‘I walk into a room and people start coughing’: Rare condition makes people allergic to sufferers
On rare occasions that Medinah leaves her home, people around her will cough, sneeze and rub their eyes.
“I am the allergen,” the 23-year-old, who did not want her full name used, tells Sky News.
She is one of a group of people with a condition so rare it does not have an official medical name.
It is known simply as People Allergic To Me – often shortened to PATM.
Medinah spent a year online searching her symptoms before she found social media support groups and the name that had been coined there.
During those months, she worried she was “crazy”: “I thought, yes, I’m losing it now. But then after a year and the constant reactions with people, I just realised this cannot be in my head, I can’t be crazy, I’m seeing this in real time.”
Hay fever-type symptoms
Several of the people in those groups spoke to Sky News. They described people developing hay fever-type symptoms in their presence, saying as much as 90% of a room would start coughing, choking, or sneezing when they entered.
They detailed the immense toll of isolating themselves to avoid these reactions. Some said they had been suicidal; others talked of losing friends, giving up jobs, and spending hundreds of pounds on possible remedies.
Last year, PATM sufferers had a glimmer of hope. A researcher in Japan published the first cohort study on the condition – and it indicated there could be a physical cause.
Medinah has suffered from People Allergic To Me since 2020
Speaking to Sky News from Tokyo, Professor Yoshika Sekine from Tokai University describes what he found when he compared the skin gases emitted by 20 people with PATM to a control group of 24.
He discovered the PATM group had “very specific characteristic skin gas patterns”, giving off higher levels of certain chemicals that are known to provoke respiratory symptoms in people exposed to them.
One of them, toluene, is used in the manufacture of explosives, paints and plastics and as a solvent in some types of paint thinner and glue. It can cause irritation to the eyes, nose, throat and respiratory tract, according to Public Health England – and people with PATM emitted 39 times more of it than the control group.
The other chemicals Prof Sekine identified as being particularly important are sulphur compounds, which have a “very strong, pungent odour” and hexanol, which has a hay-like smell.
These chemicals are known to trigger respiratory symptoms and skin irritation and are both linked to sick building syndrome, a condition recognised by the World Health Organisation where people are made ill by the building in which they live or work.
The study concluded: “We must carefully consider the possibility that the chemicals emitted by the PATM group may induce chemical intolerance in those around them.”
‘You feel you don’t have the right to live’
It’s been about 18 months since Fahima started noticing reactions from people around her.
“Wherever I go, if I go into a shop, if I’m out, if I walk past someone, people will sneeze and hysterically cough,” she tells Sky News.
In that time, she’s shifted to working entirely from home. She has stopped attending her nine-year-old son’s school plays because “I don’t want to impact the children”.
She shops in the early, quiet hours. The school run is the only time she regularly leaves the house.
“From the minute I wake up, the first thought is, how are people going to react to me today? I have to minimise myself so that I don’t impact other people.”
She says she also gives off an odour that developed from sweat to fish and then faeces.
There is a medically recognised condition called trimethylaminuria (TMAU) – sometimes called “fish odour syndrome” for the smell sufferers emit – that is sometimes grouped together with PATM.
However, there are PATM sufferers who say their symptoms are not accompanied by any discernible smell.
Dr Robin Lachmann, one of the country’s leading doctors specialising in TMAU, tells Sky News that unlike PATM, TMAU is a condition “which we understand well and can treat”.
A key difference is that while people around the patient may find the odour unpleasant, “these responses aren’t allergic”.
Fahima took a test for TMAU which came back negative – but even getting the test took a year of “legwork” on her part, she says.
“With PATM, doctors say even if you want to get tested, there’s no diagnosis. There’s no way to treat it.”
The reactions Fahima gets aren’t just involuntary coughs and sneezes, she says, but insults and abuse.
“You know what? I don’t blame people. Especially the people that are having allergic reactions to us, we’re physically making them sick, so I don’t expect them to have any other reaction.”
But it’s “draining”, she says, and makes her “incredibly depressed”.
“It makes you feel like you don’t have the right to live, almost. Because why should you be in a place making someone else feel uncomfortable?”
Sufferers describe isolating themselves to avoid reactions from other people. Pic: iStock
Fahima says the allergic reactions vary depending on her diet. If she eats a lot of sugar, meat or carbohydrates, the following day she will notice a lot of people sneezing.
Her son mostly doesn’t react to her, she says, but when she eats meat his reactions are so severe she will give him an antihistamine.
Prof Sekine says while skin gases are typically influenced by diet, he hasn’t yet been able to find a link for PATM. But he has spoken to people who have improved their symptoms by cutting out dairy, increasing their intake of antioxidants and working on boosting good gut bacteria.
He also suggests why not everyone reacts to people with PATM. He says it could be to do with sensitivity to chemicals, with some people affected by very low doses in the air around them.
Just as not everyone suffers from hay fever when there’s a high pollen count, not everyone will be sensitive to the higher chemicals in the skin gases of PATM patients.
‘It’s all in your head’
The PATM sufferers who spoke to Sky News invariably said they had been told the condition was “all in their head”.
There is a recognised psychological condition that bears similarities to PATM called Olfactory Reference Disorder, or ORD.
People with ORD are preoccupied with the belief they are giving off a bad smell despite there being no odour, explains Professor David Veale, a consultant psychiatrist at the Nightingale Hospital.
It can have a “devastating” impact on peoples’ lives as they dedicate their energy to tackling the perceived problem and avoid social situations out of fear of being “shamed, humiliated, rejected”, he says.
“They are very stressed and very disabled by it. But no one can convince them that they can’t smell them. They think they’re just saying that to be nice.”
Prof Veale says the difference between PATM and ORD appears to be that ORD patients are preoccupied with their perceptions of what other people think about an imagined smell, while PATM sufferers perceive physical reactions in other people.
Prof Sekine also identifies this difference in his research, concluding PATM is unique “in that it affects the people around them, at least based on descriptions by people with PATM”.
File pic: iStock
Sandra, who did not want to use her real name, says she seriously considered whether her condition could “be in my head” after her doctor suggested she had ORD.
“I’d had too many incidents happen for that to be true,” she says.
“I was even bullied at work about it in one job.”
Almost 60, Sandra has lived with the condition for 15 years. She says she used to have a good career, but no longer works “partly due to the stress and anxiety that this causes”.
Her first sign of PATM came when she returned to work after a bout of sickness and her boss had a “sneezing fit” every time he came into her office.
A deep clean didn’t sort what she thought was a dust issue – and then she noticed other colleagues reacting in the same way, then friends and even her husband.
“Eventually it occurred to me that it must be me causing this, which filled me with horror,” she says.
“When the reactions are at their worst, I have a similar reaction myself, that is I become allergic to myself.
“I have other symptoms like a bad taste in my mouth, itchy throat, itchy skin with a mild rash on my abdomen and spiking mild temperature.”
But making others react is the worst part: “It makes me feel dreadfully guilty to be causing all of this and I have severe anxiety and depression as a result.”
Alex’s 24-year-old brother Miguel first noticed PATM symptoms about 10 years ago, but didn’t tell his family until he was 19.
Many people with PATM say close relatives do not get symptoms, and Alex does not notice himself reacting to his brother.
He says it’s also hard to say whether more people cough and sneeze around his brother because it’s such a commonplace thing – but Miguel will notice every cough or nose scratch, and someone having a coughing fit can be enough to make him stay in his room for days.
Alex recalls being at a restaurant with their grandparents when Miguel first told them about the condition, and his grandmother agreed she could hear people “just constantly coughing in the restaurant”.
“That seemed like an increase to what’s normal. But then how do you know what normal is if you’re not paying attention to it?”
PATM is easy to write off as “just” psychological because “it sounds ridiculous”, Alex says, but his first concern when his brother opened up about the condition was to find a way to cope with the impact on his mental health.
“That’s the important thing – and then it doesn’t matter whether it’s real or not.”
What causes PATM?
The cause of PATM is a puzzle to sufferers and researchers alike. Some people say their symptoms started during a time when they were eating a lot of fast food or experiencing high stress.
Sufferers trade theories about possible triggers: a disrupted gut microbiome, fungal infections, sinus problems.
“You’re like your own doctor, your own medical team,” Medinah says. “I literally stay up all night researching.”
Sandra and another person who spoke to Sky News found their PATM flared after a course of antibiotics, while others described developing skin issues before other symptoms.
MEBO Research, a small collective of researchers investigating rare genetic metabolic diseases, has conducted exploratory studies of PATM without being able to pinpoint a cause beyond an apparent issue with the body’s “detoxification process”.
Mehmet Ali, MEBO’s director of community outreach and strategy, tells Sky News PATM needs attention and research from the medical community.
Prof Sekine’s research also did not identify a cause – although it is his goal to find it. “I would like to define the criteria for what PATM is, and what it is not. This is a very difficult point,” he says.
Without even a criteria of what PATM is, there is no formal diagnosis. NHS England told Sky News it follows NICE guidelines, and there are none for PATM.
A spokesperson for NICE said it “can only look at treatments that are licensed by the UK regulators… If they have not been licensed for PATM, we cannot recommend them for the condition”.
But finding a treatment seems a distant dream to sufferers who share remedies on Facebook and Reddit: supplements of every variety, antibiotics, digestive enzymes, probiotics, herbal treatments.
Sufferers go to extreme lengths in search of solutions. Fasts; eliminating sugar, gluten and dairy; raw veganism and its opposite, the “carnivore diet” – essentially just eating meat, eggs and dairy.
But what might grant one person temporary relief doesn’t necessarily work for someone else.
Sandra sees no end to her 15 years of misery: “We are all just waiting for a cure with our lives in effect on hold but I’m nearly 60 now and not confident it will happen in my lifetime.”
‘It crushes you like nothing has crushed you before’
Amir, who did not want to use his real name, says without family relying on him “I wouldn’t be here, that’s how bad I feel sometimes”.
He describes a life that has become “really, really unbearable”. He says he has lost all his friends “because they can’t be in the same areas as me” and even avoids the mosque.
“I do an experiment – I stay out of the room to see if anyone is coughing, then go in the room for a few minutes. The majority of people will start reacting.”
Not everyone with PATM who spoke to Sky News isolates themselves. Some hold down jobs and socialise – but none seem immune to the mental health impacts of the condition.
They describe the loneliness of not just being physically isolated, but of being misunderstood by doctors, friends and family; the guilt of feeling you’re making another person ill; the despair of there being no treatment or cure.
Medinah describes her mental health as “shattered, it’s non-existent”.
“In the beginning it crushes you, it crushes you in a way that nothing has ever crushed you before.”
She says she quit her job as a teaching assistant because she was getting “aggressive” reactions, and now life is at a “complete stop”.
She gets emotional talking about the future: “I don’t feel excited at all. I don’t even like to think about it. The reality is so sad. I can’t even go to the local park, I can’t do anything.”
Anyone feeling emotionally distressed or suicidal can call Samaritans for help on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org in the UK. In the US, call the Samaritans branch in your area or 1 (800) 273-TALK.
“Do you recognise this guy?” I ask a Costa del Sol cafe owner as I show him an image of a bald, bearded bodybuilder from Scotland.
He raises his eyebrows and looks back with suspicion.
“I think he sometimes came for coffee,” he replies in broken English before the conversation is quickly shut down.
The bodybuilder is a familiar face in this part of the world – he lived here in the Spanish seaside town of Nerja for almost two years.
He is the fitness-fanatic, social butterfly expat Johnny Wilson. But the truth is, Johnny doesn’t exist.
James Clacher faked his own death in Scotland and set up a new life in Spain
The man behind the made-up name is the violent rapist James Clacher, who faked his own death in Scotland and set up a new life in Spain.
Nerja’s community feels bruised and conned by a serial sex offender who lived under their noses, undetected for so long.
The fake death
At the time of his disappearance in May 2022, Clacher was under investigation for two separate rapes of women he had met on dating app Tinder in 2019 and Bumble in 2020.
James Clacher met a victim through dating app Tinder
As police worked to put all the pieces of the puzzle together, a missing person poster was issued, describing Clacher as an athletic man who drives a Suzuki Swift.
It warned members of the public not to approach him.
Detectives had earlier discovered his car dumped next to Loch Long in Argyll and Bute. A suicide note was left in the vehicle, and messages had been sent suggesting he was no longer alive.
A missing poster issued by Police Scotland for James Clacher
It had the look and feel of a suicide.
It was the perfect rural setting, with the rolling hills and very few people around, where a conman could slip away and hope to never be seen again.
The double life
Nerja is a small town with a population of around 22,000. It sits an hour’s drive from Malaga.
Off the beaten track, it’s tucked away at the foot of stunning mountain ranges and has the feel of a more authentic Spanish experience compared to its rivals like Marbella along the coast.
Accents on its beaches are from elsewhere in Spain and continental Europe, rather than a ‘Brits abroad’ vibe.
Nerja is a small town with a population of around 22,000
To learn how Clacher could slip into this community and create a bogus new identity while being a wanted man, I visit Nerja’s gym.
Workers tell me he trained there every day and describe a “nice man” who was perfectly pleasant, put people at ease and fitted right in.
I am pointed in the direction of a man called Matt, a British expat.
Clacher regularly used Nerja’s gym
The pair became friends not long after “Johnny” arrived in Nerja. The relationship began with Johnny touting himself as a so-called nutritionist.
“He came highly recommended,” Matt says. “He was giving me nutritional help, and he said he was in the parachute regiment for ten years and came to Spain for a new start.
“He was a very, very nice guy, very charming, I became quite good friends with him. He invited me hiking with him, he invited me round to his house to eat.”
Asked if any of his new friend’s behaviour was suspicious, Matt says: “He gave no hint whatsoever. But looking back, whenever he sent a picture, he would never have his face visible.
“He was very careful about pictures. Whenever he took a picture, he obviously knew that he was being hunted, and he had to lay low, so he never showed his face.
“I only have one picture of him facing away from me looking up a mountain.”
Several people say Johnny had entered an 18-month relationship with a local woman who had no idea about his real identity or the sexual crimes he had committed on vulnerable women.
She is said to be traumatised by how events unfolded.
‘Johnny the gardener’
I get a tip off that Johnny was employed as a gardener at a local residential complex, and we’re told to speak to a man called Megel.
As he emerges from behind the shutters of a pool bar, Megel shakes his head and speaks to other guests in Spanish when I mention ‘Johnny the gardener’.
The apartment complex where Clacher worked as a gardener
The atmosphere changes, and those present close ranks.
A member of staff confirms Johnny’s role on site before we are ushered off the premises.
Elsewhere, we discover he earned cash in hand running yoga classes on the beach in an attempt to stay off the books.
Nerja’s community feels bruised and conned by Clacher’s lies
“This is the best place to be no one,” says local newspaper journalist Eugenio Cabezas, who has worked here for 20 years.
“If you have committed a crime, you can live here and nobody knows you. It is a good place to disappear.”
Journalist Eugenio Cabezas
The tip-off
The Costa Del Sol has had a reputation over the years as somewhere big British crime bosses would come to hide.
James Clacher was no mafia gangster, but he played the system in Scotland and Spain.
That was until an anonymous person sent an email to Sky News with the title “James Clacher”.
The message, sent on 27 November 2023 at 11.16am, talked about reading news articles on the case.
The tip-off sent to Sky News
It stated: “We believe we have seen this man in Nerja… he introduced himself as Jimmy, was Scottish and fit the description.”
The tip-off revealed conversations they had in the local gym and a timeline of three separate encounters or interactions over the space of almost a year.
The police investigation, which had come to a dead end, suddenly had its biggest lead yet.
The UK’s National Crime Agency, along with Spain’s Guardia Civil, went undercover and found their man.
They swooped while Clacher was hanging upside down on gym equipment on the very beach he had created a ‘safe space’ as a yoga instructor.
The moment was captured in dramatic body-cam footage by the Spanish police as the fugitive was tackled to the ground and led off in handcuffs.
Clacher was detained and eventually extradited back to Scotland.
‘He was a complete fantasist’
Matt, the man who thought he was friends with Johnny, speaks of his horror at learning his friendship was a lie.
“I was completely shocked. Completely stunned. I just couldn’t believe it”, he says.
“Being fooled like that by someone, it wasn’t just me. He fooled a lot of people here in Spain as well.
“I had a narrow escape. I am relieved I am away from that situation. He was a complete fantasist.”
The wider expat community in Nerja is shaken.
Clacher was extradited back to Scotland
Pub landlady Cathy, who has lived here for 40 years, says the story was the talk of the town.
“People were stunned and surprised that this happened in our local community,” she says.
“Somebody who had obviously been living here with us which we had no idea about.
“We don’t have that very much here at all. It’s a very nice, safe, good area of Spain to be in.”
Clacher attacked two women in 2019 and 2020
Clacher was detained in May 2024. He denied any wrongdoing when his trial began this August, but was found guilty by a jury.
During his trial, jurors heard how he was “very friendly and chatty” on his extradition flight back to Scotland.
He was said to have discussed how he staged his own death and told of how he “survived on berries and puddle water” while initially on the run.
Clacher was arrested while working out on this apparatus
Clacher claimed to have travelled from Loch Long to Inverness, then down the east coast of Scotland.
He was then said to have made his way to England before hiding in a truck to get into France.
Once in France, he then said he got his hands on a bike and cycled to Spain.
The Police Scotland officer Clacher spoke to on the flight home told the jury that Clacher revealed he had been fearful his face was becoming known locally in Nerja, so he considered building a kayak that he would paddle to Morocco.
UK
Angela Rayner admits she should have paid more stamp duty on flat purchase – and considered resigning
The mother of murdered teenager Brianna Ghey is calling on the government to introduce a ban on mobile phones in schools – a move she says will not only safeguard children, but also improve their behaviour and engagement in class.
In February 2023, Brianna, 16, was stabbed to death by two 15-year-olds after being lured to a park in Warrington.
In the lead-up to the attack, her killers had spent time on the dark web. At the same time, Brianna was also trapped online, struggling with a phone addiction.
Her mother Esther Ghey’s Phone Free Education campaign is driven by her personal experiences as a parent and the impact Brianna’s phone use had on her education.
Brianna Ghey struggled with a mobile phone addiction, according to her mother
“All the arguments that me and Brianna had were down to her phone use,” Esther said.
“But even in school, she had issues and I used to have phone calls from the school saying that Brianna wouldn’t put her phone away.”
Brianna, who was transgender, struggled with an eating disorder and also self-harmed.
Her mother says the constant time she spent online exacerbated those issues, while impacting her behaviour at school, where she had 120 safeguarding logs and 116 behaviour incidents recorded by her teachers.
Esther Ghey said she had calls from her daughter’s school saying that ‘Brianna wouldn’t put her phone away’
“It was so difficult as a parent, because I felt in one way that I was failing and then in another way, and this is really difficult for me to speak about, I was so annoyed with Brianna,” she recalled.
“I thought, why can’t you just go to school, get your head down and just focus on your education, because this is important.
“Only now, after two years of being immersed in this world, do I realise that actually, it’s so much harder than that.”
Research by the Children’s Commission has shown that 79% of secondary schools are still allowing pupils to bring their mobile phones into school, and even into classrooms.
Brianna’s school introduced a ban on mobile phones in September last year
How phone ban is working at Brianna’s old school
Esther is campaigning for government guidance on phones to become statutory, with funding also set aside for the equipment to help schools implement the ban, arguing the lack of legislation is “setting children up to fail”.
At Birchwood Community High School in Warrington, where Brianna was a pupil, they introduced a ban on phones last September.
At the beginning of the day, pupils turn off their phones and place them in pouches, which are locked. At the end of the school day, the pouches are then unlocked.
Pupils at Birchwood Community High School in Warrington place their phones in pouches, which are then locked
The headteacher, Emma Mills, said introducing these measures has come with several benefits.
“It’s had an impact in all areas of school, and it’s actually had a really positive impact in ways that I didn’t foresee,” said Ms Mills.
“Attendance has improved this year. In terms of behaviour, behaviour has improved. We’ve had no permanent exclusions this year in school, which is actually the first time since I’ve been headteacher in six years, there’s been no permanent exclusion.”
This summer, the school also saw its best-ever GCSE results in the core subjects of Science, maths, and English.
Emma Mills, headteacher at Birchwood Community High School in Warrington
‘They can live without their phones’
For Ms Mills, another significant change has been the atmosphere in the school.
“They’re not as worried, they’re not as distracted,” Ms Mills said.
“They’ve realised that they can live without their phones. Something else we’ve really noticed is that it’s a bit louder in school at breaks and lunch times. It’s because they’re talking more, they’re interacting more, and they’re communicating more.”
The positive impact of a ban at Brianna’s old school has served as encouragement to Esther, who has written an open letter addressed to Sir Keir Starmer and Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson, asking for government support.
Read more:
Screen time limit for children being considered
‘Whole society’ approach needed to stop doomscrolling
Brianna Ghey
High-profile signatories include the actress Kate Winslet, as well as actor and film producer Stephen Graham.
For Esther, who will deliver the letter to 10 Downing Street next month, the campaign is not just Brianna’s legacy, but also creating societal change.
“I think it’s important that we teach young people to live in the real world,” she said.
“It’s going to impact society at one point and I think this small amount of investment in students now will have a massive impact in the future.”
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