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Okay, at risk of sounding like a crank, I'm going to go public with
anecdotes expressed in private messages re. sinus infections.  Before my
son developed cd, he had severe allergies as an infant, with intestinal
bleeding from milk in my diet.  He was a mom's-milk-only baby, so I followed
the protocol which seems to be gaining credibility among allergy researchers.
I cut out all milk, eggs, wheat, corn, legumes, nuts, and soy as the most
common food allergens in the U.S., and nursed him for two years.  We held
off introducing solid foods till 12 months, and introduced nothing off the
above list until two years. He grew like a weed, walked at 10 months, and
his verbal skills were off the chart, so I don't think he was done any
harm by the late introduction of solid food.  It got a bit tedious for
mom, but nothing like the anxiety and fear of his early weeks.
 
He did well, we thought, on new foods at two years.  The cd didn't turn
up until four months after wheat came onto the scene. A few days after
having milk, though, he developed his first ear infection; this pattern
repeated itself until at the last test (he's now 4 and a half) he had an
ear infection less than a day later.  He no longer eats dairy -- as Dr.
Spock pointed out, the calcium in cow's milk is not very bio-available
to humans, and the risks of drinking milk don't really justify it for
human children, at least in his opinion.
 
Second, after a couple of months on this diet for him, _my_
hayfever and sniffles and sneezes disappeared.  My asthma disappeared.
And the inhaler started gathering dust!  The 12-15 sinus infections a year,
disappeared.  No more skin problems, and various other nebulous phenomena
(mental alertness, etc.) which are too idiosyncratic to list.  When I
tried dairy after he weaned, whammo.  Twelve hours later, pounding sinus
infection.  I've tested this correlation once it started to dawn on me that
it might BE a correlation, and unless I take an antihistamine with any
dairy, the pattern repeats itself.
 
I also have to admit, now that I've kicked the habit, to a certain
sympathy for those cows, not formerly an object of much sympathy
or liking to my agrarian heart.  But now the thought of the
the cows hooked up to the machines (there was a dairy farm in my family
where I spent the weekends, so I know whereof I speak), and the thought of
them being forced with hormones to lactate their entire lives and all that
that implies -- I'm not campaigning here, but the thought does occur
that this is not a pleasant thing to do to an animal as a basis for an
entire industry.  Not the worst thing we do to animals in this culture
by far, and probably a thought that can only occur to someone who doesn't
like the stuff anymore.
 
So, this is not medical advice.  I've read much of the pediatric allergy
medical literature re. dairy (LaLeche League keeps a bibliography) but
wouldn't presume to attempt to explain why this correlation might be
evidence that sinus infection sufferers should consider eliminating dairy
from their diets.  I just offer it as a possibility to consider.
 
On the lighter side, a writer for the NYT several months ago related being
in a restaurant in the midwest (to a New Yorker, these things always
happen in the Midwest or the South) and ordering a dry english muffin,
decaf with no sugar or milk, and juice.  When his waitress brought the
food, she put it on the table, paused and said, you know, I'd rather die
than eat like that all the time.  Our writer paused, and changed his order
-- bacon, two eggs over easy, biscuits with butter, and REAL coffee.
Shocking, eh?
 
All the best,
 
Elizabeth