Ear Discharge

Question
I am owned by an adorable one-year-old male LaPerm cat.  I got him when he was 6 months old.  Ever since I have had him, he has had a tremendous amount of dark brown discharge from his ears.  He has been to the vet several times.  Although he tested negative for mites, he was treated for them the last time anyway.  He is the only cat in the house.  I have a dog, but he doesn't have ear problems.  Anything you can recommend would be helpful.  He scratches his ears all the time and cries when I clean them.

Thanks for your assistance.  

Answer
Sorry this took a while to answer, I had to do a bit of research. Is your vet a group practice and did he see the same person every time? If so, you might want to gently ask for a second opinion from someone else in the practice. While mites are the most frequent cause of the symptoms you cite, there are other types of ear infections that can develop, sometimes as a result of treatment FOR mites. Cats can react to the medication, or, if the initial problem was not actually mites (which it appears yours wasn't) they may not respond to mite medication and need systemic rather than localized treatment to fight off the infection.

I'm going to give you a couple of links that you can look at and maybe print out to take back to your vet in order to make the case that they need to think outside the box here. because all ear problems do NOT mean mites and shouldn't be treated as such. I'm sorry, but I don't have any other ideas for you other than working through a veterinarian. You do need someone who is going to cooperate with you in getting to the bottom of this issue and if the person you are seeing now can't think of anything other than mites, you need another vet.

Check these out:

http://www.animalhealthcare.ca/contents/content.asp?id=308&cat=dogs

http://home.ivillage.com/pets/symsolve/0,,j7rr,00.html

http://www.thepetprofessor.com/articles/article.aspx?id=350

I hope this helps. Good luck.


iris