20% of U.S. adults and nearly 40% of children are affected by environmental allergies, also known as hay fever.
Environmental allergy symptoms include:
- Itchy, watery eyes
- Stuffy, runny nose and sneezing
- Wheezing and coughing
There are five main environmental allergies:
These pesky culprits account for approximately 1.5 million school days missed and 28 million days of lost productivity for adults every year.
Hay fever or allergic rhinitis has increased by 100% globally in each of the last three decades in developed countries.1
Many people with mild to severe environmental allergies prefer allergy drops rather than trying to avoid their allergies or take over-the-counter medication as a temporary fix. Treating the cause of allergies can improve quality of life, reduce the chances of new allergies developing, and can reduce the need for related medications. Immunotherapy, whether allergy shots or allergy drops, is the only treatment that retrains the immune system to reduce or stop reactions long term.
Our AAOL team helps you identify your environmental allergies through a detailed history, exam and one or more of our testing options. Once we have identify your allergies and understand your unique allergic fingerprint, we will prescribe personalized allergy drops. You may need symptom-relieving medications until your drops help you build tolerance.
Some patients may take some time to respond, and some respond quickly. It depends on the patient’s conditions, how well they follow treatment, the allergies’ severity and allergy trigger exposures. The average treatment for environmental allergies is three to five years.
Did you know?
In the U.S., more than half of the population tests positive for one or more allergen. This has not always been the case. Allergy rates, and allergic asthma, have climbed substantially in recent decades. According to the Center for Disease Control’s study, the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, 56.3% of asthma cases are caused by having one or more allergy. Asthma affected 6.8 million in 1980, 13.7 million in 1994 and now 25 million (ACAAI).
Some of the most gratifying sublingual immunotherapy studies are those which have shown a decrease in asthma development in children. In one study (Novembre) the effect was a nearly four-fold decrease in asthma development in patients who were treated with sublingual immunotherapy versus control subjects. In another study (Di Rienzo) patients with asthma who improved on sublingual immunotherapy still saw improvement five years after therapy ended. In the Annals of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology September 2008, Marogna et al. published a study comparing sublingual immunotherapy (SLIT) vs medications only. New allergic sensitizations occurred in 34.8% of controls, and in only 3.1% of SLIT patients. After three years, 45% of the control group had developed intermittent or persistent asthma. 13% of SLIT patients developed asthma. These studies show the benefits of treating the underlying allergy and encourage the use of sublingual immunotherapy in more patients with allergies and asthma.
1American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology
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