So for example I’m allergic to pollen, grass, pretty much the outdoors. I have taken allergy shots etc which helped reduce it their affects, but I still get rough allergic reactions.
You would think after 20+ years of living and having to go outside my body would realize that it’s just a natural part of existance. Especially odd considering my parents don’t have such allergies. So how come despite the shots, despite being outside plenty of times and having a decent amount of exposure, my body can’t seem to get the memo that pollen and grass are normal and not threats to my body?
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Many people do but with seasonal allergies your body doesn’t have enough time to build up the necessary immunities. Exposure to something only a few weeks or month out of a year isn’t enough.
I know exposure therapy works for some allergies and some people “grow out” of allergies over time. As for why that hasn’t worked for you, it’s difficult to say. Would he a good question for an allergist so you might have better luck asking on r/askdocs
I vaguely remember learning in an undergrad class that when you’re a kid your B cells produce antibodies at fast rate and it slows down as you age. This helps a child quickly develop a comprehensive immune system in the first years of life. After it is sufficiently developed, there is not point for the body to continue to expend energy producing so many antibodies all the time. So, whatever you are not sufficiently exposed to as a child has a higher chance of becoming an allergy for you.
As an adult, you do still make SOME new antibodies, and exposure therapy does help in a limited capacity. I have an allergy to rodents and I used to work with them in a lab setting. If I worked with them regularly, my symptoms would get slightly better. If I went on vacation for a week or two, my symptoms would be horrible when I got back. The constant exposure does desensitize you a little bit, but for adults it’s often not enough to make the symptoms manageable. For example, I was so allergic to rodents that I had to switch what type of lab models I could work with.
It does happen. But it is quite rare. It is most common with kids. It is not that unusual to be allergic to something as a toddler or small kid but then “grow out” of the allergy and not have it as adult. But as you get older it becomes less and less likely for your immune system to “forget” an allergy. The immune system is more malleable in kids then adults. There are some allergy therapies that try to cure allergies by constant low exposures which slowly increase over time. These might work, but might not. However getting high amounts of exposure, like what you get in the pollen season, does not help but rather have the opposite effect and make the immune system react stronger in the next exposure.
Dive head first into a pile of whatever gives you the sniffles, you’ll either kick the bucket or come out stronger.
That’s what I did with my cat allergy and it eventually worked.
Some people do, but also there are a litany of variables. Including things like overall health and fitness, diet, microbiome, etc.
A common thing some people do for instance is local honey. On many with light allergies they see a clear up through alternative exposure, while some with various allergies see a reduction in the intensity.
>So how come despite the shots
Some treatments are more symptom maskers and simply suppress the bodies reaction. This doesn’t necessarily give you the same effect as exposure concepts you’re thinking about.
It’s kind of like saying “how come I haven’t built up a heat tolerance when I hold a hot pan while wearing an oven mitt.” Because, you’re not feeling the heat, so you can’t build a tolerance.
Not even getting into the issues of potential side effects on the earlier overall health and fitness. Like steroid shots etc, might solve your issue temporarily, but isn’t exactly making your body a superhuman.
An allergy is your body getting up in arms against allergens. Your body does not have a “chill out, man, it’s cool” switch for that mechanism, unless you wholesale turn off the mechanism against ALL allergens. Which is what AIDS is like.
I think it has to do with constant exposure, and also whether or not they’re likely to kill you.
I’ve been severely allergic to cats my whole life. Hives, red swollen eyes that were itchy as fuck, and asthma reactions that I MAYBE should have received O2 for.
Dated and subsequently lived with a girl who had two cats, we adopted a third, and he was my companion for 15 years. Allergies still exist but they are FAR more minimal now. Didn’t really notice them day to day and don’t require reactine for the most part either. Got a new kitten recently and there was an adjustment period again.
eating local honey is a good way to get exposure to local allergens like pollen to help you build up exposure which can (not guaranteed because everyone is different) help reduce or eliminate the reaction to them.
It’s your bodies chosen defense against certain foreign threats. Without wiping out and rebuilding your immune system, this is what you’re stuck with.
Sometimes you can grow out of allergies as your immune system adopts better ways of attacking allergens and tones down its response but in the meantime, an antihistamine is the only answer I’m aware of.