Allergy / Patient guide
Sublingual Immunotherapy (Allergy Drops)
To treat your allergies, we offer under the tongue Allergy Drops, also known as sublingual immunotherapy (or SLIT), as an alternative to allergy shots or injections.
The drops are custom made for each patient based on what environmental allergens that patient is allergic to.
Understanding your health
Advantages
The patient administers the allergy drop under their tongue each day, and builds up doses over several months until a maintenance level is achieved. A major advantage of allergy drops is that they are administered in the convenience of your home, instead of at the doctor’s office.
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Safety
The incidence of significant adverse reactions to allergy drops is very low and the most common reaction reported is mild itching or tingling of the mouth or tongue. It is extremely rare to have a serious systemic reaction to allergy drops.
Understanding your health
Off-Label Use
The extracts used in SLIT are the same FDA approved, standardized, extracts used in injection immunotherapy. However, because the FDA has not yet approved these allergy extracts for sublingual administration, they are classified as “off-label”. Off-label use of an FDA approved product is extremely common in the United States, and is often utilized by physicians. The classic example is the off-label use of aspirin to help prevent heart attacks, which occurred for years when the FDA had not yet approved this use, even though it was widely known that aspirin treatment was safe and effective.
There is frequently a very long lag time between when a medical treatment is proven to be effective and when the FDA approves it to treat a specific medical condition. However, because of this, insurances usually will not cover sublingual immunotherapy.
