My friend's husband was desensitized for a serious cat allergy through drops vs. shots. can you provide info on this?

Immunotherapy : There are two types of immunotherapy.. With allergy shots, small but increasing amounts of what you are allergic to are mixed in saline and injected into the muscle. With increased exposure, your body's response will decrease in time and tolerate the exposure better. With drops, otherwise known as slit or sublingual immunotherapy, the allergen is mixed in glycerin and placed under the tongue.

Drops vrs shots: See what our allergist have to say. Homeopathy is based in the principle of giving the offending antigen in very small dosis so the immune system improve its defenses. I guess the difference is that orally takes more time for the substance to get metabolized and to produce an immune response comparing with injectables but the ideas are the same.

Oral tolerance: We have a fundamental built in oral tolerance which makes oral immunotherapy less likely to produce systemic reactions than allergy shots. This is why there are ongoing studies which are successfully treating food allergies with drops. We have used allergy shots in our practice for 30 years and drops for 4 years and not esimilar response times in improvement of symptoms.

Similar: Sub-lingual (beneath the tongue) and sub-cutaneous (beneath the skin) immuno-therapy -- slit vs scit, respectively -- are similar in their role in "desensitization" to allergens. Slit, drops under the tongue, have been used in europe for over a decade, and have become the standard of care for allergy remedy there. Here, slit is not yet fda-approved, although some docs do provide the service.