There are certain words that I use very precisely. 
Allergy is one such word. 

An allergy is "a damaging or life-threatening response to a food, pollen, or other allergen." A sensitivity is not an allergy. I am horribly sensitive to the damaging effects of pepper. Eating one spicy — unknown to me or I wouldn't have eaten it — potato chip put me in pain so severe I could hardly walk for a day. But I'm not allergic. 

I will never have an anaphylactic reaction to pepper, no matter how hot. I will never die from accidental exposure. 

 

Eating oranges or drinking orange juice causes my gut to bleed. (So I don't.) But I'm not allergic to oranges. I can eat one section, once a day, without repercussion. Totally fine with grapefruit, lemon, lime, even tangerines. 
It's a sensitivity, not an allergy. 

Here's an allergy story: At a weekend workshop far out in the country, far away from civilization, we gathered to bless the dishes brought together, then dug into our potluck feast. I was already eating when confronted with a face of fear. 

"She's turning blue! Help!"
 

I ran to my room and my remedies, grabbed the osha, and ran to the blue woman. "She's allergic to peanuts," I heard, as I gently pulled her bottom lip toward me, and starting dropping osha (Ligisticum porterii) onto the blue surface of her inner lip. 

Someone else picked up the phone. But before she could finish dialing 911, pink replaced the blue skin. The woman who was blue before began to breathe. A smile broke out on her face, and mine, and spread to all the worried women, as we all breathed a sigh of relief.

It seems there was peanut oil in a prepared dish bought from a local health food store, and added to our potluck table. The woman who purchased it didn't know, of course, since there wasn't a label to read. That's an allergy. 
Immediate, severe swelling as the immune system valiantly attempts to fight off the allergen. (In rare cases, up to thirty minutes may elapse before immune response.) 

Some people have celiac disease which makes them allergic to gluten. Everyone else who avoids gluten is sensitive to it, not allergic. Digestive symptoms are common with sensitivities. And they often take hours to manifest. 

Allergies engage immune system response. Generally, immediate immune response. Swelling. Which impairs breathing, and can be so severe that it becomes deadly. Anaphylactic shock. 

No one is allergic to MSG. You might have a sensitivity. But, in studies, volunteers reacted to placebos more often than to MSG. The last word. From National Institutes of Health. The Role of Monosodium Glutamate in Food Allergies and Its Health Implications - PubMed https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41289354/
..
"Although certain participants display transient intolerance manifestations under high-dose, empty-stomach challenges, immunoglobulin E-mediated processes appear exceedingly infrequent."
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Take care of yourself. 
Be tender with your sensitivities. 
But let's not harm ourselves by mis-naming them allergies. 
I'm not allergic to pepper. 
I'm sensitive to it. 

If you do have an allergy,
Please carry some osha tincture with you. 
Many of my allergic students swear it works for them
Fast. 
Faster than an epi-pen, which you will also carry. 

Allergies can make you dead. 
Sensitivities just make you feel like dying. 
Big difference.