5 ms·
On the topic of food allergies, there is a treatment called oral immunotherapy that supposedly can cure peanut and other allergies in both children and adults.
by aclimatt 11y ago
On the topic of food allergies, there is a treatment called oral immunotherapy that supposedly can cure peanut and other allergies in both children and adults.
http://stanmed.stanford.edu/2014fall/i-can-eat-it.html http://stanmed.stanford.edu/2014fall/i-can-eat-it.html
Essentially they introduce increasingly larger doses of the allergen until your body develops a tolerance to it (essentially what the OP claims, but as you're no longer a baby, it takes a lot longer).
The only caveat is that you are required to continue to eat the allergen for the rest of your life, to maintain your tolerance.
Stanford is currently enrolling in its peanut OIT study for adults. If you have a peanut allergy and have always dreamed of eating a PB&J without worry, now's your chance!
- monk_e_boy 11y agoThere was a TV show about this and they 'cured' a girl of peanut allergy.
- grangerg 11y agoIt's past the study phase. My friend's daughter just "graduated" from her treatment a short while ago. They went to Oral Immunotherapy (OIT) at Rocky Mountain Allergy in Layton, Utah. She used to be on the "smell a peanut and you might die" side of the spectrum. Yes, she has to eat a handful of peanut M&M's every day for the rest of her life to keep from regressing.
- yincrash 11y agoPeanut M&Ms might be the best pill regimen I've ever heard of
- voidz 11y agoYeah, good tip. I'm not allergic. But just to be on the safe side I better start doing this too every day. Just to make sure I stay that way.
- archagon 11y agoThat's kind of amazing.
- DrScump 11y agoWhen you're out and about, try putting her M&Ms in a prescription bottle, and see how random strangers react to her popping a few at a time from the bottle. "Best of all, they're covered by our medical plan!"
- xaqfox 11y agoUnfortunately, in this day and age, this sounds like a good way to go to jail or kicked out of school.
- baudehlo 11y agoI wish they could do this for hayfever. If I could just sniff some grass every day and not have itchy eyes all summer if would be great!
- anilgulecha 11y agoThere is sub-lingual immunotherapy available for hayfever. I don't know how much it boosts the immunity to allergens. I'm currently on year 3 of a 5 year course. Hopefully it works -- does not seem to have had a huge effect so far.
- baudehlo 11y agoThat doesn't sound very promising then.
- anilgulecha 11y agoAnecdotal evidence aside, i would not unconsider it that quickly. My research before starting this indicated that effect varies from case to case. However, this was definitively not woo-woo.
- luxpir 11y agoSurprisingly for me, bee pollen has pretty much halted my (at times severe) hayfever. Initially I took 1 per few days and had an 'internal hayfever' type reaction then soon enough my nose and eyes stopped reacting. The local pollen cures are bunkum, imo, just teaching your body to deal with pollen in general does the trick. A large dose off any pollen, as found in bee pollen, seems to work wonders when taken regularly in spring. Ymmv, but I've struggled for a long time until recently.
- Jedd 11y agoHave a read up on the use of hookworms as a suppressant for hayfever and other immune system overreactions. It seems like there's more work to be done there, and lots of potentially exaggerated stories of big pharma trying to shut research down, but the hypothesis has always sounded sensible to me, and what little formal research I've heard of has been extremely positive.