What is Immunotherapy?
ALLERGY SHOTS
“Allergy shots,” or allergy desensitization, is a form of desensitizing a patient with allergic disease to their allergen causing their illness. These injections work by influencing your immune system slowly to become tolerant of your known allergy(ies). They are indicated for the treatment of allergic nasal conditions, i.e. hay fever, insect-sting allergy and in some mild cases of asthma. There are various types of protocols for administering these injections. The medical term for allergen shots is SubCutaneous allergen ImmunoTherapy (SCIT) while the sublingual tablet equivalent is termed SubLingual ImmunoTherapy (SLIT).
You will need to remain in our office for a mandatory 30 minute monitoring period following your allergy injection. If you feel sick in any way the hour AFTER your injection, especially after leaving the doctor’s office, contact us immediately for instruction.
YEAR-LONG ALLERGY SHOTS FOR INHALANT ALLERGIES
These are the traditional allergy injections and require an initial set of weekly “build up” injections for an average of 3 months. At that point, a patient requires a new set at their “maintenance” dose, as determined either by the allergy schedule or your reactions, with each set lasting about 6-7 months. Allergy injections continue every 2-3 weeks at the maintenance dose for a duration of 3 to 5 years, depending on a patient’s response. After this point, skin testing will be repeated. This method is the closest to a “cure” to a patient’s allergies and is the preferred long term therapy.
PRE-SEASONAL ALLERGY SHOTS FOR INHALANT ALLERGIES
Please note that pre-seasonal allergy shots at our clinic have been discontinued, and replaced with a modified yearlong schedule (see above).
INSECT IMMUNOTHERAPY
For patients who have been diagnosed with severe and potentially life threatening allergic reactions to insect stings, these allergy injections will significantly reduce the risk of future severe reactions if stung again. They require weekly build up injections until a maintenance dose is achieved. At that point, injections continue monthly. The usual treatment period is for 5 years.