Is it possible for an adult to cure an allergy through deliberate exposure to the substance that produces it?

Question

I developed hay fever as a teen. Had in chronically, each year, until I was forty, and took a lot of anti-histamines, which, in those days, were prescribed.

Then I reasoned that perhaps I had developed it not because I inherited it from my father, who also has it, but because I had spent most of my childhood and teenage summers indoors, in air conditioning. Never really liked the heat that much.

So at age forty. in the spring, I started exercising outdoors, in a very shady park, for an hour every single day.

I didn't get hay fever that year, nor for years afterward.

Now I'm getting an allergy on that order, which I assume is also a pollen reaction. It gets better if I close the windows and stay inside in the AC.

I am in a new environment, and haven't had as much outdoor exercise lately as I should.

What is your opinion of my theory that regular exposure to pollen, even at a fully mature age, will stop a pollen allergy?

Answer 1

No, if you expose yourself to the allergen, you will make yourself miserable. Take the allergy meds for relief.

Answer 2

It's the basis of the injections that are used to cure allergies.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/184858...

It needs to go into your bloodstream though, not breathed in. If it enters via the blood stream the body starts reacting to it with T cells instead of histamine release, losing the allergic reaction.

One spring I started gardening, and was yanking up the grass with bare hands. The year before that my pollen allergy was so severe my throat was swelling up, and after the gardening (lots of little cuts on my hands letting in pollen) I stopped reacting to the pollen I breathed in.

Answer 3

You probably outgrew your teenage allergies.  It won't hurt you to try being outside for that long each day.  You will benefit from eating honey that has been produced in your area (unless you are diabetic) because it has been made from local pollen and seems to help many people with seasonal allergies.

Just don't be to stubborn to go to the doctor if things get worse.  Theories are great; however, they are not substitute for a medical degree.

Good luck.

Answer 4

I agree, I believe hoemopathic medicine is based on that principle too.

for example: if you got bit by a snake, the antedote that you take is extracted from the snakes venom, so what has made you feel ill, has also made you feel better.

Answer 5

you can but it has to be in very small doses so you re body get used to it    there are homopatics that contain small amounts of allergens   and help our body build up tolerances  kind of like a vaccination   you get a small amount of the disease and your body is able to build up antibodies

Answer 6

It would help to understand the real reason we have allergies. There is a type of immune system cell (eosinophil) that specializes in attacking relatively large foreign bodies. The main purpose of their existence is to bring down parasites like worms, which are much larger than a bacterium or a virus. However, living in a developed country like America, it is unlikely that you will have parasites. These cells have nothing to do, so they attack harmless foreign bodies like pollen grains.

So there is no way to completely get rid of allergies. My allergies got quite bad when I was in college, in a town with lots of pollen producing trees (the ground was yellow in the spring) and in the middle of a large agricultural region. Everyone had allergies there. I now live in a more urban area, also near a bay, and my allergies aren't that bad anymore.

I have heard that if you eat local honey, it helps allergies because you are exposed to the local pollen. This might help you better than going outside, because it sounds unbearable.

Also, there are a lot of new antihistamines on the market. They aren't as effective as Benadryl, but they generally don't cause drowsiness for most people.

Answer 7

It's likely that you don't get it anymore because your immune system has slightly diminished. Hayfever occurs when you inhale the allergens and what have you, and your immune system reacts by sending out histamine and other antibodies, which, in hayfever sufferers, become irritated - producing mucus and itching. The reason you take anti-histamines to stop hayfever is to stop your immune system from fighting the allergens, so there's no irritation.

If you get what I mean.

It's the action of the immune system itself fighting the allergens that causes the irritation, so hayfever medicines such as loratidine stop your body producing the antibodies, thus stopping the irritation.

EDIT

Oh yeah, and homeopathy is bunk, don't bother with that nonsense, I've suffered with hayfever all my life. It's the worst thing. Apart from the holocaust.

Answer 8

i dont think so

Answer 9

I dont think its something you as a person can control its down to your immune system developing and those antibodies being ready to fight it off the chances are it'll never go away now and however being out by the allergy inducing particles may improve your immune system and help but honestly the chances are now you'll never get over it but by all means still exercise in the park etc as theres always that chance im wrong.