercings becuase stainless steel is hell to find at some piercing places--and it has to be stainless steel for us).

The piercing places you're going to, then, are crap. They should all have stainless steel or titanium jewelry. Nickel's the crap that turns your ears green-grey.


Anyway, I'm not allergic to a single thing, period. Never have been. I've got a clean bill of health, with the exception of some stuff that could potentially make me sterile? (Which is fine by me.)

Other than that I have the healing factor of wolverine, an immune system to boot, and I've never broke a bone/needed stitches/gone to a hospital/had a cavity ever, despite the copious amounts of stupid things I do.

Maybe it'll catch up to me(hopefully not... DX) but for now I'm great.