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I couldn't escape poison oak, so I started eating it
41–50 of 207 posts
Re: I couldn't escape poison oak, so I started eating it
#42Does anyone know why desensitization works for some allergies but for other things, like latex, the more you are exposed to them the more likely you are to develop an allergy?
It's not just the amount of exposure, it's the type. Skin exposure is generally sensitizing. Mouth exposure is generally desensitizing, as long as it is below the threshold that causes a severe reaction, and the exposure is more often than roughly twice weekly (the more often the better).
This may be a reason why babies stick everything in their mouths.
This is the basis of oral immunotherapy, and if you ate latex daily it could possibly desensitize you. However, the immune system is insanely complicated and not fully understood. There are a lot of gotchas here. It may actually be possible to desensitize with skin exposure with careful control of the dose, as there are some 'skin patch" treatments that work for some people although generally not nearly as well as the oral route. Not all allergies are the same, and may not be treatable by exposure in some people. The immunity obtained by immunotherapy may not be the same as natural immunity, it may disappear over time, and the treatment itself can have hard to detect but severe chronic side effects like eosinophilic esophagitis. So don't DIY!
Interestingly I have heard that mango skin contains the same irritant chemical as poison oak. I wonder if eating mango skin would help desensitize people to poison oak. I once ate a very small amount by accident and had a weird feeling in my throat and a bad taste in my mouth for ten minutes afterward, so it sounds pretty unpleasant to me.
Re: I couldn't escape poison oak, so I started eating it
#43If this would help with poison ivy outbreaks I would be all over this.
Re: I couldn't escape poison oak, so I started eating it
#44You don't need to eat it. A well-known phenomenon in the US military is that some of the sites for Basic Training of new recruits have prodigious quantities of poison oak/ivy/sumac as the local flora. As consequence of the military training, you are rolling around in those plants daily. Initially, a large percentage of people have the usual reaction but it quickly disappears after a few weeks and it never happens again, providing apparent permanent immunity.
This is in contrast to the experience many kids have in the US of sporadic exposure and no immunity. Apparently intense sustained exposure is required.
Re: I couldn't escape poison oak, so I started eating it
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
Pointing out that at some points Joe Rogan might have been smeared unjustly by mainstream media does not in any way come close to absolving the crimes JR has committed against modern science by giving constant airtime to outright quacks. Anyone remotely interested in making sure proper science knowledge and education makes it out to gen pop should be completely against Rogan and everything he stands for. It only take…
> crimes JR has committed against modern science Science doesn't work like that, religion does. "Science" harmed itself with some people and an ideology heavily censoring opponents, and by shutting down any debate, including scientific one.
Science is not conducted through public debate. Full stop. There's a reason why it's peer review, and not talk show host review.
During COVID, most everybody was operating from an incomplete data set. Public officials were wrong about some things. You can choose to see this as a conspiracy set up by big pharma, or you can see it as imperfect people doing what they could to mitigate a public health crisis.
And yes, critique the peer review process all you want. It's flawed in many ways. But this "it's us versus science" narrative is extremely, insidiously damaging to society at large. It only serves powerful people who benefit from whipping an audience into a frenzy to buy their shitty supplements or bumper stickers or whatever.
Re: I couldn't escape poison oak, so I started eating it
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
> crimes JR has committed against modern science Science doesn't work like that, religion does. "Science" harmed itself with some people and an ideology heavily censoring opponents, and by shutting down any debate, including scientific one.
Science is not conducted through public debate. Full stop. There's a reason why it's peer review, and not talk show host review. During COVID, most everybody was operating from an incomplete data set. Public officials were wrong about some things. You can choose to see this as a conspiracy set up by big pharma, or you can see it as imperfect people doing what they could to mitigate a public health crisis. And yes, cr…
>Science is not conducted through public debate. Full stop. There's a reason why it's peer review, and not talk show host review.
You're only saying that because you happen to disagree with what is being said. Full stop.
Re: I couldn't escape poison oak, so I started eating it
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is the most anti-science attitude I think I've seen in a very long time. It's also foolish and dangerous IMHO, because it greatly contributes to the very thing you want to prevent: amplification and creation of quack science to the gen pop. Simply depriving these people of airtime does NOT quash their views and make them go away. It fuels conspiracy theories such as about how big pharma is censoring ideas about…
This is just a variant of “both sides” argument. Both sides are not equal. There will be conspiracy theorists and quacks always, no matter what you do. It’s when you give them a microphone and any semblance of legitimacy that it becomes dangerous. Case in point: Alex Jones. The correct thing is to dismiss these people outright. It’s already been demonstrated that if you try to have a public discourse on this kind of…
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Re: I couldn't escape poison oak, so I started eating it
#48Several kids in our family's social group have successfully undergone desensitization therapy for severe nut allergies. It was much more rigorous than the author's approach, with weekly doctor visits and taking increasingly large amounts of whatever they were allergic to (starting with micrograms of nut powder). I think my niece had the best time as she eventually was advised to start eating daily measured amounts of…
I have direct experience with this and it is indeed a miracle. What's interesting is that the protocol largely emerged outside the regulatory channels, with a handful of doctors worldwide developing it once the science became clear that exposure could help and more and more offering it to patients every year. These allergists have carefully figured out regimens that work and it can take a year of daily dosing, with d…
Oral immunotherapy is indeed dangerous. Eosinophilic esophagitis is real. Anaphylaxis is common. It's a long, tedious road, with daily dosing for years, and in many people the treatment ends in failure rendering the effort wasted.
Although many do achieve remission, there is no guarantee that the allergy is gone for good. The immunity obtained by immunotherapy is not necessarily the same as natural immunity. It may not be complete and it may not be long lasting. The immune system has a long, long memory and we do not have any reliable tests to determine if anyone's immunity is permanent. For that reason allergists recommend continuing dosing indefinitely to maintain immunity, and continuing to carry an epi-pen. For the rest of your life. You will get sick of peanut butter.
All that said, we are doing sublingual immunotherapy for our son. But I am hoping that within his lifetime new treatments are developed that will free him from allergies completely.
Precise control of the immune system would be the holy grail of medicine IMO. Dysfunctions of the immune system are at the root of so many diseases, not just allergies. If the immune system could be easily trained to ignore or attack arbitrary targets at will it could likely cure almost any infection or cancer. And I bet it could be useful in treating the diseases of aging as well.
Re: I couldn't escape poison oak, so I started eating it
#49Absurd that there is zero mention of Mithridates in the article. As always, Chesterton's Fence applies to medicine. Be very wary of anything outside of healthy diet, sleep, exercise, and relationships. If you don't know why your body is fevering, don't lower the fever. If you don't know why your blood pressure is high, don't lower it. We in the medical field vastly overestimate our understanding of human physiology.
If the human body was a codebase you'd be cursing the idiot who designed it. It's just good eonugh to get the job done (reproduction) before the wheels code off.
Re: I couldn't escape poison oak, so I started eating it
#50Metamizole is the only thing that works for me when I have fever. But it seems that I recently developped an allergy to it, which is a bummer. Every single damn time I take metamizole, I develop very itch rashes. So by taking some substance it seem I became more sensitive to it's side effects, not less.
I never found any drug that can actually reduce fever and is available without prescription.