Allergy injections, or immunotherapy, administered by the allergy care experts at St. Francis Medical Institute near Clearwater, New Port Richey, and other FL communities can help alleviate troublesome allergy symptoms. Immunotherapy can slowly help your body become accustomed to the substance that is triggering your allergic reactions. Essentially, during an allergic reaction, your immune system is wrongly identifying a normally innocuous substance as an “invader” and producing antibodies in an effort to protect your body. These antibodies circulate in your bloodstream and travel to the cells that release histamine, which causes inflammatory responses such as a runny nose or hives. While immunotherapy does not cure allergies, it can reduce the number of allergic reactions you experience and significantly improve your symptoms over time. If you suffer from allergies for more than three months out of the year, or if allergy medicines do not work well for you, you might benefit from a regimen of allergy injections.
Your allergy treatment at St. Francis will be overseen by Dr. Frank Averill, a highly experienced, board-certified pulmonologist who completed a fellowship in allergy and immunology at the renowned Johns Hopkins University Hospital. While every patient is different, a treatment of allergy injections generally works like this:
- You’ll visit our clinic, which is easily accessible from Clearwater, New Port Richey, and the surrounding Florida area, once or twice a week for several months to receive a shot in your upper arm. The injection will contain a tiny amount of the substance you’re allergic to, such as pollen, pet dander, mold, dust mites, or insect venom.
- Over time, Dr. Averill will steadily add to the dosage you receive until it reaches what is commonly referred to as a “maintenance dose.”
- After that point, you’ll receive allergy injections approximately once every two to four weeks over the course of four to five months.
- Dr. Averill will gradually increase the time between your allergy injections until you’re receiving about one shot per month for three to five years. During that time, your allergy symptoms should get better and might even go away.
- If your symptoms do not show improvement after a year of allergy injections, Dr. Averill will talk with you about other possible treatment options.
Contact St. Francis Medical Institute today to learn more about the allergy injections and other allergy and asthma treatment options we offer to patients in Clearwater, New Port Richey, and the surrounding FL communities.