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Comment by candiddevmike | Hacker News Reader

General feedback:

- I want to try this but I'm not sure how much it will cost in total. I see a lot of hints, but no clear pricing on the total treatment cost. I know from experience with a local allergy clinic, this treatment is ridiculously expensive.

- I also see no claims around how long the treatment will last (on average)

- I'm not sure I understand how an at home allergy test works or suffices for diagnosis. I'm also fairly skeptical on how allergies are diagnosed in general--when I have had the skin tests performed, they were highly "subjective" to the point of lunacy--drawing circles, measuring with a ruler, etc.

- Can you treat food allergies?

- There are quite a few UI issues--lack of borders, padding, and clutter. You're going for trust here, you should make sure your website looks the part.

- I also keep getting a cookie request thing from a separate domain, wtf?

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Thank you for the feedback!

On total cost: We charge $99/mo. It's hard to give a total cost without knowing more about each person's specific allergy triggers and how well immunotherapy takes for them. Generally, we expect patients to be with us for up 5 years.

On how long treatment lasts: I spoke to this in the total cost section, but it's hard to make a blanket statement.

On our at-home allergy test: We use a CLIA-certified allergy test which is used by allergy doctors across the United States. Specifically, we test for allergen-specific immunoglobulin E (IgE). IgE antibodies are normally found in small amounts in the blood, but higher amounts can be a sign that the body overreacts to allergens. This can lead to an allergic reaction. We don't treat to the test, however. Every patient shares their personal allergy history with their doctor, and the doctor uses both the allergy test and reported allergy history to create the personalized allergy treatment plan.

On food allergies: Wyndly only treats environmental allergies like pollen, pet dander, and dust. We do not treat food allergies. There are a number of promising therapies currently undergoing clinical trials for food allergy oral immunotherapy, and we are optimistically awaiting the results.

UI issues: You're absolutely right, we need to establish trust, and a shoddy website does not help us. We're always trying to improve the UI and UX.

Cookie request: I'm not sure what this is. Can you share a screenshot? It is possible it is from our HIPAA-compliant scheduler which is embedded through an iframe.

Is IgE present in the bloodstream if I have not been exposed to the allergen recently? E.g. will I show as positive for a pet dander allergy if I have not been around pets for many years?

Yes, the test can detect allergies even if you haven't been exposed for some time.

However, we can use any allergy test you have -- a QuestLabs ImmunoCap or a traditional mulit-needle scratch test.

I'm trying to interpret this statement. Are patients paying for therapy for 5 years before seeing effects, or is a course of treatment valid for 5 years?

Sorry about that! I'll try to be more clear:

Patients see improvement in symptoms after 6 months, with some patients reporting improvement as soon as 6 weeks.

If patients stays on drops for 5 years, they can expect significant decrease in allergy symptoms for decades, even once they have stopped taking a daily allergy drop.

If the patient stops taking their allergy drops, they will still see a reduction of their allergy symptoms, but it won't last for decades -- it may only last a few months.

When do the drops reach their max potency ?

Our protocol is proprietary, but in general the drops reach maintenance dosage between 3 to 9 months.

Well I definitely have some mild environmental allergies (some cats & rabbits) but nothing life threatening. This somewhat reminds me of 23&me, except with some obvious potential quality of life improvements.

Ordered an Allergy Test kit.

Will update everyone in 5 years if it was worth it or not! :)

How effective is this against eczema? Without proper insurance, this is a better deal than medications like Dupixent, right?

I recently started allergy shots, and am also on Dupixent.

I asked my allergist about this when I started shots. He said that it might help with the Eczema, but nothing is guaranteed. There is at least anecdotal evidence indicating that allergy shots might be helpful for Eczema. https://acaai.org/news/your-severe-eczema-may-best-be-treate...

If you don't have insurance, Dupixent is like $2000 per month. Not sure whether their copay assist program will defray some of the cost. However, Dupixent has been life-changing for me. I went from having itchy flaky skin all over my body to being essentially normal.

I'm glad to hear about your Dupixent journey! We're looking forward to getting some. Thanks for the insight on allergy drops.

We do not suggest allergy drop immunotherapy for eczema.

As someone who's battled this my whole life, and gone down a crazy number of rabbit holes on it, my personal recommendation to you is to try elimination diet.

Especially milk and milk products.

If you decide to try this, don't do it halfway. Read the ingredients of everything you eat. Don't eat at restaurants. Stick with it for three months.

I went from having difficulty walking, and being unable to use my hands due to severe dishydrotic eczema, to being completely 100% healed.

This was after I was diagnosed with shingles, given a ton of very harmful steroids and steroid creams, told by multiple doctors and dermatologists that it was an incurable autoimmune condition that I'd be living with forever.

I was also told explicitly by one dermatologist that it was impossible that my problems were caused by a food allergy, that any results I was seeing were coincidence.

It turned out, I'm allergic to milk protein.

If you're battling this as well, it might be worth your time to look into elimination diets.

Wow, thank you, I've finally found a name for the rash I used to get on my hands. It showed up when I ate wheat several days in a row, when I played with Play-doh, and when I used latex dishwashing gloves. Took years to figure it out. I still have scarring because of it.

A high profile example of what you state is Jordan Peterson.

Apparently he literally only eats meat an some vegs, and was able to make substantial changes to some kind of debilitating condition.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jordan_peterson#Health_problem...

So I think being up front that you think it will take 5 years to complete the therapy is a good idea. That this isn't a quick fix is key. But for people with bad allergies or long term users of OTC treatments this might be clarity they need for long term treatment. Also you might want to compare it to other long term life therapies, like braces..which are almost as expensive. I like the idea..I think the $99 price tag a month for 5 years might be a sticker shock though.

Here's an image of the cookie pop-up. https://imgur.com/tu2flYc

It's annoying. It disappears when I go to a different tab. Before that, it blocked any scrolling on your page in Brave.

The "schedule your free online visit" section is empty. I'm assuming because I didn't click "ok".

It looks like Brave browser blocks our HIPAA-compliant scheduling software, Cogsworth. I'll look into this.

Thanks for flagging it!

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