“Advice For Caring For Children With Allergies” is a collaborative post.
It’s springtime, which means it’s the high season for misery-making allergies! Dr. Hassan Alzein of Alzein Pediatrics in Oak Lawn, Illinois and Evergreen Park, Illinois has been caring for children with allergies for decades now, treating them with sublingual immunotherapy, or SLIT, which typically offers life-long immunity from allergies.
Your child could have allergies if they:
- Sneeze often with no other signs of a cold, often interfering with healthy sleep.
- Have a “perpetual cold” with sneezing and a runny nose, sometimes a cough.
- Skin under and around the eyes is blue, purple, red or dark-colored.
- Eyes are itchy, watery or red.
- Trouble catching their breath, tightness in the chest, wheezing or coughing.
- Skin rash.
For children with mild allergies, limit your child’s exposure to possible allergens:
- Limit outside play.
- Keep your air conditioning running using high-efficiency filters.
- Keep your windows closed.
- Consider a HEPA filter.
- Don’t get a cat or other animal, like most dogs, with fur.
- After outside play, wash all clothing including jackets and shoes and make sure your child takes a shower and washes their hair.
When allergy symptoms are mild, your pediatrician will make recommendations for over-the-counter or prescription medications and nasal sprays that can relieve symptoms.
If the child does not respond or symptoms still do not allow a child to live a normal life, Dr. Alzein turns to another treatment for severe allergic rhinoconjunctivitis and allergic rhinitis, MRS SLIT.
At their Oak Lawn and Evergreen Park offices, Alzein Pediatrics providers recommend sublingual immunotherapy, or SLIT. This treatment is proven to be just as effective as allergy injections, but with a much lower risk of side effects and significantly easier treatment administration. SLIT, distributed under the name AllerVision, is taken orally, in drops placed under the tongue. It is administered at home, with very limited need for in-office follow-up visits.
“AllerVision makes an enormous difference in the lives of children with severe allergies,” said Dr. Alzein. “Unfortunately, it is very underutilized in the United States, but it’s been used in the U.K. and around the world for decades. It will relieve your child’s rhinoconjunctivitis, severe allergic reactions, and provide them with lasting immunity to environmental allergies.”
MRS SLIT is formulated with FDA-approved antigens and is endorsed by the World Health Organization. This therapy has been used successfully for decades; Alzein Pediatrics is the only pediatrician in Chicagoland who offers it.
At a child’s first SLIT appointment, medical staff will perform a grid test, applying a variety of allergens painlessly to your child’s back. When a “wheal” appears, a raised, red and itchy bump surrounded by a “flare”, it shows which allergens a patient reacts to. The larger the wheal and flare the more sensitive the patient is to that allergen. All the results are sent to MRS, who formulate custom serums for each patient. The serum contains trace amounts of a patient’s irritants, enabling them to build up a tolerance to those irritants through small, daily exposure.
The medication ships directly to the patient’s home. Different, tasteless drops are then easily administered, placed under the tongue at bedtime. Children usually see relief within 2 months. Taking the drops for about three to five years will develop lasting immunity, relieving allergy symptoms for your child.
A medical professional should see your child every year to repeat the grid test to insure that your child’s immune system is responding.Dr. Alzeinexplains that the test results themselves may not always reflect a declining resistant to an allergen; real life results are more indicative of the therapy’s efficacy. The patient’s new immunity to these allergens will likely last their whole life; the therapy will not need to be repeated.
“Most patients that use SLIT will see improvements within two months and will experience complete remission of their allergies for the course of their lifetime. Because we can safely prescribe SLIT to very young patients, we can save them from a lifetime of suffering,” says Dr. Alzein.
AllerVision and SLIT is most effective for environmental allergies such as pollens, dust mites, molds and mildews and animal dander. SLIT is prescribed for limited food allergies.
SLIT is an eligible expense for Health Savings Accounts and FlexSpending. After the initial prescription, the serum ships directly to the patient’s home, eliminating frequent doctor office visits, saving immense time and money for parents each year.
For Dr. Alzein’s patients, AllerVision’s SLIT has been life-changing.
