Food allergies are on the rise in the United States, and they can have devastating effects if not properly managed. One of the most promising treatments to help people with food allergies include food allergy immunotherapy, or FAIT. This article will go over the basics of FAIT, how it works, and why it has shown so much promise in treating food allergies. Then, at the end of this article, you’ll find information on other helpful food allergy treatments available today.

What are food allergies?

According to data from FAIR Health, more than 6 million Americans are affected by food allergies. Most cases of food allergy stem from an immunoglobulin E (IgE) immune response. If you have a food allergy, your body will produce antibodies in response to certain foods that can cause symptoms like hives and swelling or even difficulty breathing. For example, if you’re allergic to peanuts or shellfish, they’ll likely elicit a strong reaction when consumed because IgE is closely associated with potentially fatal immune responses. The good news according to allergists in San Antonio, is that some people can completely overcome their allergies through immunotherapy—or desensitization treatment from Advanced Allergy, Asthma, & Immunology Center.

How do they affect our lives?

By some estimates, more than 8% of children have a food allergy. And more than 200,000 Americans will be hospitalized due to food allergies each year. A large-scale study found that between 1997 and 2007, an average of one death per year was linked to an allergic reaction from food. For kids with peanut allergies, researchers estimate that their risk of dying from a peanut allergy is one in 50,000.

Current treatments aren’t great

For people with severe food allergies, advanced allergy and asthma care treatments such as epinephrine can save lives. But as anyone who has ever had a life-threatening allergic reaction knows, current treatments aren’t great. There’s a small risk of mistakenly using too much epinephrine, which could prove fatal. A much more serious issue is that there are currently no available ways to desensitize people to certain foods without administering potentially harmful amounts of allergen. Epicutaneous immunotherapy (EPIT) might be able to change that—and it just received its first FDA approval in 2018!

Immunotherapy is making a splash

Immunotherapy using food proteins, called oral immunotherapy (OIT), is a promising new way to treat food allergies that we offer at Advanced Allergy, Asthma, & Immunology Center. OIT works by slowly increasing someone’s tolerance to a specific allergen over time. This can be done by consuming very small amounts of an allergen every day (known as sublingual immunotherapy) or, in some cases, simply eating large amounts of that allergen regularly (called oral immunotherapy). Since 2006, hundreds of people have been successfully treated with OIT—and most were able to return to eating their once-hated foods without problems. It’s an exciting treatment that could potentially change how we prevent and manage food allergies.

Where does this treatment stand today?

Though it’s still in its infancy, researchers have demonstrated that food allergy immunotherapy is a promising alternative to traditional treatments. This experimental approach involves injecting a small amount of an allergen into patients on a regular basis to desensitize them to allergens and reduce their sensitivity to allergens. If it’s deemed safe, immunotherapy could give people with life-threatening allergies an alternative treatment option aside from managing their diet or carrying around an EpiPen everywhere they go. In addition, immunotherapy has shown early promise in treating many types of food allergies—not just peanuts and milk—making it an exciting avenue of research in an area once thought insolvable.

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Wrapping Up

Food allergies can be a scary, even deadly, phenomenon. Currently, most doctors prescribe little more than antihistamines and epinephrine in case of an allergic reaction. However, some researchers are developing a promising treatment known as immunotherapy to desensitize people with food allergies—so that they might finally be able to eat foods they have been allergic to their whole lives.

If you are looking for the best medical facility that offers food allergy immunotherapy, then visit us at Advanced Allergy, Asthma, & Immunology Center.