If you or someone real close to you have allergies, you'd know that its impact on one's quality of life is not insignificant. It's easy for someone who has never suffered from allergies to say that I or allergic people are being melodramatic and are exaggerating, but I guess it takes another allergy sufferer to appreciate that it's not trivial, it's not something you can shrug off, not something to be dismissed.

Allergies not only manifest it physically; allergies can also have a deep, emotional impact on sufferers, affecting their mood and self-perception.

Between January and February 2008, Schering-Plough/MERCK Pharmaceuticals commissioned a survey that showed exactly this. The national, phone survey included 1000 allergy sufferers, 1000 general consumers and 300 physicians. Basically they found that:

• Six in 10 allergy sufferers report that their symptoms impact their mood; 51 percent of allergy sufferers feel annoyed, 48 percent feel irritable and 42 percent feel frustrated
• Two in 10 allergy sufferers report that their allergies make them feel less attractive and self-conscious
• Forty-seven percent of consumers believe that allergies make sufferers feel angry

You can download a pdf copy of the complete breakdown of results from the Attitudes About Allergies website.