MIAMI -- A boy's father said he blames over-the-counter cough medicine for his son's illness. The man is fighting to have the medications pulled from store shelves.

"He had a bad episode, started choking really bad," Dan Mannello said. "We called 911. We were very scared."

That was just the first of numerous brain seizures that D.J. Mannello has had daily since he was 20 months old. He's 9 now.

The 9-year-old is recovering from a brain mapping surgery that's supposed to help doctors and Miami Children's Hospital find where the seizures originate.

"It just crushes me," his father, Dan Manello, said.

In an NBC 6 exclusive interview, Mannello said he's convinced that his son's seizures are caused by an over-the-counter cough medicine that he took as an infant.

Mannello said he was first alerted of a potentially dangerous ingredient in the cold medicine called PPA in 2000, when the Food and Drug Administration issued a recall of products containing PPA.

"I jumped off my recliner," Mannello said of his reaction when he saw a television report on the products.

However, D.J.'s doctors said that's not the case. They said they believe his condition could be congenital.

"There's no one doctor that will go against pharmaceutical agents," Mannello said. "That's the reason. In my heart, I know that's the reason."

Mannello said he's on a mission to get all non-prescription cold products for children off the shelves.

In October 2007, he experienced a small, but meaningful victory when an FDA advisory panel decided that there was no evidence that cough and cold medicines for children work and could actually be harmful to children under 6.

"I'll be relentless in my efforts to get this drug off the shelf," Mannello said. "I'm not going to stop."

D.J. is scheduled for another brain surgery in the next few days, which will hopefully rid him of seizures.