Speaking of iron...Iron is generally quite irritating, and one should try to raise low blood iron levels by supplementing with B-Vitamins; sublingual B-12 and Brewer's Yeast. The forms of iron used to beef up denatured grain products, like cereal and pasta, is usually in that class of irritant forms of iron. Look for natural cereal and pasta without iron additives. It is iron loading of the delicate ear structures which will cause deafness from the use of some Antibiotics . P.S. GNC makes multi-vitamins without irritating iron, as iron loading has been implicated in cancer formation. Thanks for the info! P.P.S. My KCMO D.O., Lawrence Dorman, likes to pull kids with chronic ear infections off of cow's milk, finding that they thrive on easily digested goat's milk without all the mucus formation that can cause ear infections.