Causal treatment
Symptomatic or causal treatment?
There are two ways of tackling allergic symptoms: treating the symptoms or treating the cause. If the cause can be removed, the symptoms will disappear with it, as will the need for medication. A therapy that is designed to eliminate the cause is referred to as specific immunotherapy or hyposensitisation.
Reducing or eliminating hypersensitivity
The purpose of hyposensitisation is to reduce hypersensitivity to a certain allergen. This is achieved by administering increasing concentrations of the allergen. Hyposensitisation can be very fruitful: it may ease allergic reactions or even prevent them from recurring at all.
Immunotherapy: the international standard
Immunotherapy has been defined as the only causal treatment of allergic symptoms. See the guidelines of the World Health Organisation (WHO). You can read more about this in Immunotherapy in the WHO and ARIA guidelines. Apart from the fact that specific immunotherapy has been defined as a standard treatment, research has also demonstrated that a hyposensitisation course at an early age may even prevent asthma. Such a course takes approximately three years. Hyposensitisation courses are used primarily for the treatment of common allergies, such as hay fever, allergy of pets and other animals hair and to house dust mites.
New developments in hyposensitisation
Developments in hyposensitisation have not exactly stagnated in the last few years. It has become more effective and other forms of administration have become available. Injections are no longer necessary. Sublingual administration is also possible nowadays. In the case of sublingual therapy, the allergen is placed under the tongue. This is a more comfortable and painless procedure, which generally has fewer side effects than injections.
