Allergy to food/seasonal?

[akilupo]

I switched Aki to a different brand of premade raw about 13 weeks ago and his stool looks great and he loves it. I took him to the vet about 9 weeks ago Because, I noticed he is ear flapping, rubbing his face in the ground and licking his paws. (This coincided with everyone in my home suffering from seasonal allergies.) The vet said it was seasonal allergies and put him on prednisone. I will admit he did seem better on the prednisone, (he gets 10mg every other day.) But, on the days he is not on prednisone, he was back to the ear flapping. Aki is on chicken premade raw currently, and the brand he was eating before was also using chicken as the protein source. Now, 5 weeks later, he has been weaned off of the prednisone, but we are back to the ear flapping, rubbing of the face, itchy paws, etc. I would like everyone's opinion on whether you think it's food allergies, seasonal allergies or both... ( I too am suffering from seasonal allergies, so I don't know if this is coincidence or if its a food allergy.) Today, he was given a cortisone shot as the vet noticed Aki is itchy and had redness in his ears, but he said the ears looked clean. Do I go with the treatment as planned by the vet and stick to the premade chicken raw he is currently on? Do I switch to a diferent protein source and assume it may be the food as well? I know this is long, but I do appreciate everyone's insight and opinion.
p.s. (The vet kind of blew off the food allergy.)

[gmacleod]

I suspect your vet is probably right. But the simplest way to test it is to change his food to comething different (he shouldn't have the same thing more than about 3 meals in a row anyway).

If you can get something with totally different ingredients (including changing any vegetables), that would be ideal. If the symptoms miraculously disappear after swapping to a different sort of meat - then that's a pretty strong clue that there were food allergies involved there. But if there's no change, you equally get a pretty strong clue that food doesn't have much to do with it.