It's really all about the slant.  It's about how you emphasize and deemphasize things.  You can’t get away from your IT history, but you can maximize the things that you did in those jobs that most closely relate to the job that you want to have and minimize the things that are the least closely related.  I can’t tell you specifics because I don’t have your specific background info but I can talk about a few things in general.  Anything you did in the recordkeeping realm is database management.  If you improved the system or generated new reports that’s good stuff.  Anything that you did in your IT jobs that had to do with analyzing or managing the data, is process development, it’s system or statistical analysis, it’s database management, it’s a cousin of actuarial science.  Is it as good as having a statistical analysis job for the last 5 years?  Of course not, but don’t make the mistake to think that there is nothing great that you can pull out of this IT work history.

The #1 thing to do is to figure out all of the math/statistical/analysis skills that you will use in the job that you want to have and then figure out where you have used those same skills in your IT history and highlight those aspects from your days in IT.  The #2 thing to do is to look at what you have learned in IT that will be valuable to some kind of statistical analysis job that you wouldn’t have learned if you were in a statistical analysis job.  In other words look for the edge that you have from coming from outside of the field.  There is going to be an edge there, find it and use it.  One of the great things that comes with IT support is diversity; generally you work on a lot of issues with a lot of people in a lot of different environments.  This “general exposure” that you get in IT Support doesn’t usually happen in statistical analysis jobs so play this up.  Sell it as you can be an even better “number cruncher” now due to your IT experience because now you can see the numbers in a better context.  In your IT capacity you’ve been with a wide range of corporate functions, down in the trenches of day-to-day life in their environments and that will only enhance your ability to do quality statistical analysis, because it will provide you a greater understanding of the data you are analyzing.

You can get a lot of use out of your IT experience, it’s all about the slant, highlighting the math/analysis skills you used in your IT jobs and making a case for why you are an even better number cruncher now because of the exposure you got in IT that you wouldn’t have gotten in a statistical analysis job.