Hey Guys,
I've been participating in desens therapy for about 3 months now and for much of my treatment saw what I felt to be significant benefits. Recently, though, I'm become aware of immunotherapy's potential drawbacks, and figured I should make sure people on the board have a realistic understanding of them.
For the first few months of my treatment I was receiving injections at dilutions well below the concentration that caused my initial positive test (1:15). Despite these high concentrations, I did feel like I was getting better -- my symptoms seemed to be improving by about 30% post-orgasm. My reduction in symptoms post-orgasm seemed to continue (and progress) as my concentrations got lower, approaching and exceeding 1:15. Around this time, though, I began to "off" more and more often. Some days I had trouble thinking. Some days my brain was working so poorly I felt like I couldn't interact with people. And some days (especially recent ones... i've surpassed 1:10) I felt like I was under nearly full-blow POIS, despite not having had an orgasm. Initially, I didn't think that these problems had anything to do with my injections, and instead attributed them to an apartment that I had just moved into. But a couple days ago, upon exercising and feeling distinctly POIS-y, it dawned upon me that I started feeling like crap right around when my dilutions began to exceed the amount that initially caused me to react.
The symptoms i've experienced has me absolutely puzzled for quite some time, both because I wasn't sure what was triggering them AND because they weren't susceptible to treatment. Their intractability is especially trying for me because about 5 months ago I found that I could completely eliminate my symptoms (within about 8 hours) by using N.S.A.I.D.s. But now, the drugs I was using simply don't work. The symptoms i'm experiencing are either too strong or caused by something so different, that my old surefire treatments are now useless.
I'm writing all this for a few reasons. First, to make sure that people considering desens know that for a relatively small number of people immunotherapy will PERMANENTLY MAKE YOUR SYMPTOMS WORSE, so if you've already got a really effective treatment, you may want to discuss with your doctor whether it's worth trying it out and taking on the downside risk. Second, people considering desens should know that such treatments often increase sensitivity to the allergen prior to improving sensitivity to it. Meaning, it's common for people's symptoms to be made temporarily worse before they get better.
I'm not sure which of the above possibilities i'm dealing with, but i'm hoping to God that's it's not the first. I'm going to talk to my doctor and will try to let you guys know what he says? Has anyone else on the board had any kind of increased sensitivity caused by desens?
