Ron Parker on the Benefits of LDA Allergy Treatment
Stacey: Welcome to Dr. Hotze’s Wellness Revolution. I’m Stacey Bandfield, here with Dr. Steven Hotze, founder of the Hotze Health & Wellness Center. Please be sure to download our podcast at HotzeHWC.com. That’s H-O-T-Z-E-H-W-C.com. We have our very own Ron Parker here to talk about LDA, an allergy treatment. A lot of people aren’t familiar with LDA treatment, so this will be very informative. Here’s Dr. Hotze.
Dr. Hotze: Thank you, Stacey, and thank you for joining us today on Dr. Hotze’s Wellness Revolution Podcast. I believe that you and everyone needs to have a doctor and staff of professionals who have the wherewithal and the know-how to coach you onto a path of health and wellness naturally, so you have a life-changing health transformation, so as you mature, you’ve have energy, you have vitality, you have enthusiasm for life without using pharmaceutical drugs.
Today I’m pleased to have with us on our program our specialist in allergy, Ron Parker, who’s a physician’s assistant here at the Hotze Health & Wellness Center. Ron attended the United States Navy Medical Corpsman School and graduated Navy Field Medical School back in 1967. In ’73, he graduated from the Baylor College of Medicine Physician’s Assistant Program. He has specialized in allergy from 1983 until 2017. He was an allergy specialist for two different allergy clinics here in town, Dr. Burnett and the Rosewood Ear, Nose and Throat Clinic. And when Rosewood Ear, Nose and Throat Clinic sold out, I contacted Ron, and heard that he would be interested in joining us.
Now, I would tell you, the Hotze Health & Wellness Center, when we first started back in 1989, we started as an allergy clinic, and we specialized in allergies only for numerous years. It wasn’t until 1992 and ’96 that we began to add the use of natural occurring hormones: thyroid, testosterone for men, progesterone and estrogen for women, as well as adrenal hormones for both males and females, particularly if they had allergies. We began to add that to the regimen and a good, healthy eating program.
We still utilize the diagnosis and treatment of allergies in the treatment of our guests to help them get on a path to health and wellness. So, let’s talk about allergies. First, let me just ask you this. Do you have allergies? Have you been diagnosed with allergies? Do you think you have allergies? Well, let’s talk about some of the symptoms that you might have if you do have allergies. You have fatigue, maybe. You may have frequent headaches. You may have sneezing, post-nasal drip, itchy nose, itchy eyes, recurrent colds or recurrent sinus infections for which you have to go to the doctor, maybe in the spring, maybe the spring and the fall, and get a corticosteroid shot, or you may have to take antihistamines during certain times of the year, or prescribed those.
Have you had any recurrent yeast infections or jock itch? Athlete’s foot? Do you have any problems with dizziness? Itchy, watery eyes? Dark circles under your eyes? Do you have recurring ear infections? Tightness in your chest? Have you been diagnosed with asthma? Do you wheeze? Do you have eczema? Do you have skin rashes? Do you have itchy skin? How about the stomach? Do you have indigestion? Do you have any problems with bloating or diarrhea or constipation? These symptoms are commonly found symptoms in individuals who have allergies.
Allergies can be caused by both inhaled pollens and foods, so things that we inhale. I like to explain it like this. Allergies are an abnormal reaction to normally occurring substances in the environment. The things that you breathe: weed pollens, tree pollens, grass pollens, dust mites, mold spores, animal danders. These are common airborne allergies. In the fall, we have our fall allergy, which is weed pollen season. In the spring, we have tree pollen season followed by grass pollen season. Year round, particularly in the Houston area and along the Gulf Coast, we have mold year round. And then you have animal danders if you have a dog or a cat in your house, and you have dust mites in your bed.
These can cause reactions of your immune system to these normally occurring substances, which cause cells within the mucous membranes of your body to rupture. Those cells in the mucous membranes are mast cells and they rupture and they release histamine. When histamine’s released, that causes swelling and drainage, and it becomes a culture medium for bacteria and viruses or even funguses, and you get secondary infections due to the allergies. Your immune system’s been worn down and you can’t respond well. Next thing you know, you’re placed on antibiotics. Those antibiotics are meant to kill the bad bacteria, which they do, but they also kill the normal bacteria in your colon, so you get colon problems. You get an imbalance or a dysbiome of the normal bacteria in your colon. You get leaky gut syndrome, and that can lead to autoimmune problems.
It’s just a constant circle, where you get infections, antibiotics, you get yeast buildup in the system, you produce toxins which further depress the immune system, and you’re on this cycle of illness.
Foods can also cause allergy reactions, the same exact symptoms you have from the airborne allergies. The common foods are wheat, corn, egg, milk, yeast, soybean, because these are foods that are commonly found in processed foods. If you have allergies and you eat a certain food over and over again, and you have leaky gut syndrome, then you’re going to build up an allergic reaction to these various foods, and they’re going to exacerbate and make your allergies worse.
So, what do we do about allergies? That’s why I have Ron here, because Ron works with our allergy guests here at the Hotze Health & Wellness Center, to treat them. First, to diagnose them, through testing. First by history, really, and then testing, and then we build a treatment program. Ron, why don’t you tell us how you evaluate these patients for allergies once they come to you, and one of the doctors has seen them or they’ve called in and they say, “I have allergy problems.” And by the way, we have a program here at the Hotze Health & Wellness Center. If you have allergies, you can come in and be treated for your allergies alone. If you don’t want to be treated for any hormonal decline or imbalances, we can treat you for allergies alone, and we do that.
So, Ron, tell me what it’s like when a guest comes in and is evaluated for allergies at the Hotze Health & Wellness Center.
Ron Parker: Okay. All right. Thank you. Allergy is diagnosed by the history and chronic, longstanding symptoms that don’t resolve in a short period of time, like a cold or a virus. We confirm the history by doing skin testing. We prefer skin testing because it’s the most sensitive method. Blood testing is also available if you’re not able to do the skin test. We can calculate your treatment dose from using either method to get you started on immunotherapy.
Our immunotherapy is in two forms now: sublingual drops that you use on a daily basis for three to five years before you start tapering your dose out to less frequent doses, and also, we offer a newer form of immunotherapy called low dose immunotherapy, or LDA. LDA has been around about 60 years and it’s getting more popular as time goes on, because it’s more convenient, and especially if you compare it to allergy shots. LDA is taken by a small injection on the forearm, similar to a TB skin test, if you remember those. You only have to take the injection every 10 to 12 weeks, so you don’t have to go to the doctor every week and get your shot and wait around for 20 or 30 minutes and waste your time driving over there. It’s a lot more convenient than the conventional type of immunotherapy.
You usually see a response within the first three injections. A lot of people see favorable responses even with the first injection. It treats more allergens than conventional immunotherapy. Conventional immunotherapy usually covered anywhere from 20 to 28 allergens, but the LDA covers over 300 allergens, so you have a much broader spectrum of treatment coverage with this method. Additionally, if you have failed at allergy shots or allergy drops, and you know you have an allergy problem, then LDA could be the thing for you, because it works by an entirely different method than shots or drops. We have used it for people who’ve failed earlier with their allergy treatment, and because of the different mechanism, it works very well.
In the past, it has been reserved especially for people who have failed at immunotherapy, but now, it’s being offered to people that want to take injections that will cover inhalant allergy, food allergy, and chemical allergy, all at the same time. Conventional immunotherapy traditionally would just cover inhalant allergy. With this much broader approach, it works for all the things that Dr. Hotze mentioned just previously. Some of these are serious problems that we’ve never been able to control well.
The treatment works 93% of the time, and it only has had a small percentage of failure. It’s a good choice because the cost is overall less than going to get an allergy shot once a week or even taking allergy drops. We are very excited about LDA and we’re glad to add this to our treatment regimen at the Hotze Health & Wellness Center.
Dr. Hotze: Ron, thank you very much for that explanation of low dose allergy treatment. Again, that treatment is not taken on a weekly basis. Rather, you come in once every quarter, and you receive a very small injection on your forearm, and that’s the treatment. It contains about 300 different allergens, both inhaled, food, and chemicals that will help you stimulate your immune system so you build up the blocking antibodies and don’t have your allergy reactions.
LDA Allergy Treatment Can Help Really Young Children
It’s really been fairly remarkable. We have one young child who’s about three years old who had terrible food allergies, terrible eczema all over his body, and so, as a last resort, we said, “Well, let’s just try LDL therapy on this young boy.” And it is remarkable how his skin has cleared up and how, really, it’s treated his underlying food allergies, so he can even have the foods that he was allergic to and he doesn’t break out in the rashes like he did. It’s really remarkable. (Click here to read his story on page 4 of our newsletter.)
It’s a convenient therapy, once every quarter. You do that for about a year and then it may go to once every six months, and then once a year, and after that…you do it for several years. Some people have stopped it and they maintain an allergy immunization for five to 10 years after that, so it’s a really wonderful form of treatment and we do it here. Low dose allergy treatment at the Hotze Health & Wellness Center.Now, I would encourage you to go to our website at HotzeHWC.com. You can go to symptom checker and check and see if your symptoms match up to those for allergies. I do believe that if they do, then you deserve to be treated for that, because allergies will wear down your immune system and cause you to have a host of problems, which will make you feel less energetic, less vibrant, less vital, and less enthusiastic about your life. We want you to feel enthusiastic about your life and full of vitality and full of energy, and one of the ways to do that is reduce the allergy load that you’re experiencing.
So, give us a call for a free consultation at (281) 698-8698. Thank each one of you for joining us today. Thank you, Ron, for being with us.
Ron Parker: Thanks.
Dr. Hotze: This is Dr. Hotze, wishing you a wonderful day. God bless you.
