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Risks and Overall Results


Since we have a commercial relationship as well as a medical one, it is important that you understand what you are buying. The treatment recommended will probably make you better, but there is no guarantee of that. There is no medical treatment in the world that always works.

There is also no medical treatment in the world with zero risk. We take risks every day, whenever we eat, use the roads or invest in a new product. What we instinctively do is take steps to minimize that risk by carefully assessing the information to get the cost/benefit ratio as good as possible. That is what I have done in recommending this treatment in your particular case.

80% of patients who have this treatment get better (either 100% cured or better to a worthwhile degree). 19.5% do not get better. And about 0.5% get worse. For the few who do badly, there might be several reasons. For some the neutralising "end-points" change so rapidly that they need re-testing at regular intervals, and they can't afford it. Two young men were so frightened by the injections that they went into chronic hyperventilation (overbreathing) which itself gave frightening symptoms. Some may be unusually sensitive to the preservative (phenol) in the testing solutions, although this is normally very safe, and has been used without trouble for tens of thousands of allergy patients. And sometimes we just don't know. If things do go badly we can sometimes put them right with nutrients, rheumatic patch injections, or other manipulations. Occasionally I have had to re-test some or all items covered.

The main risk of allergy testing (and this is why non-specialists do not do it) is severe allergic reactions such as asthma or anaphylaxis. Every allergy specialist should be equipped with emergency equipment, drugs and oxygen, and should know how to stop severe reactions of this type if they occur. The likelihood of it happening is approximately one in a thousand testing sessions; I have seen half-a-dozen in almost 30 years as an allergist and have never had cause to be seriously worried; each of the patients walked out of the clinic as well as, or better than, they were when they came in that day. But I am not omnipotent and you have to know that the small risk is there. The reason why I have recommended this treatment is because in my view the risk is very small and the likely benefits to you are very great.

The vast majority of testing sessions pass without any incident whatever - the main risk is of boredom!

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