Treating Environmental and Food Allergies

The most effective treatment for allergies is avoidance of what causes them. This may include dust control, "detoxifying" your home environment from chemicals and eliminating specific foods from your diet. This will be covered in more detail in other parts of this web site.

Both the SDET and Provocative Neutralization testing procedures allow us to determine the optimum dose to begin desensitizing one to the substances to which they are allergic. You can choose either to go through desensitization using weekly injections or about daily sublingual desensitization. The appropriate antigens are placed into a vial so they can be administered at home sublingually. You can either get a weekly shot or take sublingual drops daily. With the shot you get the full dose all at once and with sublingual the amount is administered in smaller doses daily, but the end result is that you get the same amount of antigen.

Sublingual extracts are administered once daily or more often. Most people get relief of their symptoms within three to four weeks of starting them and sometimes sooner. Some patients take longer to get relief because of the severity of their symptoms. Sometimes it takes up to three or four months to notice a lessening of symptoms. Most patients need to take one drop daily of each of their extracts. In some cases, it might be necessary for patients to increase the dose up to two drops three times daily. Do not increase the dose of the antigens without talking to Dr. Buscher or a member of the allergy testing staff first.

After you have been on the desensitization vaccines for six to eight weeks, you should make an appointment to se Dr. Buscher for follow-up especially if your symptoms haven't started to decrease by then.

Normally the desensitization process allows patients to eat all the foods to which they are allergic. We recommend, however, that patients go on a diversified/rotation diet so that they don't eat the same foods on a daily basis. Patients with food allergies should not eat the same foods eventually day in and day out, they should diversify their diet over a wide range of foods.

If you continue to eat the allergic foods on a daily basis, you may need to increase the frequency of your allergy extracts. Again, if there are any questions, talk to our allergy testing technician or make an appointment to see Dr. Buscher.

Links for further information:
Dr. Rapp Website