Reply #41: no

[pitohui]

i'll tell you what my allergist said to me

the shots aren't proven to work, but people think they do, because a certain number of people age out of certain allergies and so they think the shots worked -- this is non lifethreatening type allergies like animal dander, some pollens, etc.

hence it's a placebo for some patients (they can feel they're doing somethinng) and a moneymaker for the pharma co. that produces the shots and the doctor who supervises the giving of the shots

you can't play this game w. something as life threatening as a peanut allergy or a bee sting allergy, which never goes away with age and in fact only gets more severe with every subsequent allergic reaction

i'm probably summing this up very badly but allergy shots aren't much different from the idea of homeopathy, lots of people thunk it's real, but honestly there's not a lot of science there

or sayeth my allergist back in the day while explaining why the shots would be a waste of time for me

(as he predicted, even without the shots, i've noticed a great lessening of my reaction to fur dander w/ age -- so if i had had the shots, i would have spent a lot of time, pain, and money to be grateful to a product that did nothing that wasn't going to happen anyway) :shrug: