226 Diet Wise
If a reaction occurs (wheal or symptom), the patient is then given a
series of weaker and weaker injections of the same substance at 10-minute
intervals until the wheal ceases to grow and the symptom, if there is one,
disappears completely.
This ‘switch-off’ dilution, the first non-growing wheal, is called the
neutralizing dose; it works as a kind of antidote. The procedure is illustrated
in the figure.
The size of the wheal at start is unimportant
Safety note: Even very unpleasant symptoms are brought rapidly
under control by injecting a more dilute dose of the allergen (nearer the
end-point). Final adjustment of the correct end-point means that symptoms
have vanished altogether. In over half a million test doses I only ever once
encountered anaphylaxis, which was blocked by immediate administration
of epinephrine (adrenalin). At the time of writing no death has occurred
due to Miller’s method, despite its use by thousands of doctors world wide.
This is in sharp contrast to the hypo-sensitization method, which caused
multiple deaths annually until discontinued.
Nevertheless it is sensible to avoid injecting any substance into a
patient who has already had an anaphylactic reaction.
Sublingual Neutralization “Drops”
After testing a number of substances, a patient can then be given
a cocktail of the resulting neutralizing doses. These are administered as
sublingual “drops”; one drop under the tongue, shortly before food will
usually allow the patient to eat the food safely. This is in contrast to strict
avoidance, if no kind of desensitization is attempted.
Obviously common sense must play a part and if the reaction is
severe, reduced intake may be necessary. But it is better than a life of strict
avoidance. Happy patients have found themselves able to eat and drink
troublesome items and so rejoin social life on virtually equal terms with the
rest of us.
When we first started using this approach in the late early 80s, it
was of course scoffed at. I was called fraud by more than one doctor. But
it is satisfying to report that the medical profession has caught up at last
and sub-lingual immunization therapy, or SLIT, is now widely practiced.
You can find thousands of pages devoted to it on Google, if you enter this
search term.