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Treating Patients Now for Next Year’s Hay Fever Season
When traditional allergy treatment fails – what next?
Hay fever sufferers often experience a wide range of debilitating symptoms. With over 20% of the UK now suffering from hay fever – the condition can seriously impair sufferers’ day-to day life at work or school. It was reported this year that hay fever, or allergic rhinitis, cost British businesses more then £378 million in lost work days.
For example, young people with symptoms on exam day were 40% more likely to drop a grade between their mock and final GCSE's.
Most sufferers are able to get relief from over-the-counter treatments or prescription steroids. But what if these are not working for some of your patients?
Another option is immunotherapy – a well established treatment for patients with moderate to severe grass or tree pollen allergy. Immunotherapy or ‘desensitisation therapy’, addresses the underlying cause of allergies, not just the symptoms. As a result it provides long term relief, improving quality of life. In fact immunotherapy is the only treatment strategy known to change the natural disease course for allergic rhinitis and halt the progression to asthma.
Pollinex® Grasses + Rye and Pollinex® Trees are the only registered subcutaneous pollen vaccines available in the UK. The Pollinex® product has had extensive clinical exposure of over 3.8 millions courses administered worldwide.
This short course immunotherapy treatment can be completed in as little as 5 weeks with just 6 injections, which is good news for you and your patient.
Pollinex® is administered pre-seasonally so now is the time to see your patient for allergy testing and referral for treatment where appropriate.
To find out more about Pollinex® and to locate allergy clinics in your area, please visit www.pollinex.com
If you are currently treating patients with immunotherapy injections in your Primary Care setting or are considering this treatment option – we would be delighted to hear from you. Please call our Allergy Hotline on 01903 844 796 to find out more about our work with Allergy UK.
References:
1. Ref: WalkerS, Khan-Wasti S, Fletcher M et al. J Allergy Clin Immunol. 2007;120 (2):381-38
2. WHO Position Paper. Allergen immunotherapy: therapeutic vaccines for allergic disease. Allergy 1998;53:1-42.
3. Moeller C, Dreborg S, Ferdousi H et al. Pollen immunotherapy reduces the development of asthma in children with seasonal rhinoconjunctivitis (the PAT-Study). J Allergy Clin Immunol 2002;109:251-6.
4. Niggemann B, Jacobsen L, Deborg S et al. Five-year follow-up on the PAT study: specific immunotherapy and long-term prevention of asthma in children. Allergy 2006;61:855-859.