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Written by Jerry Malcolm
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Saturday, 26 December 2009 23:37 |
 When you are suffering with the kind of allergy symptoms that take over your life for a while, you might be willing to submit to any kind of cure if it could just make the problem of allergies go away. Many allergy symptoms bring such suffering that they virtually stop you from being able to function. Those symptoms might include sinus problems that can make you sneeze and bring headaches, watering eyes and aches and pains so disturbing that it is as if you have the flu. Other allergies cause an allergy rash that vests horrible itching on you that is impossible to ignore.
Allergies try the soul like no other ailment we encounter both because the symptoms can be so difficult to cope with and because there seems to be no hope of getting rid of an allergy entirely. Of the various measures we have at our disposal to rid ourselves of allergies, the primary weapon seems to be avoidance of the enemy. But for any allergy sufferer, there is always the option of seeking the help of immunotherapy and getting allergy shots to put into effect a more aggressive strategy to win against allergies.
Allergy shots are a viable method for beating allergies. The way the shots work is that they slowly cause your body to be desensitized against the allergens that are causing the reaction. An allergy is essentially a hypersensitivity of the immune system to a substance that is usually relatively harmless in its own right. So by causing the immune system to lose its hypersensitivity to the allergen, the allergy problem theoretically goes away.
The difficulty of going the allergy shot route is that it is not a fast solution. The shots are slowly retraining your immune system not to react improperly to the allergen. In many cases, the allergy sufferer may have to take a series of shots each month for as long as four or five years before the allergy is defeated entirely. That is a high price to pay both financially and in terms of inconvenience and the pain of the shots. So most of us think long and hard before entering into an allergy shot solution for our allergies.
The science behind the allergy shot solution is called immunotherapy. Before the shots to "cure" your allergy can begin, there may be a lengthy diagnostic period where the exact cause of the allergy is identified. The cause is referred to immunotherapy as the "trigger". The types of allergies where immunotherapy is mostly used are problems with bee and other insect stings. It is always appropriate to seek an immunotherapy solution for an allergy whose symptoms may result in a serious medical emergency or death.
Immunotherapy is not for everybody. It is an expensive procedure that takes a serious investment of time and money. In most cases, people turn to immunotherapy when the allergy they suffer with is quite serious and where other solutions have not been effective.
It is always smart to have a frank discussion of your options with your doctor or your allergist. He or she may have you try avoidance, over the counter drugs or even home remedies before resorting to allergy shots. But if none of the conventional approaches to avoiding allergy symptoms works for you and your allergy continues to seriously disturb your life for month after month and year after year, you may be ready to turn to immunotherapy rather than continue to put up with the problem.
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Last Updated on Sunday, 27 December 2009 21:18 |