Wouldn't you love an allergy treatment that would cure hay fever symptoms quickly and easily and would even last for a few allergy seasons without needing to be repeated?

The good news is that a new allergy vaccine on the horizon may be able to accomplish these goals. As a result, it could reduce your need to take daily allergy medications and would also offer an appealing alternative to undergoing long-term immunotherapy treatment to build up your body's tolerance to hay fever and other seasonal allergens.

The New Allergy Vaccine

The experts say the future of allergy prevention and treatment may have just turned a new corner, thanks to the creation of this experimental vaccine formulation, being referred to as "AIC," which can cure hay fever in just six (weekly) doses. Further, the new allergy vaccine works by actually reprogramming your body's response to allergens - not just treating the symptoms — so it can effectively head off, or at least reduce, your reaction.

Effective Symptom Relief

Researchers at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine recently tested this approach on a group of hay fever sufferers and found that participants receiving the vaccine experienced a 60 percent reduction in their symptoms (such as nasal and eye symptoms and itching) compared with those who received a placebo injection. Better yet, these benefits can last about two years.[i]

A Very Appealing Option

For people who suffer from severe sneezing, runny nose, itchy eyes, ears and throat and other bothersome hay fever symptoms year after year, the study findings offer great hope. Up until now, the allergy treatment options were limited, with people plagued by persistent allergies forced to undergo years of allergy injections to desensitize their body to their triggers.

A Low Risk Approach

The experts point out that while traditional allergy injections work by exposing patients to a small amount of a substance to which they are allergic and thereby opening up the risk for a reaction to the shot, the new vaccine instead works on the body's actual response and doesn't pose the same risk. In fact, the few side effects reported by participants in the Johns Hopkins study were very mild. That may mean that the vaccine is a viable low-risk hay fever cure even for people who are not good candidates for other treatment methods.[ii]

Researchers are now further studying the effects of this allergy vaccine and are exploring whether it may also be a good approach for patients with asthma as well.

[i]

Immunotherapy with a Ragweed-Toll-Like Receptor 9 Agonist Vaccine for Allergic Rhinitis. Peter S. Creticos, M.D., John T. Schroeder, Ph.D., Robert G. Hamilton, Ph.D., Susan L. Balcer-Whaley, M.P.H., Arouna P. Khattignavong, M.D., Robert Lindblad, M.D., Henry Li, M.D., Ph.D., Robert Coffman, Ph.D., Vicki Seyfert, Ph.D., Joseph J. Eiden, M.D., Ph.D., David Broide, M.B., Ch.B., and the Immune Tolerance Network Group. The New England Journal of Medicine. Volume 355:1445-1455, October 5, 2006, Number 14. You can access the findings at http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/abstract/355/14/1445.

[ii] http://www.immunetolerance.org/news/2008/07/study-shows-six-injection-allergy-vaccine-tames-hay-fever-least-two-years.