My son Iain developed allergies to all dairy products and soy products by the age of six months. By the time he
was three years old, he had lost his soy allergy, but picked up the more serious peanut allergy. He also had chronic
eczema, asthma, and bouts of unexplained hives.
By the time Iain was five years old, I had figured out how to help him live with these allergies as comfortably as possible.
This necessitated a very specialized diet (a lot of extra cooking for Mom!), oatmeal baths to reduce itchiness, daily applications
of lotions, daily low-dose steroid treatments via nebulizer, almost daily doses of antihistamines, and avoidance of situations
where food would be present and he would be unsupervised. Additionally, when he became more ill, higher dose steroids
and antihistamines would become necessary.
Doctors had told me that if my son was going to outgrow his allergies, he would do so by the age of five. This
age came and went with no signficant changes. It was then that I decided to look into doing something about my son's
allergies, instead of sentencing him to life, as it were, of avoiding so many things the rest of us take for granted, as well
as a lifetime of taking drugs that could possibly affect his mental, physical, and emotional development.
As I did more and more research, I kept coming across sublingual immunotherapy as a possibility. When I found a
clinic nearby (OK--200 miles away), I decided that even though insurance would not cover it, this was a therapy I had to look
into for my son.
It continues to amaze me that this therapy, though accepted as effective and proven effective in European countries and
elsewhere, still is seen as "alternative" by the medical community in the United States. As a result, it is difficult
to find information on the topic, or to discuss it with most allergists. As more and more research is done in the US,
however, the experts will have to give credence to this therapy.
In my opinion, the reason sublingual immunotherapy has not been researched or accepted in the United States is because
of the big drug companies. Here in the US, most studies are funded by drug companies. Also, the patents for the
allergy drops are held by foreign drug companies. These two factors mean that it is not in the US drug companies' interests
to sponsor any research on SLIT; also, because SLIT almost always reduces or eliminates the need for allergy meds, it has
the potential to decrease business for American drug companies. This means it is in the best interests of these companies
not only to refuse to fund research on the topic, but to oppose the approval by the FDA of the use of allergy drops in the
United States.
I created this site to share information from around the world about how sublingual immunotherapy is being used, what
its efficacy is, etc. This site is intended to be purely informational in nature, and is not designed to recommend this
treatment to anyone. Every person needs to make up his or her own mind about whether or not this treatment is a good
option.
Thanks for visiting!
