Allergies can make a simple walk in Woodward Park and Gardens, or a day around your friend’s extremely fluffy dog, unpleasant. Allergy immunotherapy is an amazing treatment that can significantly improve your allergy symptoms. But how does the treatment work? Let’s look at the answer below.
Desensitizing Your Immune System
An allergic reaction is an immune system overreaction to a harmless substance that it has misidentified as dangerous. Pollen, for example, is not inherently dangerous; but if your immune system deems it so, your body will react with an onslaught of hives, sneezing, itchy, watery eyes, coughing, wheezing and, in severe cases, anaphylaxis.
Immunotherapy tries to gradually desensitize your immune system to the substances it overreacts to. Think of the therapy like introducing two cats to one another. You might put one cat in the bathroom for a few days so the original cat gets used to the other’s presence. Then, you’ll introduce them in a controlled environment. Eventually, ideally, they’ll become friends. Immunotherapy works the same way.
You start by introducing a small dose of the allergen into your system so your body can become familiar with the substance. Over about six months, that dose will slowly increase. Eventually, your body will stop seeing the substances as a major threat. Your immune system may never be best friends with the substance, but, hopefully, it won’t see the substance as a mortal enemy.
Starting Immunotherapy
Immunotherapy is a long process, taking anywhere from three to five years to complete.[1] That lengthy timeline means that there is no better time to start the treatment than today. You will need to start with an allergy test so we can determine which substances you’re allergic to and whether allergy drops or shots can treat them. Next, we’ll design a personalized immunotherapy plan to help your immune system and the allergens it’s attacking get on friendlier terms.
Contact our allergy specialists at Eastern Oklahoma Ear Nose and Throat – Yale Office today to schedule your test.
[1] Mayo Clinic. (n.d.). Allergy shots. Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research. https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/allergy-shots/about/pac-20392876