Ear infection or wax buildup?

How can you tell if your cat has an ear infection or just bad wax buildup if all its life its ears constantly are dirty?

My cat has had her most recent ear cleaning in December, her ear is full of brown chunks starting outside ear hole, and when she shakes her head clear liquid drops go all over the inside is slightly red and her stomach hadn't been the best this week. However she's had this all her life and within a week of ear cleaning the gunk already starts building up. No antibiotic or cleaning keeps the problems away. She has multiple growths filled with blood in her ears I guess from all the years of shaking and scratching her ears.
All her life she's been to 3 vets and they clean her ears or give antibiotic but they just get dirty again soon after and always annoy her!

I'm at my wits end because we can't get drops or ointment in her ears and if antibiotics don't work we have no way to help anymore.

I'm not sure if this is a matter of surgery is needed because no vet sees anything wrong they just say wax buildup and ignore the growths in the ears but don't think why she has them!

So I'm curious how can I tell if its infection or chronic wax buildup?

My cat hasn't had a blood test in a long time, not allergy testing ever, could this be an autoimmune problem or allergy been undiagnosed all these years? Something we have to be missing its just not normal our other cat rarely if ever has dirty ears and they have the same diet and living conditions.

The ears should not drain.  That's a sign of infection or something else.  She needs to go back to the vet and have a culture done to see  if she's got a fungal or yeast infection in her ears.  I had a kitty who had chronic yeast infections in her ears due to allergies.  Once we got the allergies taken care of and she did a couple of rounds of BNT ear meds, she was great.

She may have an underlying problem such as allergies.  I had a cat who used to have constant infections and draining in his ears to the point that we had to remove his ear canals as it was so bad, he constantly had them bloody and he was miserable.  We switched him to a rabbit diet and that helped him a lot.

Have you taken her to the vet yet?  What my vet used to do is clean her ears under sedation, then put the BNT med in.  It's a gel that's gooey and lasts for about 2 weeks.  The body absorbs it over time.  He did that while she was still out.  Worked like a charm!  You might ask your vet about it.

stephanietx said:

Have you taken her to the vet yet?  What my vet used to do is clean her ears under sedation, then put the BNT med in.  It's a gel that's gooey and lasts for about 2 weeks.  The body absorbs it over time.  He did that while she was still out.  Worked like a charm!  You might ask your vet about it.

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Is that stuff gray and looks like wet cement and has a strong chemical odor? If so she had that already and she was miserable the stuff never dried after 5 days like vet said and he had to remove most of it. Her ears were fairly clean after but less than 3 weeks already had wax chunks and head shaking.

It is very goopy, a thick gel. 

I took my cat to the vet, and got her a blood test. Eos which is white blood cell was high, .87 normal high is .10-.79. Everything in blood test was normal. She has infection in one ear lots of dark pasty wax came out. Ears were cleaned with that clear ear liquid that smells doctor wanted to give ear drops but we can't get drops in, I asked if oral antibiotic will work because I could give it and he said no. He gave convenia shot 80mg and dexamethasone sp shot 4mg, I had nothing else I could treat her with for infection so that's why I said yes to the shot, cortisone I guess is to minimize swelling and irritation in her ear it was reddish and swollen. She had moderate ear mite infestation when younger and the vet said that might explain why from the start her ears haven't been good.

sorry to hear your cat is ill.we have many ferals here and 3 house cats so we deal with the ear mites quite a lot.im my experience the vet(s) have had many answers to the same question you have.sometimes its infection(bacterial) sometimes its infection(yeast).one thing the vets agree on is mite infestation can mess up the inside part of a cats ears and make the soft tissue swell up and nearly close.i suppose your vet knows what he or she was looking at.we have had different degrees of success with ear issues on cats.all we can do for our pals is keep their ears clean, vermin free and hope for the best when dealing with the vet.best wishes, and may your cat have a speedy and full recovery.