Precautions include avoiding exercise for two hours after a dose, calling the center for advice if a patient is sick or has asthma, and avoiding hot showers and NSAIDs, like Advil, at the time of a dose, Dr. Factor says. While it isn’t uncommon to have some symptoms during treatment, most are minor, such as itchy mouth or stomachaches. Systemic or anaphylactic reactions have occurred in less than 10% of patients, Dr. Factor says. “So it’s not without any risk at all,” he says.
Matthew Sullivan, now 12, started oral immunotherapy for a peanut allergy at the New England center in 2010. The first picture he drew there was of him and a peanut, with the caption: “Can we be friends?” The boy had his first allergic reaction to peanuts, including hives on his arms and legs, at 13 months old.
His mother, Heather Sullivan, drove them to appointments from their Longmeadow, Mass., home every other week. After nine months Matthew was successfully desensitized and has been on a maintenance dose of three to four peanut butter or peanut M&M’s a day. He no longer carries an EpiPen in case of an anaphylactic reaction, Ms. Sullivan says. And earlier in February, Matthew passed a food challenge at the treatment center, in which he ate the equivalent of 46 peanuts in one sitting.
“On Tuesday he brought a Reese’s peanut butter cup to school and the whole lunch table applauded,” Ms. Sullivan says. For his lunch two days later, Matthew brought a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
“It was totally worth it,” Matthew says. “It worked!”