Ok -- this thread has come back to life, and I've seen a ton of discussion on this issue lately, so I feel like it's time to make some points here. This is long, and I'm sorry, but we're throwing around words here that are losing their meaning because everyone 'means' something a little bit different by them.
So me, being *me*, I'm going to say let's stop here and look at what we're really saying. We're throwing around words like "infection caused by food" and even the word "infection" may be unclear.
"infection" -- according to Webster, these two sub-definitions are pertinent with the use here: "a disease resulting from infection" and "the establishment of a pathogen in its host after invasion"
Bottom line -- an "infection" comes from bacteria ...or bacteria/virus/fungi generally.
Often one infection actually is several -- for example -- a "yeast infection" -- yeast is a fungus. It's not bacteria and it's not viral. However -- it proliferates in a warm, moist environment (dog ears are perfect for it) -- but what makes the 'environment' more suitable FOR infection is when the tissues become inflamed for some reason. OR because some form of bacteria or 'thing' (I like the word 'thing' better than pathogen) has caused a problem.
Bacteria can cause infection -- but typically the immune system *should* be able to fight off bacteria. But if the body is weak, OR if the tissue is already irritated (because of underlying atopic allergies and particularly ear tissue is very sensitive and can react easily to what allergens the body has to deal wtih) THEN any passing bacterium can suddenly blow into an infection **because the body was set up for it**.
If a dog has a yeasty ear infection that then can give rise to a deeper bacterial infection just because infection loves to embrace new kinds of infection. At the very least yeast infections in the ears and other places on the body LOVES staph infection (bacteria) -- staph is literally everywhere, so staph is a natural to be introduced into a current yeast infection and then you have not just a yeast infection but also a bacterial one. But typically staph is pretty easily killed -- even tho most "yeast infections" usually have a staphy component to them.
But then it can go deeper -- the dog paws at the ears, or maybe even some thing the dog rubs on has a worse bacteria on it, or one time I had a groomer who caused deep bacterial infection because she used poor cleaning methods that actually introduced bacteria rather than helping.
Food doesn't *cause* ear infections -- not unless the dog has ingested some thing that is full of e coli or something. HOWEVER -- a food intolerance can cause irritation of the mucus membranes in the ear -- THAT resulting irritation can then take off and zoom with any yeast present (moist, warm environment) and you've got infection.
The food caused irritation -- literally a 'set up' for the infection to happen fast and hard.
I hope I'm clear here -- it's not the food itself. The food isn't loaded with bacteria or yeast. But the body is **intolerant** to the food, or perhaps even allergic to it -- THAT makes irritation and soreness which then gets infected by yeast, bacteria or whatever.
That might sound nitpicky -- but it's not. Everything houndmusic says about the immune system is right on target -- but everyone else is right when they say their dog is sensitive to this or that meat or additive.
One of the reasons I'm mentioning this is because if a dog has to be on a very limited diet because of food allergies then you have to continually be vigilant to make sure that the nutritional needs are being met (which is why often the specialty foods are so highly supplemented).
But once those mucus membranes are irritated then multiple things can occur.
Houndmusic - if you have a dog who has had a constant ear problem for two years you need, honestly, to have the vet do a culture & sensitivity on those ears because you run the risk of a deep, undetected bacterial infection being present that isn't getting addressed (and which is just growing more and more resistant to gentler antibiotics).
There comes a time when nothing can replace a culture & sensitivity. You can simply swab a culture from inside the ear and most vets have a microscope to look and detect the presence of bacteria. BUT a culture and sensitivity goes a step further that can be necessary after a while.
The vet takes the special swab and takes a sample from inside the ear, the tube is sealed and sent to a lab. Then the lab 'grows' whatever that culture will produce. Staph, Strep, e-coli, pseudomonas, etc. or whatever else will 'grow' and they identify it.
THEN the next step (that is part of the point of this) is they then expose whatever has "grown" to various antibiotics. They then rate which antibiotics work, which don't work, and which do it best (how fast and completely they 'kill' whatever has grown).
So the report you get back literally tells you what "organisms" (lovely word, eh?? don't we all want to think of what "organisms" are in our dog's ears YUCK) -- but exactly what they are AND what will kill them. This way the vet can prescribe the best antibiotic for the job. Maybe not the strongest -- no stronger than necessary. But it avoids exposing the dog to antibiotics that *won't* do the job because the bacteria/organism is resistant to it.
Why?? Why is it important to actually *kill* bacteria?
When the ears are inflamed year after year, the ear canal tissue ossifies -- it literally turns to bone. That strangles blood vessels and literally the inside of the ear will putrefy and die. Then oral antibiotics are a waste and the dog will ultimately die if left untreated -- if an abscess forms that explodes into the brain (meningitis).
I had a cocker who had a life history of ear problems, and then I had a vet who was purely an idiot (no aspersions cast on anyone else's vet -- this was one of those guys who didn't even wash his hands before surgery). This guy messed around for a year placating me with this and that ointment, cream, etc. ... none of which 'cured' the problem.
It was also a dog with a life-long demodex problem (yep, Houndmusic - **immune problems**) but ultimately we had to have his ears removed (bi-lateral ear albations) and guess what? The immune problems WENT AWAY.
The problem truly was, the immune system was constantly stressed because of the underlying infection that constantly was at odds with the body -- so altho we prolonged things by boosting his immune system, once we got rid of the ears (he had e-coli and strep in those ears - we had pathology done on them after they were excised) but the ear canals were so ossified that even tho we had finally *found* the infection it couldn't be treated because the inflammatory damage to the body was too great.
A lot of you have heard me talk about how food allergies are often 'secondary'. And yet many of you maintain ... and **you are right** that by simply withholding this or that food that the problem clears up.
But my point is this -- the body truly *should be able to* tolerate most foods -- a true food **allergy** is rare (like a human who can't breathe after eating shrimp or peanuts) -- but a food **intolerance** is pretty common.
But under healthy circumstances the dog SHOULD be able to tolerate those foods and if the body was dealing with allergies normally then one food shouldn't send the body into such severe reaction. so yes, maybe witholding a particular food can help keep the ears from breaking out, typically if the body is in that high of a state of allergy alert, then most anything can be a culprit and anything *new* often creates more of an allergy problem.
Please don't misunderstand me - I'm not telling you to give a sensitive dog chicken, beef or whatever. Not at all -- but I'm telling you that just withholding that *thing* isn't the complete answer to the problem and to at least be aware that there are likely other allergy things going on and it might be wise to try to treat them *also*.