How can we be allergic to metal?

Allergies are our body mistaking harmless organic stuff as nasty microbes! Got a Metal Allergy? How did your body mix up metals and viruses?

Your immune cells release (and are covered in) proteins which recognize and bind to organic substances that are present on bacteria and viruses. These organic substances are normally proteins, sugars, fats or a mixture of these like glycoproteins (sugar proteins). Allergies are when the immune cells’ recognition proteins bind to a harmless organic substances and recognize it as a bacteria or virus. The immune cells then initiate a full out attack against what they think is a disease but turns out to be a peanut.
So I’ve always wondered how could people be be allergic to metals? These aren’t organic, how could metals be confused with bacteria or viruses? The answer is that the metals get into the skin and binds to a protein that your skin cells are producing. When the metal binds to these proteins it changes the shape of that protein. This newly shaped protein now looks like bacteria or virus protein to your immune cells and WHAM you have a full-on allergic reaction! Therefore, your body isn’t confusing the metal with a pathogen it is confusing your own proteins with a microbe because the protein’s shape has been changed by the metal atoms.