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Australia starts peanut allergy treatment for babies

bbc.com

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Re: Australia starts peanut allergy treatment for babies

#151

Immunotherapy works. I run a company (YC w21) that wants to eliminate allergies forever. It's ancient medicine to manage symptoms with antihistamines when we can remove the root cause completely. Right now, we fix cat, dog, pet, pollen, and dust allergies. In a few years, we'll be doing nuts. Our launch HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26227807 company: https://www.wyndly.com/ book a visit with a doc: https:/…

I've done two rounds of sublingual drops over the past 8 years and both times I've seen no noticeable improvement. Once was directly through my doctor and the second time was through a service similar to this (Curex).

I don't doubt this works for some people, but I also don't think it works for everyone. I had much better results with shots.

Re: Australia starts peanut allergy treatment for babies

#152
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the current guidance in the US as well. https://mana.md/peanut-allergies-may-affect-your-child/

How have outcomes improved since the guidance?

There's very strong evidence of the success of this -- for babies with no indication of a peanut allergy, intentional exposure led to an ~85% reduction in allergies -- for those who had a positive allergy test before the study, they had a ~70% reduction in allergies by 5 years old.

> Among the 530 infants in the intention-to-treat population who initially had negative results on the skin-prick test, the prevalence of peanut allergy at 60 months of age was 13.7% in the avoidance group and 1.9% in the consumption group (P

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1414850

Re: Australia starts peanut allergy treatment for babies

#153
post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I asked our allergist about oral immunotherapy for my daughter and he cited a study that found that avoidance was more effective in preventing severe reactions.

Seems like a problem when avoidance goes even a bit wrong though. :(

[deleted]

Re: Australia starts peanut allergy treatment for babies

#154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have some allergies that the allergy doc’s test doesn’t show; he said they are there but not by histamine reaction. Do you support these? Also, what about things like gluten and dairy sensitivity?

Most people with a gluten allergy have celiacs which is not an allergy at all, but rather an autoimmune disorder. It’s similar enough to an allergy, though

A wheat allergy, though, is fairly common: order of 1% per [1], similar to celiac. And if you're allergic to wheat, then it's suffices to avoid gluten, since wheat contains gluten.

(Also, there are forms of gluten intolerance that are neither a wheat allergy nor celiac.)

[1]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10097276/

Re: Australia starts peanut allergy treatment for babies

#155
I am allergic to coffee (caused by covid).

It is not worth wasting the time of professional help, but coffee is important to me personally. I used to drink 3-5 cups per day, most socially.

Could someone please explain how I can use Zyrtec and doses to coffee to cure this akin to how other people in this thread are curing peanut allergies?

My original symptoms were severe nausea and throwing up.

I have been taking Zyrtec and drinking (fractions of a cup of) coffee for some years now and this has gradually reduced the reaction. I recently came off the Zyrtec and I can drink 1 coffee per day with only minor itching and some swelling in the throat, but I think with a better method I could increase the number of coffees per day and alleviate the remaining itching/swelling.

I am careful about using Zyrtec for long periods because I noticed other side effects from cetirizine such as lethargy when on it and chronic (seemingly incurable) insomnia when I came off it. Ideally if I go back on, I would want to come off after not more than 1 year. 6 months off cetirizine and the insomnia is starting to go away.

Re: Australia starts peanut allergy treatment for babies

#157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have some allergies that the allergy doc’s test doesn’t show; he said they are there but not by histamine reaction. Do you support these? Also, what about things like gluten and dairy sensitivity?

Most people with a gluten allergy have celiacs which is not an allergy at all, but rather an autoimmune disorder. It’s similar enough to an allergy, though

But for those of us who have non-celiac gluten sensitivity, does this help?

Re: Australia starts peanut allergy treatment for babies

#158
post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My daughter took part in a large study that led to similar guidance being introduced in the UK. The was randomised into the early introduction group, which meant that she had to eat peanut, egg, cow's milk, fish, wheat and sesame on a regular schedule when she was a baby. It was interesting - though lots of work, and when she was old enough to understand why she was going up to London for the follow-up tests, she was…

> Overall, food allergy was lower in the group introduced to allergenic foods early but the difference was not statistically significant. How is that proving the hypothesis?

Keep reading:

> ... Early introduction of all the foods was not easy but it was safe. Among the infants who did manage to consume the recommended quantity of the allergenic foods there was a two-thirds reduction in overall food allergy.

> For those who fed their infant the recommended amount of peanut there was a significant reduction in peanut allergy, 2.5% in the standard introduction group compared to no cases in the early introduction group (0%).

> There was also a significant reduction for egg allergy- 5.5% in the standard introduction group compared to 1.4% in the early introduction group.

In other words, in the group as a whole when considering all food allergies, the difference was not statistically significant, but that can be attributed to a large number of families in the test group failing to actually perform the test. It sounds like when you control for actually following the instructions there is a statistically significant difference in overall food allergy incidence.

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