Low Dose Allergen

Low dose allergen treatment (LDA) is a safe and effective method of immunotherapy used for treating food and environmental allergies. Far different from other allergy treatments, LDA contains unique antigens that help restore your body’s immune tolerance to the environment outside and inside your body. It is used to treat multiple conditions and appears to be a long-lasting treatment option for allergy and many autoimmune illnesses.

LDA works to restore your natural active immune tolerance to specific environmental antigens or allergens, which have become deregulated in allergy and autoimmune disease. LDA is used in extremely low doses that uses broad-based mixtures of allergens (antigens) made immunologically active by the enzyme glucuronidase. Following the administration of the LDA, there is an increase in T regulator cells (Treg). The Treg cells address inappropriate cellular responses to substances promoted by CD4 (helper), CD8 (killer) and B Cells (this is where the immune system has been trying to protect you from things like food, environmental inhalants or even your own tissues). Simply put, this shuts off the allergic or adverse response.

LDA is administered using tiny intradermal injections on the skin of the forearm. On average, our patients receive 1 to 2 injections (usually one on each forearm) per treatment. Initially, LDA injections are usually taken at two month intervals. As you progress, the interval between injections is gradually extended until they are taken at yearly intervals. Some patients may even be able to stop treatment for extended periods of time without their allergy symptoms returning. Other patients have taken injections 1 to 4 times a year for up to 20 years. Most patients can either go a long time between injections or stop entirely after about 16 to 18 injections. For severe food allergies, 6 to 12 doses or 1 to 2 years of treatment may be necessary before good results are achieved. Most patients notice improvement within the first three doses. If no improvement is noted, there may be factors interfering, which we would then evaluate.

Conventional or what is known as “escalating dose” immunotherapy (where the dose is started low and increased over time) is employed in this country by many allergists, primarily to treat hay fever and cat and dust mite allergy, which are primarily IgE ediated. This type of immunotherapy works by creating a type of “blocking antibody” (specific IgG antibody), which inhibits the histamine-releasing ability (which produces the allergy symptoms) of the mast cell.

The higher the level of blocking antibody that can be produced, the more successful the treatment. To produce adequate levels of blocking antibody, studies have shown that administration of very high doses of allergen is required. However, this method of treatment often causes intolerable swelling and other side effects before positive outcomes can be attained, and can be dangerous. Furthermore, only allergies to inhalants can be treated – not foods or chemicals, which is often a core problem.

The effectiveness of LDA is improved if the problem foods and inhalants are avoided for a few days after the injection. There are also a number of medications (such as antihistamines and aspirin) that may significantly reduce or destroy the effect of LDA if taken in the three weeks after treatment. These will all be discussed with you by your physician.

The advantages of LDA therapy greatly outweigh the disadvantages, particularly in the fact that it effectively treats a very wide variety of disorders not generally perceived to be immune-related or caused by an allergy such as migraine headaches, ADD/ADHD, Lyme disease, autoimmune disease, IBS, constipation, diarrhea, chronic fatigue syndrome, chronic sinusitis, fibromyalgia, diabetes, weight gain, Hashimoto’s, Tourette’s and Raynaud’s syndromes, and many others. Many of our patients who have gone through LDA treatment report that they need fewer medications, get fewer infections and have more tolerance to foods, pollens and chemicals.

Often times, the effect of LDA can be felt immediately, however, for some the full benefit of LDA will take longer to achieve. Studies have shown that 60% of patients note a significant positive response with their first treatment and almost all patients respond positively by the third treatment. In particular, some patients with food allergy or intolerance may only notice sustained improvement after three to six doses and severely reactive foods may take two years to become tolerable.

Alternatively, about 1 in 25 patients does not respond with strongly positive results until having had 6 treatments. The overall response rate for all conditions treated with LDA is approximately 65% to 95%, depending on the condition being treated.

At Holtorf Medical Group, we use a variety of LDA mixtures, including inhaled pollens, dander, dust and mites, fungi, yeast (including Candida species), molds, foods, many food additives, most common chemicals and perfumes, and formaldehyde.