In Dr. Daniel Soteres’ office is a card. The elementary scrawl reads: “Thank you for allowing me to be your patient. —Brody”
“Brody is allergic to milk … so allergic he couldn’t go to the baseball team’s pizza party … couldn’t even be in the parlor,” Soteres says. “We did Oral Immunotherapy (OIT) and trained his body to [tolerate] environments that would’ve [previously] caused concern.”
Soteres compares OIT to the scene in The Princess Bride, where the hero builds immunity to a poison by progressively ingesting trace doses over time. Soteres has performed this procedure for various food allergies, including peanut, almond and egg. He has also conducted clinical research and become a key opinion leader on the treatment of the rare disease Hereditary Angioedema (HAE).
“Many patients [have been] saved from fear [of] their severe allergies or their next life threatening attack,” says Paul Byer, clinic administrator at Asthma & Allergy Associates.
“A lot of training is based on identifying the allergy,” Soteres says. “I focus on helping people live. The key is, lean in. People fight closeness. A parent will ask, ‘Can you help my child?’ The standard answer is, ‘We don’t have a solution.’ I’ve learned to think, ‘What would I want for my family?’ I try to take their view.”
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