Mango, you vile poison!

Every once in a while, I get this rash on my lips.  Maybe once or twice a year.  It's tiny, tiny little bumps and redness (both hard to see because of where it is) on my lips that get really itchy.  I thought it might be an allergy, but it seemed so random and far apart that I'd never found correlations.  Oh, and the best part is that my lips get all swollen, too.  *sarcasm*  Most people might dream of a way to double the size of their lips without surgery... But, have you met me?  Swollen lips are not doing ME any favors.  Essentially, it takes my least favorite feature, that are already too big, and makes them HUGER and REDDER!  Uuuuuugh.  (And please no lip compliments.  I know everyone wants full lips, but I really don't like mine.)

Anyway, like I said, this has happened for years and I just deal with it and then it goes away.  Well I got one earlier this week, and did some Googling.   Of course, most results deal with rashes that are MUCH more severe (read: disgusting) than this.  Seriously, don't Google "lip rash" unless you want to see some nasty.  But then I stumbled on post where someone described a seemingly identical rash, and one of the responses contained these little words:

 I have the same rash on my lips. I get it when I eat mango. 

Get the crap OUT!  Look what's on my counter:

Started with 8.  Now there are 4.  I ate 3 of them.  Oops!

I just bought mango for the first time in FOREVER a couple days before I got this rash!!  More googling led me to this blog post, where someone else had the same epiphany.

Yeah, so, after 30 seconds of research, I consider myself an expert and have self-diagnosed myself with a mild mango allergy.  I have discovered that mango trees are related to poison ivy (or something like that) and the chemical that causes a reaction to poison ivy is also present in mango sap (I think it's the sap), which is on (or maybe in?) the skin.  Apparently, you can eliminate most of the allergens by washing the skin with soap and water before you cut into it, but some people with major allergies will still react to it.

So now the question is... will I stop eating the delicious mango, or continue risking this obnoxious disfigurement?  That's a tough call...