Food Allergy Treatment

We are now offering treatment to qualifying patients (children and adults).

There are a number of therapies currently under study. The majority of the treatments increase the food allergy threshold (the amount of protein required to cause symptoms). 

Increasing the threshold is important to decrease the likelyhood that an accidental ingestion will trigger a reaction.  The higher the threshold is raised the more food has to be ingested to cause a reaction.

 Food allergy treatment is called Oral Desensitization.  Oral desensitization has been shown to be very effective in treating food allergy by raising the amount of the allergenic food (the food the person is allergic to) needed to be ingested to cause an allergic reaction.

• Who is this treatment effective for? It has shown to be effective in most patients.

• Who is eligible to receive food allergy treatment? Who is eligible all depends on the severity of the known reaction to the offending food. Older children (>5 yrs) and adults can be treated if they have mild, moderate or life-threatening reactions; Toddlers and younger children may be able to be treated if their food allergy reaction is mild or moderate.

Food allergy oral desensitization does not involve any medication. 

• Therapeutic Effect of Chinese Herbal Medicine on Food Allergy (FAHF-2)
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• An Interventional Study of Milk Allergy
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• Peanut Sublingual Immunotherapy (not nearly as effective as oral desensitization)
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• Oral Immunotherapy for Childhood Egg Allergy
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• Omalizumab in the Treatment of Peanut Allergy
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These are just a sample of a number of studies currently under way in the search for treatment of food allergy

The current recommendations in the prevention of food allergy in high risk infants is to begin at birth. (High risk = sibling or parent with food allergy, asthma, eczema)

• Breast feed until at least 4-6 months of age
• Formula supplement with either an amino acid based formula (example: Neocate, EleCare), extensively hydrolyzed casin formula (Alimentum, Nutramigen), or most economic of the three choices: partially hydrolyzed whey formula (Nestle Good Start.)
• After 4-6 months of age introduce solid foods (anything  that can not come out of the bottle) no food avoidance, add in diet in any order desired (including nuts, fish and shell fish).