What Is Oral Immunotherapy All About?

Symptoms like itchy eyes and runny nose influence most allergy treatments by ENT doctors. Immunotherapy is different—in the form of allergy injections, drops, or tablets that you place under the tongue. It can decrease allergy symptoms dramatically or even make them go away.

Why Oral Immunotherapy Works

Oral immunotherapy gets the body accustomed to an allergen so that a reaction is not triggered. For now the only allergic reactions treated with oral immunotherapy tablets are hay fever and peanut allergies. Here's how this will help.

Your ENT doctor will give you a tiny dose of the allergen as a tablet if you have hay fever. You let your tongue stay under it and then swallow it. Your body will not respond because the dose is so small.

In a daily basis, you'll get more doses of the allergen to get the body used to it. Ultimately, when you have the allergen, you can only have very mild symptoms. Or you can no longer even have symptoms.

Oral immunotherapy works exactly as allergy shots do, with the exception of:

1. It takes no shots. For many individuals particularly kids, this might make a difference.

2. It's normally possible to do it at home.

3. It does have lower risks. Side effects that are popular include a sore throat, itchy mouth and tongue, swollen tongue.

Why It Varies from Normal Treatment for Allergy Reaction

An allergy response treatment that is not a normal option is oral immunotherapy. In cases where you have a severe allergic reaction, allergists usually administer epinephrine, a drug that will loosen up your airways as it relaxes the muscles and tightens the blood vessels. Your allergist usually offers you an antihistamine, which is a drug that inhibits histamine's effects, for less extreme reactions. When you come in contact with a food allergen, histamine is the material the body releases. This is what allows you to feel the symptoms you have. With oral immunotherapy, rather than just treating the symptoms as they occur, it stops or prevents the reactions before they occur. This is achieved in order to prevent histamines from being released by desensitizing the body.

Who Can Get the Benefits?

You can benefit from oral immunotherapy if you have an allergy that you feel you are taking away from your life. If you come into contact with an ingredient in a dish any more, you may not have to worry about having an allergic reaction. When you go to a friend's home, you won't have to be careful about what you eat. At a restaurant, you must not worry about cross-contamination or read every label of the food items you buy. For several, both of these advantages render oral immunotherapy a well-worthy treatment.

See us at OKOA in OKC for allergy treatments. Alongside oral immunotherapy, you can go for allergy shots. The doctor will decide on the treatment method.

**Disclaimer: The information on this page is not intended to be a doctor's advice, nor does it create any form of patient-doctor relationship.