Allergy - Overview of Services

[Text on screen: The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center
Allergy Immunotherapy overview]

[Music playing]

[Text on screen: Rekha Raveendran, MD
Allergist and Immunologist
Ohio State Wexner Medical Center]

Rekha Raveendran, MD: Immunotherapy is an option we offer here at Ohio State. It's a way for us to change how your body responds to the allergens that it's allergic to. And the goal for us is to eventually desensitize and then develop tolerance so that your body is able to do this on its own. With medications, the goal is to help treat your symptoms, but it doesn't change how your body reacts to these allergens.

[Text on screen: Allergy Immunotherapy 
- Subcutaneous immunotherapy (allergy shots)
- Sublingual immunotherapy (allergy drops/tablets)
- Intralymphatic immunotherapy (injection into lymph node)]

There are different types of immunotherapy and they're made to tailor to everyone's needs and their time requirements. Each option has a different time requirement. Some can be done at home, some are done in the office. 

[Text on screen: 
Insurance covers:
- Subcutaneous immunotherapy 
- Sublingual immunotherapy (tablets)
Out of pocket:
- Sublingual immunotherapy (drops)
- Intralymphatic immunotherapy]

Some are covered by your insurance which are the typical allergy shots. Sublingual immunotherapy and intralymphatic are cash pay options. Immunotherapy is an ever changing field and there's a lot of innovative ways that we are coming up with how to administer allergy shots, allergy drops and now intralymphatic. So we have a way to give you immunotherapy that fits everybody's different time schedule and everyone's needs. 

So when we do allergy immunotherapy, we base how we treat you on your testing. So it's based on you and the allergens that you're positive to. We take those particular allergens and that's all that goes into your immunotherapy. There are no steroids, there are no antihistamines, and what's in your vial isn't necessarily what's in somebody else's because we base it on what you're allergic to. And that way we can teach your immune system, which is overactive to these things to sort of learn to become tolerant to them and then hopefully decrease your symptoms.

With allergy immunotherapy, there do come some risks. So since we are giving you what you're allergic to, there is a risk of allergic reaction. Now, the way we do allergy immunotherapy, we try to minimize that risk, but do we do watch you carefully. Each immunotherapy option has different varying levels of risk and there are different wait periods that are associated with those types of risks. And we do take those very seriously because we want to give you immunotherapy in the safest possible fashion.

[Text on screen: The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center
For more information, visit: wexnermedical.osu.edu/allergy]

[Music fades]