Expert: Dr. Louis N. Gotthelf - 1/13/2009

Question
I have a 1yr. old siamese cat Kenga, who is a male.  We bought him from a well known breeder.  He was about 5 months old when when one morning I woke up with him laying on me and I could smell a bad smell coming from his left ear.  about an hour later,I saw him walking in circles with his head lopsided and his body leaning to one side, then he started to shake. I thought he was having a seizure.  I immediately called the vet, and then brought him in, and they told me he had vestibular disease.  They gave me some clavamox medication because he had some black stuff in his ears that they tested for ear mites, and it came back negative.  It is almost a year later and about 20 vet visits later with different test that were ran to see if his ear drum was in tact and no one can tell me what it is.  There has been no more lopsidedness or shaking, but we still have black chunks of stuff coming out of only his left ear.  I don't know what to do.  I know it bothers him, beacuse he doesn't like for us to touch it and he is always scratching.  Please help

Janice

Answer
This is most likely a middle ear problem.  My best advice to you is to call around your area and find a vet that has a video otoscope.  It is a little TV camera that looks into the cat's ears. They can sedate the cat, clean and flush out the ear and evaluate the eardrum.  If the eardrum is ruptured, the middle ear may need to be cleaned out. If there is an infection, I would advise using a drug called Azithromycin rather than the Clavamox.