An allergy march basically illustrates the potential natural history or outcome of having an allergic disease. If a child has eczema, whilst this may start to disappear in terms of symptoms, at some point in the future, he may start to develop respiratory allergies such as asthma or allergic rhinitis.
It is likely that whilst the symptoms or signs of eczema have disappeared, the allergy may persist, and present itself in other ways. The child may develop persistent sneezing, itchiness of the nose, and blocked and running nose on waking up in the morning, which is suggestive of house dust mite allergy, or allergy towards other indoor allergens.
In this scenario, conventional anti-allergic medications such as oral anti-histamines and nasal spray (corticosteroids) may offer symptomatic relief, but may not necessarily prevent the allergy march.
In this situation, the role of allergen-specific immunotherapy (ASIT) is the only treatment shown to prevent or change the natural outcome of the allergic reaction.
This treatment can be thought of as a re-education process for the immune system, which in allergy, has gone into a hypersensitive mode when encountering harmless organisms such as dust mites.
The ASIT will likely induce a state of tolerance towards these harmless organisms or other aero-allergens. Thus the individual could well revert to his original state of tolerance before the allergy started (for which the actual cause is not known). ( thestar.com.my )
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