Checking for wax plugs/buildup

My cat always seems to have excessive wax, shaking her head and scratching her ears and clear fluid comes out. She has had basic ear cleaning with q tip for outer wax and liquid in for inner wax by a vet. She hates the liquid and although the outer part gets clean a week or two later she has more brown wax buildup again! First I wonder if the liquid solution is just getting trapped making it worse, or if it's the inner ears that have problems.

Can a vet look all the way into the ear with their scope to check for ear wax plug or bad buildup, or is this only possible under anesthesia?

My poor cat has never had a good cleaning, I'm starting to believe she needs to be examined while asleep to do a thorough cleaning, but I'd be happy if they could at least tell me while she is awake if that needs to be done.

I have ear wax issues myself so I know how irritating and painful it can be, my ear wax gets sucked out, no liquid used, I don't know why they don't do this for animals if they are sedated?

We have a cat who has to be sedated every six to nine months for a thorough cleaning.  My understanding is that she developed an auto-immune disorder due to untreated ear mites when she was a kitten.  When we got her at about a year old, she was almost deaf.

The vet does use a scope to clean her ears thoroughly, washing her ears out with a medicated wash.  He suggested we could put her on steroids but I'm not ready for that yet.  We can always tell when she needs to see the vet - head shaking, ear scratching.

So to answer your question, I think they can do a more thorough cleaning when the cat is sedated.

Has she been checked for a yeast infection. My cat just got over a yeast infection which was probably caused by a food allergy.  His ears were full of wax.  The vet used q-tips on his ears and I couldn't believe how much wax came out of his ears.  She looked at it under the microscope and there was yeast in it.

She did have ear mites when young and they were eliminated. But yeah the excessive wax is probably due to that, that's what the vet said. Eventually she is due for teeth cleaning so that would be a good time for full ear cleaning.

The vet cleaned her ears and got lots of wax out, but after put a nasty smelling grayish paste in to stop the scratching and head shaking called Pellitol. Only instructions I saw online were to fill ear canal with it and it flakes off and comes out removing debris, however this was under dogs and it said as of 2011 this was discontinued being made. I hope I wasn't wrong doing this she looked uncomfortable as the paste stays in. She is going back next week should I ask him to use a q tip to remove any leftover paste if it doesn't fall out on its own?

bugmankeith said:

She did have ear mites when young and they were eliminated. But yeah the excessive wax is probably due to that, that's what the vet said. Eventually she is due for teeth cleaning so that would be a good time for full ear cleaning.

The vet cleaned her ears and got lots of wax out, but after put a nasty smelling grayish paste in to stop the scratching and head shaking called Pellitol. Only instructions I saw online were to fill ear canal with it and it flakes off and comes out removing debris, however this was under dogs and it said as of 2011 this was discontinued being made. I hope I wasn't wrong doing this she looked uncomfortable as the paste stays in. She is going back next week should I ask him to use a q tip to remove any leftover paste if it doesn't fall out on its own?

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Need more information on Pellitol and if the paste was right for my cat being squirted into the whole ear canal.

I don't know what the vet uses but it does not stay in her ears.

According to bing, Pellitol is used for yeast infections in dog's ears, so it sounds like that's what the vet suspects is wrong with your kitty.  Hopefully, further examination will help determine the cause, so an effective treatment can be found.