Our daughter was breast-fed until about 1 year-old, with a variety of table foods as she got older. During this time she would ocassionally get skin rashes, but we didn't think much of it.
When she turned 1, we started her on whole milk, and a normal balanced diet. In the 6 months since then, she is averaging about one ear infection per month, and has chronically dry skin.
She got ear tubes, but she continues to get regular ear infections. Now her doctors are recommending adenoid removal. Before we go to that, we want to consider that both the skin trouble and ear infections might be allergic reactions. The most likely allergy seems to be dairy products. We've started her on soy milk, and she's gotten another ear infection since then. But we haven't tried completely eliminating dairy from her diet (because that is very hard to do!)
Are there any reliable ways to tell if she is having a reaction to dairy products? If we were able to completely eliminate dairy from her diet for some time, should we expect the skin trouble and ear infections to completely go away (assuming they were are a reaction to dairy)?
Update: We've had our daughter on no dairy for about a month now. Her skin has been about the same, and she's gotten her usual monthly ear infection. We are now pretty confident that she doesn't have an issue with dairy. To confirm that, we plan to heavily reintroduce dairy to her diet. Assuming no noticable changes at that point, we'll assume she's good.