201–210 of 249 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It's been difficult finding an allergist in Germany that's willing to accept this and move forward What are they saying? They don't believe in oral immunotherapy?
Even if they believe it, there's a list of treatments and procedures for each diagnosis that insurances are required to cover and oral immunatherapy might not be on said list.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
With. First they did a blood test (instead of a scratch test) to identify possible allergy levels. Then the allergist had us come into the office to take e.g. a few micrograms of peanut powder and watch him for reactions. Then we maintained the dose at home every day for the next couple weeks, taking zyrtec with it to avoid hives, etc. Then we'd go back in, try doubling the dose as a challenge. If he had a bad reacti…
Our son is allergic to nearly everything (peanuts, nuts, dairy, eggs, sesame, wheat) and we haven't found an allergist willing to work with us. Do you know if there's an age factor for immunotherapy effectiveness? He's 2 1/2 yo.
You have to shop around for allergists willing to do it. Our first allergist told us they weren’t comfortable doing it but it was becoming an increasingly popular option and referred us to several allergists who did it. We’ve also spoken to allergists who were bearish on it. It’s because there’s very little published data.
In The Netherlands it is recommended to introduce peanut and egg to babies between 4 and 6 months, to reduce the chances of food allergy. More information (in Dutch): https://www.voedingscentrum.nl/nl/service/vraag-en-antwoord/...
Where does the peanut and egg allergy come from? My understanding is that peanut oil and egg albumin are ingredients in many common medicines given early to infants.. is there any chance that could be contributing?
Egg albumin is also interesting because the vast majority of kids outgrow it. My toddler has a peanut allergy but has already outgrown his egg albumin allergy.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can you show us any peer reviewed paper ?
I tried searching pubmed but turns out there are a lot of Mana Shahs working in bio research and pharma. The big question for me is whether this is a permanent fix or if you have to keep taking their tablets (at $99-ish a month, it looks like?) Unfortunately this doesn't look to be covered by my insurance as the at-home test is not administered by a doctor.
Fortunately, peanuts aren’t expensive. The expensive part is the trained allergist whose job is to keep up with the research, and in my case, who I suspect will be publishing interesting papers in the next few years.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wow that is really good to hear. I am on immunotherapy for a different type of allergy and can't stop talking about its effectiveness. It has been life changing.
I did a whole immunization against dust mites and I feel like it didn't work at all. q.q I've been wondering if there's something else causing me to be allergic to them, like something I eat or so, idk. But I'll have to get tested again
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Even if they believe it, there's a list of treatments and procedures for each diagnosis that insurances are required to cover and oral immunatherapy might not be on said list.
Is health insurance a common thing in Germany? Don't they have universal health care?
You can pick from several public providers, but the price is basically fixed and deducted directly from your salary/payed by the state if you’re unemployed.
There is a 2nd system of private insurance providers. Those tend to get you preferential treatment at doctors because they pay them more than the public insurance which has fixed rates, but they will hike prices as you get older and you can’t go back to the public System.
Our son is very allergic to peanuts and less so to cashew, and sesame. We went through oral immunotherapy and it's been absolutely life changing. He used to need an epi pen in case of chance encounter, but now he eats 2 whole peanut m&ms every day to keep his dosage up. It's been difficult finding an allergist in Germany that's willing to accept this and move forward Obviously everyone's mileage will vary, but I'm ha…
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.
Oral immunotherapy seems to be very effective but sticking with it is nontrivially hard.
When I was a kid in Australia decades ago we'd never heard of peanut allergies and swapping peanut butter sandwiches at school was the norm. No doubt there were allergies back then but what on earth has made them so much more common these days? Same with asthma. Something has gone terribly wrong.
> When I was a kid in Australia decades ago we'd never heard of peanut allergies and swapping peanut butter sandwiches at school was the norm. Recognition of severe peanut allergies plus a common false hypothesis that early exposure increased the risk of such allergies developing led lots of parents in lots of places for a few decades to avoid their children having early exposure, leading to a huge increase in severe…
Seems that common sense prevailed there.
"Lots of stuff going on with asthma,…"
I grew up in a cold, damp mountain environment where mists and rain were commonplace (by the time Ventolin/salbutamol came onto the market in the late '60s I'd have left school), and I recall no kids that I knew who had asthma. I'm not saying that asthma was unknown, I'm just saying it wasn't as common as it seems to be these days.
Again, I'd like to know the stats, population versus reported incidents by year etc., so we had a handle on what's actually happened over this timeframe.
Our son is very allergic to peanuts and less so to cashew, and sesame. We went through oral immunotherapy and it's been absolutely life changing. He used to need an epi pen in case of chance encounter, but now he eats 2 whole peanut m&ms every day to keep his dosage up. It's been difficult finding an allergist in Germany that's willing to accept this and move forward Obviously everyone's mileage will vary, but I'm ha…
In Israel this is done naturally by feeding children Bamba, a puffed peanut snack, at a very early age. Research shows significantly decreased levels of peanut allergy. https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/02/23/388450621/fe...
The original studies on peanut allergy and bamba in Israel came out many years ago.
It’s taken people so long in the US to learn about the value of introducing small amount to babies at a young age to protect them.
I can only think of the many families and children who have been negatively impacted due to the lack of awareness and understanding in America.
When I was a kid in Australia decades ago we'd never heard of peanut allergies and swapping peanut butter sandwiches at school was the norm. No doubt there were allergies back then but what on earth has made them so much more common these days? Same with asthma. Something has gone terribly wrong.
I saw a show several years ago that said Australia (I think specifically Melbourne?) and a city in Finland are the epicentre of research for food allergies, because of how prevalent they are. The Finnish two was basically split in two decades ago so that half of it is in Russia and half in Finland. The Finnish side has made significantly better economic progress since then, but also has a much higher rate of allergie…
To me, that's very significant. It's almost a quintessential model. Splitting a population down the middle and changing the circumstances of one and not the other has to be pretty much the ideal situation for researchers. So what's the research say?
"In Australia it seemed to affect first generation descendants!… … “you tell someone in Malaysia your kids are allergic to satay and they just don’t understand”."
Reckon that'd be pretty disturbing for parents who'd consider satay a staple food. Again, I can only say that Australian kids of my generation who came of age in the late '60s—mid '70s and who were exposed to Asian foods including satay for the first time and loved it, never seemed to have problematic allergies with peanut sauces.
BTW, re swapping sandwiches, the trade at school often occurred with peanut butter and honey (or jam) with Vegemite and lettuce (sometimes cheese). I always preferred the latter, the former being a bit too sweet (perhaps I was a bit unusual). :-)