Replace Your Antihistamines With Long Acting Allergy Treatments

Do you have allergies and have been on antihistamines for a long time? Do you experience side effects from your medication or perhaps it doesn't work as well as it could? Did you know that some physicians don't recommend taking antihistamines long term because they tend to cover over the problem and can actually make your allergy worse? Have you ever taken Benadryl? I don't know about you but Benadryl knocks me for a loop, I can't function on it. I'm allergic to neurotoxins so I'm allergic to corals, hydroids and jellyfish.

I was scuba diver for 40 years and repeatedly got stung almost every time I went diving. Had to go to the emergency room a number of times and that's where prescription Benadryl or cortisol came into play. My doctors told me I needed to quite diving or I could die, however I wasn't about to give up driving. I loved it too much. Just want to mention a recent study that found that there is evidence linking long-term use of Benadryl (and related antihistamines) with dementia. I wondered if I had alternatives that would allow me to continue diving safely.

There are not a whole lot of alternatives although you can use allergen immunotherapy commonly known as allergy shots. This is a long-term therapy that has been used for decades. This procedure can significantly reduce symptoms and decrease the need for antihistamines. It can also help protect against developing other allergies. This therapy changes how the immune system sees your allergens. These shots help your body get used to your allergen trigger which prevents the run away immune response. First you need to be tested to find what you react to and then a custom treatment is developed. The idea is to expose you to increasingly higher doses of your allergen trigger until you no longer react to it. You'll need to be vaccinated repeatedly over a number of months so you'll need to go to the doctor on a regular basis. That's the down side to this. It is possible to take your immunotherapy sublingually (SLIT) and forgo the shots (yeah). And, you can take the medicine at home, no doctor visits after initial assessment and administration.

There is a bright side to things in that new treatments are on the horizon. Researchers are looking at nano-technologies using nanoparticles to carry allergens past the immune system so your system learns not to see them. In a recent study, allergens were loaded into nanoparticles and injected into the blood stream of mice. The nanoparticle had lactic and glycolic acid on their surfaces which the immune system can't see. These molecules are found throughout the body and not considered foreign by the immune system. The nanoparticle was phagocytized by a macrophage which helped to reset the immune system to not recognize the allergen. So, the mice no longer demonstrated an allergic response to the allergen. This procedure is going to clinical trials for testing on humans.

#Allergy #Health #Lifestyle #Wellness