Sublingual Immunotherapy Drops (Slit drops) and Low Dose Antigen (LDA) Therapy
Offering two advanced types of allergy treatment specific to your needs:
SUBLINGUAL IMMUNOTHERAPY DROPS
Numerous studies suggest that asthma is becoming more common.This is probably also the case for other allergies, including hay fever, food allergy and food intolerance (non-allergic food-related symptoms), for reasons that are controversial.
Treatment is also controversial. For the past 60 years, conventional allergists have used subQ immunotherapy (“shots”) to address various inhalants. Shots do not normally treat food allergy, just inhalants like pollens and mold.
Shots are reasonably effective, but have several disadvantages, the two most important being discomfort and potential adverse reactions. This has led doctors to seek alternative means of treating allergy, and one development which originated in the US but has had much greater popularity in Europe until now is Sublingual Immunotherapy (“SLIT” or “drops”).
SLIT “drops” have three main advantages over shots: they are painless (mere drops under the tongue), include both foods and inhalants and have proven far safer than shots, over millions of patient doses and several decades
SLIT is effective because the membranes under the tongue handle foreign material (antigens) differently from the rest of the body. Elsewhere, an antigen stimulates antibodies, which produce allergic symptoms. Under the tongue, the same antigen stimulates T-suppressor cells, which suppress allergic symptoms.
In this way, existing allergies gradually get down-regulated, until they cease to cause trouble. The T-suppressor cells learn to shut them off, over time. This process takes between three months and 1 to 5 years to be successful (depending on the patient), but it works in 75 to 90% of patients, according to published clinical trials.
To create the drops, we draw blood and test for specific antigens we suspect may be causing symptoms. Antibodies to those antigens are measured, and specific ones which test positive are put into the drops in doses proportionate to their strength in the blood.
The drops come in easy to use dispenser bottles, one drop under the tongue three times a day. We do the first drops in the office, to be sure no reactions occur, and from then you do it at home. The bottles last three months, and increase in dosage strength until full strength is obtained.
From there, it’s just a matter of remembering to use the droppers, as the effect of the drops is cumulative over time.
Easy, painless and effective.
LOW DOSE ANTIGEN THERAPY (LDA)
Fifty years ago, an ENT surgeon in London tried to get rid of nasal polyps by injecting them with an enzyme, thinking that might dissolve them. It didn’t work. The polyps remained, but the allergies went away.
This caused a London allergist, Leonard McEwen, to ask “why did the allergies go away?” and led him to create low dose allergen therapy, known in the UK as EPD and in this country as LDA.
LDA (EPD) has been the only immunotherapy provided by the British National Health Service since the late 1970s. It has an 80+% success rate for inhalants, foods and chemicals, and has killed no one, ever. (This is to be compared with the approach used by American allergists which works about 60% of the time, for inhalants. Period. No foods or chemicals. And kills several people a year.) (Incidentally, the British do not allow US-style allergy shots to be done, except rarely in a hospital setting; they consider US-style shots to be dangerous and ineffective.)
LDA works by stimulating T suppressor cells to shut off existing allergies to a wide range (over 300) of allergens. About 60 % get a month’s relief starting 3 -4 weeks after their shot. After two months, they get another shot, and 80% respond. Shots are scheduled every two to four months the first year, and results are generally permanent by two or three years (with occasional need for a top up every year or two).
The US allergist shots work (when they work) by a different mechanism: stimulating blocking antibodies. They use much higher doses of allergens, which is one reason for the higher complication rate.
We have recently begun using LDA in our office. If you are “allergic to everything” it may be right for you.
Give us a call.