Big Country boy with severe food allergies, eczema gets surprise of lifetime

ABILENE, Texas -

About 5 percent of children in the United States have food allergies.

Kids with food allergies are likely to have asthma and suffer from eczema, a skin condition that can be serious.

One child in the Big Country has all three asthma, food allergies and eczema.

Kason McDowell has been in and out of the hospital since he was three months old.

Food or anything in the air could trigger an allergic reaction.

He's like any other 3-year-old boy, except he has a nebulizer machine and his mother has to carry epinephrine (epi) pens wherever they go.

When Kason was an infant, his eczema was so bad he would scratch his face until it bled. The open wounds caused many infections, some so bad he was even quarantined.

His mother, Mary, said the diagnosis was hard to bear, especially since there is no cure.

"How do I deal with it?" McDowell said. "It was kind of almost like anyone would grieve a situation. It was anger, then hostility, then depression. You realize once you get the diagnosis, it's like okay ... they tell you how to deal with it, but when what they tell you doesn't work, you're like, 'What now?'"

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Big Country boy with severe food allergies, eczema gets surprise of lifetime