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and I have a little pad on

the back of my metal chair

and this pad was like this.

I mean, it did

absolutely nothing.

It was the stupidest

thing I've ever seen,

but I had to sit with a

pad and that identified me

to all the other kids

that there's like,

Alex apparently has to have

a pillow while he's at school

and that makes you

just look ridiculous.

I think that it's

easy to underestimate

how much allergies

can impact your life.

They impacted

Alex's social life.

I think they impacted

every aspect of his life

because when he was

little, he didn't feel well

so much of the time,

and that really impacted

what he was able to

do, what he felt like.

You know, he tried flag football

but he would be

sliding in the grass

and would come out with rashes

all over so we stopped that.

And that impacts all

aspects of a child's life.

When I would go outside

and I'd see people

sitting in the grass and to me,

I'm like why would

you wanna do that?

Because for me, sitting in

the grass makes me itch.

So allergies change

your entire perspective

of what the world is around you.

I look at grass as an enemy.

People look at grass as something

that's like fun to sit in

and roll around and

go outside and play,

and I just think of it

as, I'm gonna sit...

Who sits down

barefoot in the grass?

He was going to the

emergency room probably monthly

and having horrible rashes

and was on steroids,

prednisone frequently;

also had a nebulizer

that we were doing

treatments with daily.

So a lot of meds and

he was losing weight,

he was just really

starting to look sick.

I remember I had a girl

that thought I was sick

and would tell me that all

the time, and it's just like,

geez, nobody had any

understanding or sympathy

and they just think that

you're being really whiny,

and that it's your fault

that your allergic to stuff

and that it's your

fault that you can't do

what other people can do

and that wasn't my choice,

and so now I think more people

are beginning to

understand that.

One year, we spent

$11,000 out of pocket

just going around getting

different opinions,

and we had excellent insurance.

I worked at a hospital

where we had our insurance,

but you know, it

really adds up quickly

and he saw rheumatologists;

he also saw an immunologist.

At age seven, he was

diagnosed with fibromyalgia

and I just really thought

that was ridiculous.

I never thought it

was fibromyalgia.

I just did not believe

that, a seven year old.

And then we took

him to Mayo Clinic,

and Mayo Clinic doctor

looked at all of the testing

that had already been

done by the allergist

who came to Fort Dodge;

did not reside there

but came to Fort

Dodge, and just said,

well, this looks pretty good

and didn't retest any of it

and he actually

said to me, well,

we'll just have to

hope that it goes away

and I was so angry

and he knew it.

Of course, that was from fear.

I was terrified

because I thought

if Mayo Clinic doesn't

know how to help my son,

then where am I gonna go next?

What are we gonna do?

- What was strange is to me,

it was just like

this is my life.

This is what it will be, this

is what it will always be.

I will always have to not

eat what everybody else eats.

I will always have to

kind of live in a bubble.

I'm pretty stubborn and so I

decided to just keep looking.

We were gonna look until we

found something that worked

and this was before the days

of Google, so you really

couldn't look for resources

as easily as you can now,

but I'd heard about a

clinic Dallas, Texas

and we were getting

ready to take Alex there

when another friend told me

about Allergy

Associates in La Crosse

and said that they had

had a lot of success there

and this woman had even gone

through gallbladder surgery

that had been a

misdiagnosis when in fact,

it was a lot of different

symptoms from allergies.

When I found out

that I had allergies,

my original thought was great,

I'm gonna be taking pills

and having a nasal spray

the rest of my life

and I got lucky,

I ran into the Allergy

Associates of La Crosse

as a reference from my sister

and a person I worked with,

and taking the time

to drive four hours

to the office to get

checked out up there

was the best

decision I ever made.

I always tell people that

my mom gave me life twice.

She gave me life when she

actually had me as a child,

and then she gave me life

when she took me to

Dr. Mary's office

and solved what kept me

from enjoying the world

that she brought me into.

- When I took Alex to La Crosse,

I was surprised

that it was small

because I just imagined

this great big clinic.

It clearly was not

like originally a clinic.

We were in the

professional arts building

which is part of St. Francis

and it was the old

nursing dormitory

that had been sort of put

to clinical use by my dad,

and as each doctor came,

we got a little corner,

a little more space.

I actually started working

in the clinic when I was 13.

I worked Saturday

mornings and summers

from the time I was 13

until I finished college

and went off to medical school,

so I had had a long

experience with the clinic.

I saw the patients myself.

I mean, not by myself

but I was here.

I heard them talking about

the success they'd had

and it was exciting

to me to be able

to actually make those

types of changes.

- I was a former engineer.

I have a very

pragmatic approach.

You know, what are you

doing and is it working?

And when I came to Dr. Morris

a few years out

from my training,

I was not happy

with how I was doing

with shock therapy at all,

and Dr. Morris offered

this approach and I

thought, let me try it

and I'll see if it's helpful.

And as I said earlier,

the rest is history.

Allergies quite simply

are a pathologic response

to a normal thing

in the environment.

So for example,

someone can be outside

in the middle of August and say

this is the most beautiful

thing I've ever seen,

and the person standing next

to them is sneezing, itching,

their immune system

has become activated,

they're inflamed

everywhere, miserable,

and the two people are in

the exact same environment.

Those are things that

our body should tolerate

and for some reason, our

immune systems have decided

that they're foreign and they

are a danger to our bodies

so our immune systems gonna

activate it and start fighting.

So let's take a

look at what's happening

inside your body visually

when you have an allergy.

Allergies are an overreaction

from the immune system.

The immune system

is what fights off

a disease or foreign substance.

People who have allergies

have an immune system

that reacts to

something in the world

that's usually harmless,

like pet hair or pollen.

Any substance that causes

an allergic reaction

is called an allergen,

and people can be allergic

to a lot of stuff.

A person can be

exposed to an allergen

by inhaling it, swallowing it

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