Can someone please enlighten me on LDA (Low Dose Allergen therapy)??

[IowaMom]

I have a friend who was in our community FA support group who has taken her twin girls for LDA shots for their various IgG allergies.  She has told us repeatedly that this treatment also works for IgE allergies, including PN.  I was just wondering what people's thoughts were about it, and why it has never been brought up (that I could find anyway) on these boards?  Here is a paragraph about it from a random internet article:

[quoteAn American-made form of low dose immunotherapy called LDA (for Low Dose Allergens) was developed in 2003. Both EPD and LDA are used to treat inhalant allergies, adverse reactions to chemicals, and food allergies all at the same time. They stimulate the body to make T-suppressor lymphocytes specific for allergen suppression. These lymphocytes retrain the body not to react to allergenic substances.{2} Because the shot's effectiveness is dependent on having the correct, very low dose exposure to allergens at the time the shot is given, patients must avoid exposure to high amounts of allergens around the time of their shots. For severely allergic persons, it may take two years of treatment to achieve good results with food allergens, but after that, most patients' diets are unrestricted except for around the time of their shots. About 70-80% of LDA patients have a good response to treatment for food allergies. The success rate for inhalant allergies is 80-85% (90% if the patient has no food allergies) and the response is usually rapid, within one to a few shots.{3} Retesting is never required for low dose immunotherapy.{4}

][/quote]

Thanks!!

[CMdeux]

Well, the problem with treatments intended for IgG allergies is that...

oh, let's see.... how to put this...





they aren't treating ""allergies"" (because that isn't what "IgG" anything actually IS) and therefore, they won't work on... um... actual-- you know, "real"-- allergies involving IgE.

Now, immunotherapy regimens CAN work for IgE allergies.  This is the basis of "allergy shots" and also the basis for some desensitization protocols for food allergy currently conducted at a few major research centers.  I cannot iterate strongly enough, however, that this kind of thing is-- well, it's not amateur night.  NOT a "hobbyist" project.  NOT for physicians who "dabble" in food allergy.  Most DEFINITELY not a "DIY" project of some sort.    In current clinical practice, outside a TINY handful of people doing this in clinical settings for regular patients (and even that is highly controversial to say the least), this is not for people with anaphylaxis history to begin with.

The description that you've been given-- who the heck knows what kind of treatment this actually entails, and whether or not there is actual allergen exposure happening.  In any event, the partially plausible part of things is the "low dose" exposure.  This could mean SLIT (there are trials ongoing, and a clinic in WI which has been doing it for years-- though results are somewhat mixed, honestly), it could be OIT (again, clinical trials in a few locations, and a handful of allergists going ahead of those trials to offer it to patients), and it could be some whacko holding-vials-of-the-allergen-and-muscle-testing thing.


Injections?  HUGE red flag for me.  The last injection immunotherapy trial that existed, someone in the study group DIED.

So-- NO, NO, NO.



This stinks to high heaven of CAM medical practice going off-trail and stomping about where angels rightfully fear to tread.  Anyone that WOULD claim to treat IgG allergies and IgE food allergies....

RUN.  Run for the hills.

These are the kind of practitioners that can kill people with their ignorance. 

My apologies if this is overly blunt.  I'd walk away from any medical practitioner that claims to treat IgG allergies, and I'd double-time it if they added IgE to the claim.

[marcy rowley]

Let the study speak for itself, please look at study by Pubmed ncbi 

A Double-Blind Randomized Placebo-Controlled Trial With Short-Term Beta-Glucuronidase Therapy in Children With Chronic Rhinoconjunctivitis and/or Asthma Due to Dust Mite Allergy

[rebekahc]

This thread is 7 years old. However, dust mite allergy does not equate to food allergy. IgG "allergy" is also not the same as an IgE mediated food allergy. The original post is specifically referring to food allergy and a treatment for IgG "allergies" and whether it could be viable as a treatment for IgE allergies. In the seven years since this thread was started some progress has been made using desensitization techniques to treat IgE food allergies.