No More Allergies!

MADISON, Wis. (Ivanhoe Broadcast News) -- Fall is coming, and so is ragweed season. It runs from mid-August through November, and this fall millions of people will be feeling its effects -- from red, watery eyes to excessive sneezing.

Ragweed produces 100 million tons of pollen every year in the United States, but don't worry -- help is on the way. A new treatment could soon leave you allergy-free.

Oncology nurse Kim Brandt, RN, is one of 36-million Americans allergic to the wild plant. "I would be sneezing, running, watery eyes, itchy nose and nasal congestion," she says. Sick of the symptoms, Brandt joined a study on a new way to give "rush immunotherapy."

"Rush immunotherapy is a way of administering immunotherapy that condenses a large series of shots in a short period of time," Mark Moss, M.D., an allergist at University of Wisconsin-Madison, tells Ivanhoe.

Immunotherapy builds resistance to allergens. With standard therapy, patients need weekly shots for up to six months. With rush immunotherapy, it's done much faster.

Dr. Moss says, "Theoretically, [this] could be done in about two to three weeks."

But it's risky. Patients have severe allergic reactions one-third of the time. In this new study, patients were pre-medicated with the anti-allergy drug omalizumab before starting the immunotherapy.

"They had a five-times lower chance of having a reaction compared to the group that received the rush immunotherapy alone," Dr. Moss says. That pre-treatment also led to better symptom relief.

Rush immunotherapy is already an available treatment, but the pre-treatment with omalizumab has not yet been FDA-approved, so the risk of reactions is still high. Ongoing studies are also looking at the effect of omalizumab on other allergies as it could be effective in treating dust mite, pet, tree and grass allergies as well.

Brandt got the treatment three years ago. "I have had three consecutive years of no symptoms," she says. "So if you ask me what it has done for me, it has improved my quality of life 100 percent."

This article was reported by Ivanhoe.com, who offers Medical Alerts by e-mail every day of the week. To subscribe, go to: http://www.ivanhoe.com/newsalert/.

If you would like more information, please contact:

Sayward Proctor
Marketing Specialist
UW Health
635 Science Dr. Suite 150
Madison, WI 53711
(608) 265-7344
sayward.proctor@uwms.wisc.edu
http://www.uwhealth.org