Am I Too Old for Allergy Treatment?

You’re never too old to try new things — and that includes allergy treatment. It’s a common misconception that only children and young adults can benefit from treatment, when there is truly no “bad” or “wrong” time to retrain your body to not react to problematic allergens.

Read on to learn about adult-onset allergies and the benefit of treating the cause of allergy with allergy drop treatment, especially in older adulthood.

Evolution of allergies

Some adults find allergy treatment after having suffered with allergies their whole life and are finally fed up with the hamster wheel of antihistamines, prescriptions, chronic sinus issues, and office visits. There are also people who start experiencing allergy later in life. You can develop allergies at any time, and while there is some research, it’s not abundantly clear why. But, here are a few reasons we know why allergies may start to appear in older adulthood:

• Pregnancy, menopause in women
• Hormone changes in older men
• Change of location (moving from Minnesota to Florida in retirement, for example)
• Ordinary body/immune system changes
• Climate change

This previous blog goes over adult-onset allergies in more depth. Allergies at any age are treatable and don’t have to be something you “just have to live with.”

Why treat the cause?

So, what’s the benefit of treating the cause? The overwhelming answer is simply to feel better. After successful treatment, patients have reduced (or eliminated) symptoms, fewer medical office visits, less medication use, and fewer incidents of allergy-related conditions — like asthma, eczema, sinusitis, and more.

Immunotherapy is the only way to treat the cause of allergy — compared to just covering symptoms with over-the-counter and prescription medications. Allergychoices advocates for allergy drops following The La Crosse Method™ Protocol, which is a liquid dose placed under the tongue in three doses daily. Over three to five years, the body is introduced to increasing amounts of the allergens that cause symptoms, and the body learns to not react.

While there are other forms of allergy immunotherapy out there (shots and tablets), there are a few benefits of personalized allergy drop immunotherapy specifically for older adults over the other methods:

• Allergy drops require few office visits. Treatment is administered from wherever you are; therefore only “check in” appointments are typically required after diagnosis.
• Allergy drops safely treat all offending environmental and food allergies at once. Environmental allergies are in one bottle, and food allergies are in another.
• This treatment reduces the need for antihistamines or other allergy medications. Less medication means fewer side effects and potential interactions with other medications.
• The drops are made of natural ingredients that are unlikely to interfere with other medications.
• There has never been a life threatening or anaphylactic reaction reported from allergy drops using the La Crosse Method Protocol. Patients may feel mild, short-term allergy symptoms like mouth itching or watering, but that’s typically the extent of it.

If this treatment sounds like something that could work for you, start by finding a provider near you that offers allergy drops following the La Crosse Method.