As a mom of an egg allergic child, this is big news. I know a large number of the Everything Birth Blog readers have children who also suffer from egg allergies. Now, before getting to excited, we need to remember to keep perspective.
A very small study of only 55 children was recently done to see if Immunotherapy might be promising for children with egg allergies. According to the study which was published in the July 19 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, it just might be!
Basically they introduce very small doses orally to the allergic child in hopes that the child’s body will learn to tolerate it. After 10 months on the therapy, 55% of the children in the test group could eat eggs. That compared to none of the children in the placebo group. My daughter’s allergist told us we could try out something very similar to this, but we had just been through way too much at this point to take part in any kind of medical study. (I’m glad we didn’t take part in any egg allergy study anyway, because the homeopathic method has produced tremendous results– which I will post an update about soon.)
I also need to point out that there were authors on this egg allergy study that disclosed financial ties to the nutritional industry, so that also needs to be taken into consideration, besides just the size of the test group. There will certainly be other studies to follow. And I’ll be looking for them. In the meantime though, we won’t be giving any eggs. And call me selfish, but we also won’t be volunteering for any studies! I will keep my eye on this topic though. If you see any new developments, please share them with us on the Facebook page.
Have any of your children, working with an allergist, had any success with this method?
SOURCE: http://www.physiciansbriefing.com/Article.asp?AID=666785
They have had the same or better results using this approach to therapy in studies with children with peanut allergy in recent years. Kids with anaphalaxis response to trace amounts of peanut now eating peanuts with no response. I cannot imagine the RELIEF parents of children who could die from cross-contamination at a birthday party or on a school camping trip would feel eliminating that risk completely from their lives… I think that outside of a controlled clinical study this would be highly risky to try at home when kids have risk of anaphylaxis, however within the safety of a controlled trial this intervention has the potential to change the lives of the child and their family profoundly. I am talking genuine life-threatening immunological allergy, not dietary sensitivity. I’d participate in a trial in a heartbeat if my child had anaphylaxis immunological allergic response to anything.