A lot of my Facebook friends have small children. I've noticed that most of these small children suffer from recurrent ear infections. This means these kids are getting tons of antibiotics at a young age to battle the infections and many end up needing tubes in their ears to prevent further infections.
As I mentioned in my post "About Me", my son suffered from recurrent ear infections after I stopped breast feeding and started giving him cow's milk. It seemed like every few weeks he would get a fever and end up having an ear infection. He stopped responding to the usual antibiotics and started needing something stronger. My mom (an RN) suggested eliminating cow's milk from his diet as a trial to see if it was contributing to his ear infections, allergies and asthma issues. I didn't eliminate dairy completely but he stopped drinking cow's milk daily.
Most pediatricians recommend that children begin drinking Vitamin D cow's milk around 1 year of age. It's considered a "superfood" and a staple in young children's diet. I researched information on the link between dairy and ear infections/asthma/allergies and was surprised that no pediatrician had suggested I try eliminating or reducing his milk/dairy intake. It seemed like the number of people who found success by making this simple change in their child's diet should be reason enough to make it a well known "treatment" for kids who struggle with these health concerns.
My son has not suffered from a single ear infection since removing cow's milk from his diet (he still consumes it in other foods but stopped drinking it). He still struggles a bit with allergies during certain times of year but I am confident if we continue eliminating dairy, he will experience these symptoms less and less.
I find it troublesome that this isn't information that is regularly shared in the medical field. It's crazy to me that almost every small child I know of suffers from these issues in some way. It has to be linked to something common in their diet. I urge every parent who's battling these issues to give it a 3 month trial. Eliminate cow's milk from your child's diet for 3 months and see if you notice a change. An easy internet search will give you tons of information on the subject so you can research it for yourself. You've got nothing to lose except a lot of visits to the pediatricians office!
I eliminated dairy from my son's diet when he was young with similar success. He had GI problems not ear problems. I used water instead of milk for mashed potato. Today I would use rice milk. Limited cheese to occassional mac and cheese and pizza. I do not use dairy now with exception of occassional cheese. Moving to eliminate that now.
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