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Allergy Immune Therapy

Immune therapy for allergies, also known as immunotherapy, will help you tolerate the allergens that cause your allergy symptoms. Immunotherapy is a series of allergy shots where a small amount of the offending allergen is injected. This builds up your tolerance or immunity to the allergen over time. Oral immunotherapy, rush therapy and intranasal therapy are other forms of allergy immunotherapy. Immunotherapy has not been shown to be effective for food allergies or hives. It will not cure your allergies but should help to reduce the severity of your symptoms.

  1. Allergy Shots

    • Before getting allergy immune therapy, tell your doctor about all the medications you currently take. Medicines such as beta blockers can interfere with your therapy or cause side effects. You may not be able to take allergy shots if you cannot stop taking these medications.

      Allergy shots will be given to you twice a month over a period of two to five years. They will be given to you in gradually increasing doses. The shots will contain doses of the allergens you are sensitive to. You should become less sensitive to these allergens over time as your immunity builds from the injections. You might develop redness, swelling or irritation at the site of the injection, which should disappear within four to eight hours.

      You will need to be watched in the doctor's office for about 30 minutes after receiving your immune therapy to make sure you don't develop shortness of breath or other respiratory symptoms. If you develop these symptoms later, take an antihistamine, use your asthma medicine and call or go back to your doctor's office or to the nearest emergency room in a breathing emergency.

    Rush Immunotherapy

    • If your doctor suggests rush immunotherapy, you will need to receive this in a hospital under close medical supervision. Increasing doses of the allergen are injected every few hours rather than every few weeks. But there is a greater risk of an entire-body reaction. You may need to be pretreated with medicine to reduce the chances of having this reaction.

    Sublingual and Intranasal Allergy Immune Therapy

    • If you live outside the United States, doctors in Germany and other countries offer sublingual or oral allergy immune therapy where drops of the allergens are placed under the tongue in gradually increasing doses as is done with injections. In addition, studies have shown intranasal administration of grass, birch tree and house dust-mite allergen extracts to be effective at reducing nasal allergy symptoms. However, sublingual allergy drops and intranasal allergy immunotherapy have not received approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

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