Is this new drug far worse than the allergy it treats?
Only Big Pharma could come up with a treatment for a runny nose that can kill you.
I’m talking about the newest med on the market for an extremely common allergy that millions have… to dust mites.
But this new drug is so risky that you have to be watched for at least 30 minutes in your doctor’s office to make sure you don’t have a deadly reaction to it!
And even if it doesn’t send you to the ER with your throat swelling shut, you stand a very good chance of suffering all kinds of reactions that can make a simple allergy seem like a walk in the park.
Magnify one of them enough, and the common dust mite sure looks scary.
But no matter how big you make them look, they’re not as scary as reading the fine print for Merck’s new drug Odactra, approved by the FDA to treat an allergy to these critters.
While this med may seem super-easy to take (just pop a tablet under your tongue), it can also cause “life-threatening adverse reactions,” which is why you have to take the first dose while being carefully observed in your doctor’s office.
And that’s not the end of the danger. Because even when you’re sent home with Odactra, you also have to be armed with a shot of epinephrine in case things go south with additional doses — which you’ll be taking every single day. And maybe, just maybe, around three or so months later, you’ll notice some improvement in your allergy symptoms.
That may sound like a big risk to take to stop some sneezing and watery eyes, but unbelievably, there’s more.
It seems that over 50 percent of the people in the Odactra trial suffered from mouth and ear itching, close to 20 percent had swelling of their mouths and tongues, and a good percentage of other volunteers suffered from nausea, stomach and tongue pain and reported that food started tasting “different.”
Seriously?
The deal with dust mites is that there are proven steps you can take to reduce the numbers of them in your environment, which will in turn reduce your allergy symptoms. And not one of them will make your tongue swell up and food taste funny.
First, anywhere dust settles you’ll find these microscopic creatures, but they especially love to hunker down on carpeting, upholstered furniture and bedding.
Another thing they love is humidity. So one of the steps you’ll want to take is to keep your home as dry as possible with a dehumidifier.
Other tried and true ways to breathe easier include:
- Concentrate on your bedroom first, with the number-one step being to cover your pillow and mattress with a dust mite cover and wash it along with your sheets in hot water. Also, if you’re shopping for new pillow, try to find one that’s washable, or, at the very least, give it a tumble in the dryer regularly (on a hot setting).
- Never dry-dust, but use a damp rag or a disposable duster that’s been sprayed with water.
- If you don’t have one, invest in a vacuum with a HEPA filter to better trap the dust rather than having it blow out again.
- Buy a room-sized HEPA air filter. They’re relatively inexpensive and come in different sizes, depending on how big a room it is.
And as a side benefit for the allergy sufferer in your home, experts advise that they shouldn’t be the one doing any cleaning that can stir up dust!
“FDA approves Odactra for house dust mite allergies” March 1, 2017, FDA, fda.gov
