Ear infections in dogs
A lovely little Shih Tzu named “Toby” came to us at Drovers two weeks ago with an ear infection that had been bothering him for a while, and previous treatment at another clinic had not helped.
Both ears were infected, one ear much worse than the other and quite sore. The left ear had a very creamy thick discharge. We performed a cytology examination in hospital by taking a swab from the ear and looking at cells etc. under the microscope. We found a very nasty collection of bacteria, and with the owner’s permission sent a swab away to an external pathology laboratory for culture of the bacteria. The culture grew three different bacteria, one of which was resistant to all antibiotics tested. We had started “Toby” on some oral (by mouth) and aural (ear drop) antibiotics before getting the culture results back. Then based on culture and sensitivity testing we changed the antibiotics to something the bacteria would be sensitive to.
The owners were diligently using an ear cleaner, ear drops twice daily plus the antibiotic tablets.
He came back today for the required recheck two weeks later. The ears looked completely normal but we still needed to do a swab and check under the microscope for bacteria or yeast. The swab on both ears were clear of all infection.
The reason we do revisits and repeat swabs/cytology even when the ears seem to be going well is so that we can continue medication in the event that there is still residual infection. If those animals didn’t return for rechecks, often the infection is still there in very low numbers and will flare again after a few weeks.
We would like to congratulate “Toby’s” owners for being so diligent with both the treatment and the rechecks such that we have seen a very satisfactory outcome.
There can be several reasons for chronic recurrent ear infections such as:-
* underlying allergic skin disease,
* animal compliance with treatment
* getting sufficient quantity of the most appropriate medication into the ears, (this is based on cytological assessment of bacteria/yeast infection)
* sufficient duration of treatment to affect a resolution of infection.
In clinic testing of ear swabs in all ear infections plus retesting are EXTREMELY important in overcoming ear infections which otherwise can be very frustrating.