My 9-year-old son helped me uncover a missing clue in allergy science Posted by spaceman26 on Saturday February 15, 2020 @12:50PM from the worth.com dept. https://www.worth.com/what-causes-an-allergy-heres-where-i-think-we-should-look/ ( 1 comment | on HN )
"epi" = "epinephrine". Indeed a possible explanation!
FWIW a cup of coffee is excellent emergency treatment for anaphylactic shock:
https://www.faroutfirstaid.com/blog/anaphylaxis-coffee-time
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/781053.stm
For those worried about "coffee allergy" I would note that there are less than a handful of recorded cases of anaphylactic shock due to caffeine - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4313757/