Allergies can be debilitating, requiring professional help from an allergist. Immunotherapy involves injecting increasing doses of allergens to desensitize patients. Allergy testing determines the course of therapy, with up to three sera created and injected weekly for a year, then monthly for four years or more. Potency increases are based on the initial allergy test results.
For most people, allergies are a minor annoyance. They come once or twice a year as hay fever, or cause colds when they get near dogs or cats. For some, allergies can be debilitating, making it virtually impossible to get out or be in the same home as a family pet. In such cases, over-the-counter medications may not be enough to eliminate the symptoms and professional help from an allergist is needed. Careful examination of allergy test results is conducted to determine a precise course of allergy treatment aimed at desensitizing and effectively treating a patient’s allergies.
Desensitization treatment, known as immunotherapy, involves injecting increasingly higher doses of the allergen into a patient at regular intervals. Over a period of a year or more, the patient becomes less and less prone to allergic reactions from specific substances. Immunotherapy is a course of targeted treatment, and serum doses are formulated to a patient’s specific sensitivities. Each patient is sensitive to different things to different extents, so correct interpretation of allergy tests is critical in determining how to formulate therapy.
Allergy testing is therefore the first step in immunotherapy. They involve tiny pricks under the skin of very small amounts of common allergens, including grass and tree pollen, cat and dog dander, mold, tobacco, dust mites, and cockroach droppings. Pin pricks are arranged in a grid pattern on the patient’s arm or back, totaling about 30 different allergens.
The body reacts to the highly localized presence of the allergens by swelling into small bruises. Allergy test results are interpreted by judging the diameter of each welt after a period of approximately ten minutes. By comparing the diameters to a known metric, an allergist can calculate exactly how allergic the patient is to each substance.
Depending on how many different substances a patient is sensitive to based on the interpretation of allergy test results, up to three sera are created and need to be injected on a weekly basis. This routine is maintained for one year and then on a monthly basis for four years or more. About every four weeks or so, the serum is strengthened as part of the desensitization process. Potency increases are calculated based on the results of the initial allergy test, so if an individual is highly allergic to grass pollen but not dog dander, the amount of grass pollen in serum will be much lower to begin with. while dog hair will be present in greater quantities.
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