Allergy Drops Erase 30 Years of Suffering for MD

Dr. Leiken, who has suffered from allergies for over 30 years, stands in front of an Olive tree in his backyard. Since he’s been taking allergy drops, the Olive tree no longer triggers his symptoms.

In the past, AllerVision’s blog has featured Dr. Dean Mitchell sharing his wisdom from many years of running an allergy practice. In this and future posts, we’ll be looking at allergies from the patients’ and other providers’ points of view.  

I am a physician who has been suffering from allergies for over 30 years. Five years ago, I started to give AllerVision’s allergy drops a try and have had excellent results.

Before I started using the drops, I had severe hay fever symptoms sporadically throughout the year but much more intensely between November and May. I often had sinus infections and my nose was stopped up a good deal of that time. Often I would sneeze many times in a row. Over the past 25-30 years, I tried various methods to deal with my allergies. I received shots from an allergist; it seemed to help for a time but after a couple of years I received less and less benefit. That treatment was costly and time consuming. In later years, I tried acupuncture. That also helped for a time and then lost its effectiveness. 

I suffered without any sort of treatment for quite a while until I began taking the drops. Within about three months I noticed a remarkable change in my hay fever symptoms. The most obvious improvement was that I was able to go into my backyard where there is an olive tree that never failed to cause an allergic reaction. I was even able to sit under the tree with no symptoms! Over these five past years that I’ve been taking the drops, there has been just one occasion where I experienced severe allergic symptoms; a nasal cortisone inhaler solved the problem in that situation. 

Unlike the other treatments, I have not found any noticeable diminishing effect of the AllerVision drops.They have been a major help to me over these years. I also appreciate the fact that I don’t have to go to an allergist each week for shots and I don’t have to wait in his office for a half hour to see if I develop an anaphylactic reaction. And I don’t have to make a weekly co-payment.

In short, as a long-time allergy sufferer, I can very highly recommend AllerVision drops.

Dr. Stanley Leiken, MD

(Disclosure: Dr. Leiken is the father of AllerVision co-founder Jennifer Robb and an investor in the company. His comments above, and his investment, are based on his success with the treatment.) 

Dr. Dean Mitchell and Dr. Jerry Block Discuss Key Allergy Issues on “All Things Medical” Radio Show

 

A man gives his son allergy drops, which can be customized to address multiple allergies at once.

On Sunday, September 28, 2014, I had the honor of joining Dr. Jerry Block as a guest on his radio show “All Things Medical.” Dr. Block is a holistic medical doctor who practices in Tulsa, Oklahoma. In addition to being extremely articulate, he demonstrates an excellent grasp of the issues regarding allergy testing and treatment. Below I recap two of the topics we discussed.

Sublingual Allergy Immunotherapy

Dr. Block raised the topic of the FDA-approved sublingual tablet for grass and ragweed allergy. He asked how I felt about the FDA decision and how the tablets compared to the drops prescribed with the AllerVision program, and wondered if the therapy represented competition for AllerVision. I responded that I am very glad that the FDA approved the “big pharma” sublingual tablets because their official acceptance validates the efficacy of the sublingual route for allergy immunotherapy. However, I feel the drug companies’ therapies suffer from a number of drawbacks compared to the sublingual drops provided through the AllerVision program.

The first drawback and concern for me is that the products — Orlair, Grazax and Ragwitek — all come at a single high potency dose. This is problematic for highly allergic patients who may not be able to tolerate such a high dose. Allergy immunotherapy has always been accomplished in a multi-step desensitization whereby initial low doses are increased slowly and carefully to eventually achieve high dose protection. The AllerVision program of allergy drops follows this protocol. Secondly, the drug company products each address a single allergen: grass or ragweed. There are numerous other allergens: dust mites, tree pollens, pet dander and molds that are not addressed with the pharma tablets. The AllerVision program incorporates a customized combination of allergens in mixes of categories specific to each patient. Customized combination therapy is not only the way treatment has always been carried out by allergists, it is the most convenient and economical to treat the entire spectrum of the patient’s allergic syndrome. The drug company products will cost a patient roughly $8 per tablet compared to $2 per day for drops on the AllerVision program…big difference!

Why are there so many people allergic today?

One of Dr Block’s big concerns was why it seems there are so many more children today with food and environmental allergies. My answer to him explained “The Hygiene Hypothesis,” which is espoused by epidemiological experts. At its core, it states that allergic diseases have flourished because of the overuse of antibiotics, vaccines and aggressive (even obsessive) sanitization efforts. At first this sounds crazy — we know that proper infection control is incredibly important; how can we be TOO CLEAN? But our increased understanding of the human microbiome points to the theory that excessive medical intervention has decreased infants’ exposure to good bacteria which, in turn, has unleashed an increase in allergies and autoimmune diseases. In fact, a key study this spring published in a major allergy journal found that infants treated with multiple courses of antibiotics before the age of two were much more likely to develop asthma than children who didn’t receive antibiotics!

I was impressed with Dr. Block’s knowledge of allergy and his interest in providing the best allergy testing and treatment for his patients. I reminded his listeners that AllerVision supports providers all over the United States offering affordable and effective sublingual allergy treatment!

Dr. Dean Mitchell