Expert: Dr. Louis N. Gotthelf - 8/14/2005

Question
Dr.Gotthelf, my siberian husky has problems with her ears. She constantly has large amounts of wax/yeast infections.Her ears seem to be dry and flaky, and smell like wax.I have tried Otomax,Clear, and Monistat.She fights me when I try to treat her, so using a rinse is very difficult.She has never had a flushing of her ears, and sometimes she keeps me up at night shaking her head.Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks,Matt  

Answer
Yeast infections in dogs' ears are almost always related to a skin allergy. You might want to let your vet do a deep ear flush with the dog sedated to clean out the wax.  Often we need to treat the allergies with either steroids for a while or a diet change, if the dog might be having a food sensitivity. I recommend an ear flush called Malacetic Otic (www.dermapet.com) which degreases and dries out the ear canal to help treat yeast infections.