What is this new allergy treatment? Part 1

I have been researching for many weeks now, trying to understand the ins and outs of this treatment Kaylee is receiving so that I can share with others what is really happening maybe a little bit about how it is working.

First, let me say what this is not: this is not what a typical allergist does. They will laugh you out of their office if you ask them about Provocation/Neutralization technique. In fact I called allergists in my HMO network and I was laughed at by one receptionist, but most didn't know what I was talking about. Only doctors from the American Academy of Environmental Medicine actually perform this testing. A most famous doctor that did this is Dr. Doris Rapp.

I wouldn't have imagined I would ever try this because it seemed too good to be true. But the director at the NNY clinic recommended it to me because she has done this with her daughter, and other ASD kids at their clinic who present with the more complicated allergy issues ( Kaylee falls into that most difficult to treat subset of children!)

This is what the testing is like:

First, the nurse injects a diluted substance of whatever antigen we are testing just under the skin (intradermally). This forms a flattened bump that is measured immediately.

In a non-reactive person, the bump either stays the same size or shrinks.
In a reactive person, like Kaylee, the bump swells within 10 minutes and becomes itchy and red. This means the immune system was triggered by the antigen that was injected. This makes the testing objective, because we can't rely on Kaylee being able to tell us how she feels. This is the Provocation stage.

Then, an even more diluted solution of the antigen is injected again intradermally, measured again. If this reacts, it is not the Neutralizing dose. If it doesn't react after 10 minutes, this is deemed the Neutralizing dose. It means that the body does not react to this concentraion of this substance/allergen. However, this won't neutralize the reaction yet because it has to be injected subcutaneously. Sounds like magic, doesn't it? I thought so too until I saw Kaylee get better with my own two eyes.

How exactly is this working? The lower dilution of the antigen activates T-Suppressor Cells in the immune system that, in essence, tell the rest of the immune system "It's alright, guys...this invader isn't worth going after." (a huge oversimplification.) Eventually, the immune system becomes desensitized and that specific antigen will no longer provoke a response. That is because T-Suppressor Cells tell the B-Cells in the immune system to stop making antibodies (which are the body's "invader recognition system")

Yes, this testing is time-consuming, tedious, and difficult to inject a 3 year old girl over and over and over again. She has been a real trooper, though. The doctor is over 70 miles away so we have had to make a few trips up there and break up our testing sessions. You can imagine the whole way up there Kaylee is in the backseat murmuring "No ouchie on my arm! No going to the doctor!"

We still aren't totally finished with all of her testing. So far we have tested a number of things like tree pollens, dust, dust mites, cockroach feces (it's in everything we eat apparently?), 18 different molds, glycerin, many foods, histamine, serotonin and next we will test more foods and grass pollens since those are starting to emerge now. In autumn we will address weeds when they come out.

Wow! Sorry if this is too long of a post. I feel like I have so much to say about this, I hope it is not confusing. I want to cover more about this in my upcoming posts. More to come!