I really appreciate your perspective, Aggie. It's not that different from mine, I think-- difference was that our gut said one thing after looking at the knowns versus the unknowns, talking it over with our allergist and discussing DD's individual history, etc. etc.
And it wasn't what your family went with.
COULD our DD have been desensitized successfully? It's difficult to say, IMO.
Maybe. But we already knew that we'd have to be prepared to "pay ANY price." ANY price. And I don't mean financially.
Apparently, egg desensitization came with the baggage of destabilizing her immune system such that she developed animal allergies, and with upped doses, her asthma has also worsened to the point that it's very definitely a major problem in her life now. Could have been adolescence-- or it could have been tweaking her immune system. We'll never know, but her history sure argues powerfully for the latter* in this instance. Which is why we judged it to not be a good bet
for her personally."Worse" isn't an option for peanut/treenuts-- or just staying alive will be
so complex that being a functional, working adult isn't a real option. SLIT, I think that there's a lot of data (now) to support, and the safety seems to be there. I might well have been okay with that. But OIT using an aggressive protocol and high doses... hmmm-- no. DD is an outlier-- and outliers do need to be wary for a lot longer than most people when it comes to new medical treatments. They may be outliers for reasons that matter a lot when it comes to mechanistic/molecular aspects of revolutionary treatment. KWIM? I tend to think that this probably IS fine for those who are below the most sensitive quartile of the normal distribution (in terms of reaction threshold/reactivity). There's just so darned little right now to say who those people ARE who should
not do this. Is it those who are in the most sensitive 1%? 5%? Those with the most severe reaction history? Those with unstable reaction thresholds and asthma? Severe reactions to trace quantities (ppm or lower)? Not clear-- but it seems likely that at least some of those people are poor risks.
*when she started allergy shots, her sensitivity to all of her food allergens worsened-- which would have been difficult to fathom, frankly-- and she "redeveloped" the milk allergy she'd outgrown. At least it wasn't wheat-- but the effect has been nearly permanent, since she's been off of shots for 4y and still doesn't have normal milk tolerance back. {sigh}