Sublingual Immunotherapy Experiment

I chose to do my 20 Time project on sublingual immunotherapy because there is not much information available about the procedure, and I thought my experience with it would be helpful to those considering using it, and I also wanted to confirm for myself that it worked. Initially, I planned on doing tests once a week for fifteen minutes each. the tests would include placing my face near the cat for the entire fifteen minutes, then recording my symptoms and their severity, duration, and the times they started and ended. However, because sublingual immunotherapy is such a slow process, I later decided to do trials only once every two weeks so that the trend would be more visible when I compared the symptoms from all of my different trials. I had several setbacks along the way; early on, I forgot my SLIT drops while on vacation, and I had to restart the drops from a lower dose when I got back, and later I was forced to figure out a way to prevent my cat from running off in the middle of a ...

For those who aren't aware, this blog is about sublingual immunotherapy (SLIT), a relatively new allergy treatment that desensitizes your body to allergens. It uses a liquid mixture containing whatever you are allergic to, and you put that mixture under your tongue for twenty seconds each night, building up to a top dose of four drops of the more concentrated bottle. I decided to test this procedure's effectiveness by conducting tests every two weeks in which I would stay with my cat (to whom I am allergic) for fifteen minutes and record my symptoms. For reference, here are my symptoms before beginning sublingual immunotherapy: 0:00- Start trial 6:30- Nose begins to itch 8:00- Nose starts running, becomes congested 13:15- Sneeze four times 15:00- Stop playing with cat 21:30- Nose still itchy, congested 25:00- Sneeze four times 27:50- Nose stops itching 36:00- Sneeze four times ~5:00:00- Congestion stops March 3rd: 0:00- Start experiment 6:30- Itchy back of nose...