<<Disclaimer: Verify this information before applying it to your situation.>> 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