Allergic asthma typically begins in childhood. Experts recommend starting allergen-specific immunotherapy (AIT) as early as possible. It is also known as “desensitization”, “hyposensitization” and “allergy vaccination”. According to a recent study involving 92,000 hay fever patients over a period of nine years, the effectiveness of the treatment has been proven – both in children and in adults.
“With this immunotherapy, patients need less medication, the symptoms don’t get worse as often, the risk of an allergic shock is lower, children get pneumonia less often and have to go to the hospital less often because of their asthma,” says Univ.-Prof. Angela Zacharasiewicz, Head of the Pneumology and Allergology Working Group of the Austrian Society for Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine
Some medicines are already approved in infancy. “The important thing with this therapy is adhering to the treatment plan, which can last about three years, but with ever-growing intervals. For example, appointments can initially be weekly, but later only every four to eight weeks,” says Zacharasiewicz. The therapeutics can be administered either as an injection or as a tablet under the tongue. After an immunotherapy administered as an injection, the children usually have to stay in the practice for about half an hour for observation and should then refrain from sporting activities for about two to three hours. With AIT, tiny amounts of the allergens are administered to the body until the body no longer reacts allergically to them.
Apart from AIT, children with an allergy only have the option of avoiding the allergens to which they are so sensitive. This is often difficult to do in everyday life.
Source: Nachrichten
