Click here to view next page of this article
Neutralization therapy is an extension of the provocation-neutralization testing procedure in which specified doses of allergen extracts are used by the patient to relieve symptoms. It is also called "symptom-relieving" therapy and "tolerance." Advocates recommend it for both treatment and neutralization therapy.
After the initial provocation-neutralization testing, "neutralizing" doses of one or more tested substances are then self-administered by the patient through intracutaneous, subcutaneous, or sublingual routes. There are no established protocols, and so patients administer the neutralizing.
The published literature on neutralization therapy indicates that it has been recommended for treating a variety of conditions, including atopy, rheumatic diseases, premenstrual syndrome, viral infections.
Proponents of neutralizing therapy claim that the treatment induces some form of immunologic tolerance, although this has not been tested by animal experiments or clinical studies. The sublingual route is justified by the assumption.
The literature on this subject is confusing because proponents of neutralization therapy do not usually separate provocation-neutralization testing from neutralization treatment in their clinical reports. Support rests largely on Miller's report of a double-blind placebo-controlled crossover study.
Neutralization therapy is an
Its advocates have recommended it for such a wide variety of illnesses and subjective conditions using such a large number of different substances administered by three different routes.
It is important not to confuse this form of treatment with allergen immunotherapy, in which extracts of specific allergens for defined atopic respiratory disease or Hymenoptera venom anaphylaxis are first selected by objective testing methods and then high-dose injection therapy is given for a sufficient time to attenuate the allergic response to naturally.