Dr. Lera Clone (Heron Lakes Animal Hospital) presents a short clinic video about a dog named Sunny with chronic ear infections. She reviews common underlying causes (food allergies, seasonal/environmental allergies, hypothyroidism), notes that warm seasons can coincide with flare-ups, and warns that prolonged infections (>~6 weeks) can progress to middle/inner ear disease and possible hearing loss. She emphasizes checking for resistant organisms (culture/sensitivity) to choose effective antibiotics and notes that sometimes older drugs can work; management also includes addressing suspected food allergies and local follow-up.
Chapters
Hey, guys. My name is Dr. Larratt here at Heron Lakes Animal Hospital. Today I'm here with Sunny. Sunny has a history of having chronic ear infections. And so one of the things that's really important when you have a patient that's having chronic ear infections is that you try and figure out if there are any underlying conditions that could be causing those chronic or recurrent or always having an ear infection. So I'm gonna put Sonny down right now because he's a little nervous. Let's see he here. And mom and dad had stepped out of the room. Mom and dad, you're more than welcome to come back in. So some of the most common causes could be food allergies. And that would mean that you would have to be very, very strict with your pet's diet. It could be seasonal allergies. Here down in South Florida, we have things blooming and, you know, weeds and all that kind of stuff all year round. So that's something that we see a lot of here in South Florida. We could have some sort of issue with the thyroid. That's something else that could make them prone to having recurrent ear infections. And then at the same time, you know, a lot of times in the past, people would think that if they would take their dog swimming, that that was the cause of the recurrent ear infections. It's not typically when people take their dog swimming, what happens? What's the temperature like? It's warm. And so that's when everything starts blooming. And so if you think about that, it's not that you're taking your dog swimming typically, it's that the time of the year that you take your dog swimming, it's warm. So that's one of the things that we use to think. Secondly, when you have a dog that's having chronic ear infections, if you go ahead and it goes on for, I think, something like longer than six weeks or something like that, it is very likely that they could develop a middle or inner ear infection and then potentially have some sort of hearing loss. What is that you said? Yes, hearing loss. I know. Corny jokes. Sorry, guys. Anyways, so. So that is something that you have to be aware of. And so when you have a recurrent ear infection, the other thing that you want to check to see is if they have what's called a resistant organism. Resistant organisms, typically, you know, what happens is we use very, very common antibiotics, and then those common antibiotics may not work anymore. And so we need to know exactly which antibiotics will work. Okay. Now, that being said, what ends up happening sometimes is we will come up with all these new drugs and sometimes it's better if we use an old drug. I'm not saying commonly but sometimes that ends up being the case and we think that may be the case with Sonny. Mom said that he did respond to a relatively older medication and it's something that I was really happy with. You know we've also been treating him for his potential food allergies as well. These that being said, we've got one ear under the control, the other ear is almost under control. So those are just some different ideas of what could potentially be causing the ear infections, how to approach them and the different tests that need to be done. If you guys have any questions about this particular video, leave it in the comment. Otherwise if you guys found this video, give us a thumbs up. Subscribe and share. Thanks for watching and have a great day.
