Sunday, February 28, 2010

Chronic Cat Ear Infection

Lexy has had a chronic ear infection in one of her ears for slightly over a month now. I took her for her annual exam and Dr. Wake at the Hyde Park Animal clinic thought that she had a bacteria infection and prescribed both an antibiotic pill and ear medication. He also told us to clean her ears with q-tips. I had read online not to clean cat ears with q-tips so I skipped that part and administered her medication and just cleaned it with tissues. Her ears looked slightly better, but still red and inflamed a week later when I took her back to the vet. He told me to make sure to clean it deep inside with q-tips to ensure that the medicine reached where it needed to reach. I did that for another week and unfortunately her ear looked no better no worse. We took Lexy back to the vet and after waiting for an hour, we ended up seeing Dr. Williams. He cleaned out her ear with a solution and told us to get use that in addition to the Baytril Otic that we were using. We did that for a week and her ears looked a lot better. I was very hopeful that her ear infection would be cured once and for all. The vet thought so too and had us come back next week for one final checkup. Unfortunately, her ear infection became worse last week. When we took her to the vet this Saturday, her ear once again was red and had lots of waxy buildup. Now, we were given medicine to treat both yeast and bacteria and limit her to only one kind of food to eliminate the possibility of allergies. They also did an ear cytology on her and told us that they will call us at the end of the day. So far, they have not and I will need to call them tomorrow to find out the results.

I am getting rather frustrated. I understand that the vets at the Hyde Park Animal clinic are doing their best and there really isn't anything else they can do at this time. However, I want her ear to heal. It hurts me to have to see her ears red and inflamed. It also hurts me to have to torture her to apply the ear medication twice per day. She doesn't understand that we are doing this for her own good. She's quite upset at us lately and not even the cat treats are able to mollify her.

I wonder what should we do. Should we take her to another vet clinic? But we don't have a car and we are not sure that another vet clinic can do anything else. Should we see another vet? We are so far happy with Dr. Williams. He seems very knowledgeable. I just hope that her ear infection can heal soon.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Hopefully the latest antibiotic cures the ear! I am tired holding the cat every time while you administer the medicine~