Ear Infection

I took Dusty to the vet today because I thought she was scratching her ears more than normal and shaking her head.

Vet was able to get an ear swab that they looked at under the microscope. No ear mites, but he says both yeast and bacteria infection. So I have drops to put in twice a day, and an ear wash that they say to use every third day with the instructions to flush each ear. I'm not sure how to flush an ear!

Advice please!!!!

PS. She is very feisty when anyone tries to mess with her body and will attack. I'm not looking forward to this. Vet also wanted to do a blood test, but she needs to be sedated for that. She was so upset that she pooped all over the table and stunk up the exam room. Good thing it was at the end of the day! She was so happy to be going home that she didn't even meow on the way home even though she yowled all the way there.

There is a gooey gel like medicine that your vet can put in her ears and it treats the yeast infection in the ear. It gradually is absorbed by the body over about a 2 week period. My girl's had it twice and it's wonderful not to have to put drops in her ears twice a day. On my paperwork from the vet's office, it's listed as BNT ear medicine.

Originally Posted by Dusty's Mom

I took Dusty to the vet today because I thought she was scratching her ears more than normal and shaking her head.

Vet was able to get an ear swab that they looked at under the microscope. No ear mites, but he says both yeast and bacteria infection. So I have drops to put in twice a day, and an ear wash that they say to use every third day with the instructions to flush each ear. I'm not sure how to flush an ear!

Advice please!!!!

PS. She is very feisty when anyone tries to mess with her body and will attack. I'm not looking forward to this. Vet also wanted to do a blood test, but she needs to be sedated for that. She was so upset that she pooped all over the table and stunk up the exam room. Good thing it was at the end of the day!

She was so happy to be going home that she didn't even meow on the way home even though she yowled all the way there.

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Kind of crappy of your Vet/clinic not showing you how to flush the ears, how WOULD you know?! I am not any help as I don't have a clue, have never had to do it myself. I have given ear drops to skittish cats, though. I do it the same way I pill a cat.................I kneel down on the floor (if you have bad knees, do this on a bed, more comfy!! LOL).......then sort of sit down so that my feet are tucked under my butt.........put cat between thighs so cat can't wiggle out. Have ear drops handy. I'll even take the cap off the bottle and have a clean cloth to set bottle and cap onto, beside me (having the cap off saves time so you're not trying to hold down the cat and fiddle with a lid). I sorta tilt the head such that the ear I'm putting the drops in is more facing the ceiling. squeeze in required # of drops and try to hold cat's head still so cat doesn't shake head and drops fly out. I try to put tip of bottle down into ear canal a little, so the drops are going down into the canal as opposed to just sitting inside the outer ear area. If I'm not mistaken, my cat Fuzzy would drool or foam at the mouth a little after I put her ear drops in (or am I dreaming?), for just a second.

I would call up Vet clinic tomorrow first thing and tell them you were instructed to do an ear flush but have NO idea how to do this, nobody showed you.

Last Friday I took Gray in to the Vet - trouble with swallowing ... he had a temp of 105.3, so they injected him with an antibiotic. Whew! Didn't have to go through all the difficulty in hog tying him to give him the meds - ah,

hold on ...

By Sunday, he seem to be better, his energy was returning and he was trying to find his way out of the house ...
... then Monday - he was sneezing and looked like he was going backwards so I called the vet as a precautionary measure.

The vet prescribed another spectrum antibiotic (oral) and told me to pick it up after 1 PM.

When I went to put Gray away so I could leave (we have three other cats inside and I didn't want him accidently mixing it up with one of them) I found him with fluid running out of both his nose and mouth.

Now, please understand - I have NO experience with a sick cat. Just minor stuff, nothing at all like this!!

I panicked, called the vet who is now on SPEED DIAL - the poor person that answered the phone probably wished she was still at lunch (I apologized then, and, again later) ... she asked me if Gray was able to breathe --- I said, "I don't know, I'm not a vet!!!!~!" etc. - I don't think I yelled it, but then ??? . I won't tell you how stupid I was after that, oh, so embarrassing!

I guess they cancelled a few appointments to get this crazy lady in to see the vet within the next 30 minutes. They probably didn't want me standing in the lobby waiting, no tellin' what I was going to do once I was there. nah, - they were really just matter-of-fact, like nothing ever happened.

All that is just to illustrate that the vet staff deal with this stuff all the time, and they may forget that something we need to do to help them evaluate something, or nursing that we may need to do, might be traumatic for us for the first time.

(If there's a next time I'll probably be able to know IF he's able to breathe and tell them - I hope.)

Oh, one thing my vet said, about giving the oral antibiotic, was to wrap him in a towel. Now that was great advice and I didn't even have to ask. He's a really good vet.

His nurse was so sweet to me when I started to explain how terrible I was

(reception was trying to put me off for another 2 hours!!,
some nonsense about the doctor having other appointments - really!!),

she said that she heard (ugh!!) -- saying she understood and that I should forget it.

Boy, was I embarrassed! --- Probably not as much as the next time - should it ever happen again, that is.

I have same prob with my cat she's about 3 month old. She probably have very bad ear infection. She always scratch her ears more than normal and shaking her head. I went to see 3 diffrent vets. Last one told me to clean the ears using Oti-clens 2 times in a day and use Surolan ear drop. Vets advice me to use a colar to prevent herself from scratching. And i bath her once a week with malaseb.Now she's healthy as ever and no more scratching or debris/dirt in her ears. I still clean her ears 2 weeks once.

Something else to consider is having your cat anesthetized and having the vet flush her ears out thoroughly. My older kitty has problems with ear wax buildup which then goes into an ear infection, so I have her ears flushed and cleaned out when she has her annual dental cleaning.

My cat had a similar problem with a yeast infection in his ears, and I had to administer drops. We had to keeps the drops in the fridge, which I didn't do

Just wanted to mention it in case you'd like to check with your vet on how to store the drops.

Stephanietx, that's a great idea, and I'll check with my vet the next time I bring my cat in for his dental. Thanks!

Update

Dusty returned to the vet 10 days ago because it appeared she wasn't cured and the infection was worse. The vet couldn't even see in her ears because they were so swollen, so she's been on Tresaderm and Prednisone, and returns to the vet on Monday. I think she has totally lost her hearing. Is there a way the vet can test her hearing?

Since she is an in/out cat (because that's what she was when we got her), if she can't hear, I am really nervous about her going outside, since she would be so vulnerable. But since she is used to going out, she will meow - much louder than normal, because she can't hear - and that will drive us nuts, especially at night. How do we cope?