For years, there was just one treatment available for food allergies: completely avoid the food you were allergic to. Now that has changed! The exceptional providers at Columbia Allergy offer oral immunotherapy (OIT) to effectively treat even the most severe of food allergies. Dr. Jain is a world-renowned food allergy expert who is known for being the earliest pioneer in food allergy desensitization treatment using OIT for shrimp and nut allergies. The specialists at Columbia Allergy use Dr. Jain’s protocols to desensitize to nearly any food you can think of.
The providers at Columbia Allergy commonly use OIT to treat anaphylactic food allergies by safely reintroducing the food back into your diet through a desensitization process. The team starts with the patient eating a very small, microscopic amount of the food in the office, and gradually increases the amount of food each time. At the end of each visit, you will be given instructions to continue to eat a safe dose every day until your next appointment. This ongoing exposure to the allergen helps your immune system to stop seeing the food as a threat and to stop triggering a significant allergic reaction every time you eat that food.
Oral immunotherapy is primarily used to treat IgE-mediated allergies. If you have an IgE-mediated allergy, you typically experience symptoms of an allergic reaction very quickly after being exposed to the food. At Columbia Allergy we prefer our patients to be at least 3 years of age to begin OIT so that the patient is able to communicate any symptoms they are experiencing to the medical team for safety reasons. The food allergy experts at Columbia Allergy will use allergy tests, the patient’s history, and food challenges to determine if OIT is right for you. If you are interested in our oral immunotherapy treatment, call your nearest location or schedule an appointment online today!
