Recurring ear infection

[Wellhellothere101]

Hi all. Looking for advice-this is our first dog so I'm not hugely experienced. I have a 4 year old Australian labradoodle who is a dream dog and has kept really good health so far. However for the last year she has had a smelly, painful right ear on a few occasions. I've taken her to the vet each time who agreed it was infected and gave me antibiotic/anti fungal/steroid ear drops. These drops have worked each time but each visit and review at the vet costs £100.
The vet said if this continues she could carry out allergy testing to see if she is allergic to something but I don't feel she is (mostly because it's only one ear and its intermittent). Plus I can only guess how much this will cost.
I take the dog to the groomers regularly and she pulls the hair out of her ear which the vet recommended. However I wondered if anyone else's dog had this and if anything worked rather than me going to the vet every month! Thanks

Thanks @steppemum I think I'll need to just bite the bullet and get her back to the vets. I can then discuss allergy testing too and chat about insurance. I've never claimed anything on her insurance so will need to find out the process.
I'll maybe switch her food to grain free too.

You should consider whether all the incidents recently are the same as you can retrospectively claim depending on your provider.

I can submit claims up to 1 year after an incident and then for subsequent claims for the same 'illness' they are just submitted as a continuation. I claim for anything above my excess but I am with petplan who haven't hiked up my premiums despite my frequent claims.

by the way, once I was on repeat visits, I made sure I saw the same person each time, then I felt as if we had much more thought about the fact it was recurring and long term etc.

We have the same problem with our SWD.
Apologies if this has already been suggested but our vet has said to get ddog in, sedate him them shave the hair in the ear canal.
We cut a lot of the hair out but would never be able to get deep enough. Vet said the hair/wax is a breeding ground for bacteria. They also said to clean ears 2/3 times a week using a cleaner that breaks up ear wax

Thanks @Girlintheframe Yes she goes to the groomer every month and she gets rid of all the hair in her ears which I think helps. I gave her ears a good clean last night which really helped and they smell great now but think I'll start cleaning more regularly against the vet's advice. I'll clean twice a week for a while to see if that helps.