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Alternative medicine
By Mayo Clinic staffSome people claim that alternative treatments help, but there's not much research in this area. Because peanut allergy can be life-threatening, herbal remedies are generally not recommended and aren't a substitute for medical care. Talk to your doctor before trying any alternative medicine treatment.
- Herbal remedies. A few small studies of herbal remedies have shown some benefit in reducing symptoms and preventing anaphylaxis, including some Chinese medicine formulas. Such reports, while interesting, haven't been proved. In addition, concerns about the quality of some herbal preparations from China add another level of concern. If you do take an herbal remedy, be sure to tell your doctor about it. It may affect test results or interact with other medications you take.
- Acupuncture and acupressure. There's not much research on acupuncture for food allergies, and the studies that do exist don't show a clear benefit from these techniques.
- Special diets. In the past, "rotating diets" that have you avoid certain foods at certain times were tried as a food allergy treatment. There's no evidence that this or other such diets work. The only food strategy proved to work is complete avoidance of the allergy-causing food.
References
- Nowak-Wegrzyn A, et al. Adverse reactions to foods. Medical Clinics of North America. 2006;90:97.
- Skripak JM. Educational clinical case series: Peanut and tree nut allergy in childhood. Pediatric Allergy and Immunology. 2008;19:368.
- Atkins D. Food allergy: Diagnosis and management. Primary Care Clinics in Office Practice. 2008;35:119.
- Food allergy: An overview. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. http://www3.niaid.nih.gov/topics/foodAllergy/PDF/foodallergy.pdf. Accessed Jan. 20, 2009.
- Li JT. (expert opinion). Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn. March 9, 2010.
- Ben-Shoshan M, et al. Is the prevalence of peanut allergy increasing? A 5-year follow-up study in children in Montreal. Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology 2009;123:783.
- Ko J, et al. Use of complementary and alternative medicine by food-allergic patients. Annals of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology. 2006;97:365.
- Li X. Traditional Chinese herbal remedies for asthma and food allergy. Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology. 2007;120:25.
- Peanuts. Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Network. http://www.foodallergy.org/page/peanuts. Accessed Feb. 24, 2010.
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