SAN DIEGO — According to the Centers for Disease Control, nearly one in three adults in the U.S. suffers from allergies. Whether they are seasonal or food-related, allergies are one of the most common chronic medical conditions. For many San Diegans, allergies can be a year-round inconvenience. But there is some promising news about advancements in treating allergies. Dr. Shyam Joshi, Allergist and Assistant Professor at the Allergy & Immunology Clinic at Oregon Health & Sciences University joins our Laura Cavanaugh to talk about this year’s allergy season and how to break up with your allergies for good.
If you are tempted to ignore your spring allergies, Joshi says don’t. He says seasonal allergies can turn into year-round allergies in any climate. If environmental allergies are not controlled, they can lead to sinus and ear infections. Allergies can also be a trigger for asthma.
Typically allergies don’t go away on their own and can worsen with age. Studies have shown that patients who suffer from moderate to severe allergies report reduced productivity at work and school, as well as a decline in quality of life.
“Antihistamine tablets and nasal sprays do work. They do kind of mask the symptoms. But they don’t really get to the root cause of allergies and don’t provide a long-term solution,” said Dr. Joshi. “Immunotherapy, which is a way of repeatedly exposing the body to what somebody is allergic to can really retrain the immune system to develop tolerance, which means when they’re exposed to these things in the environment again, their body doesn’t respond with an allergic reaction.”
In the past, immunotherapy was delivered via allergy shots. But Nectar is revolutionizing the way immunotherapy works by developing customized sublingual drops to activate the immune system to provide a similar benefit.
Joshi, who is also the Chief Medical Officer for Nectar, says it is a convenient and customized solution.
Nectar sends a testing kit directly to a patient’s home. At their convenience, patients can administer a quick and easy test and send the test kit to a lab to determine each individual’s allergic triggers. Patients work with a licensed provider virtually. Using that information, Nectar doctors write a prescription for a customized solution. Nectar formulates tailored treatments, sublingual drops, which will retrain the immune system. If the patient chooses to subscribe to Nectar, the drops will be sent directly to the consumer.
“Traditional treatments are just going to treat the symptoms,” said Dr. Joshi. “This is an alternative to allergy shots, which is more convenient. Over time, that retraining of the immune system will prevent these allergies from continuously causing symptoms.”
For more information, visit www.mynectar.com
Sponsored by: Nectar