Dog in extreme pain from ears - help

CapriSunFun

Hello,
My 2 and a half year old cavalier/bichon dog has floppy ears and over the past year has had extremely itchy ears, he scratches them until he yelps and sometimes has cuts inside his ears from the constant scratching. We've brought him to the vet multiple times and they keep telling us to keep his ears clean, make sure no water goes into them when we wash him etc, but we never get a definite answer as to why he is so irritated. Then today they got so bad that he wouldn't stop crying and screaming and yelping as he constantly scratched his ears so we brought him to the vet, they said they don't know why it is, but it's obvious he's in a lot of pain because his ears are very hot and red inside. They asked us if we were using any bleach etc in the house that could hurt his ears but we don't. They gave him an antibiotic with a few more tablets for the rest of the week but a few hours after we brought him back from the vet tonight he started scratching and crying and screaming again, and when we tried to help by cleaning them out with a cotton pad there was blood. He's inconsolable and we don't know what to do anymore, we just want answers on how to help him because it's horrible seeing him in this much pain. Is it just an infection? His ears usually start to smell bad when he gets to the stage where he won't stop scratching them, could it be some sort of bacteria? We have gotten no answers no far from multiple vets, if anyone here could give their advice on any specific vets to bring him, or what we can do at home regarding food, washing him etc I would very much appreciate it.
He's a beloved family dog and seeing him in this much pain is unbearable.

Thank you so much

Gran Hermano

Have you considered changing his diet?

andreac

Was just going to ask that. What are you feeding him?

DBB

andreac wrote: »

Was just going to ask that.

So was I!

CapriSunFun

Yeah that's what most things Online are saying. We feed him once a day, half a cesar chef's choice lightly grilled white fish pieces, and then a large handful of royal canin dermacomfort. Although we also give him bonio meaty chips for a treat every now and again, and choc drops. Plus he also gets some food off the rest of the family, a sausage at weekends, a small piece of toast, a piece of cheese, my grandad would also give him an odd rich tea biscuit when he comes up which is rare, but what I'm trying to say is that he doesn't have a strict diet of just his own food.
We want to put him on a diet to see if it could be food allergies. What would you's suggest to feed him?

Thank you so much for your replies. I really appreciate it.

fatmammycat

If he was my dog I would take him off all of that food and switch him over to a raw diet immediately. My pup had demodectic mange at three and a half months and despite numerous vet trips and skin cultures taken it was getting worse so after a ton of research I took him off ALL commercial dog foods and switched him to raw and it cleared up almost at once.
Bonio, chop drops, toast, sausage, RC, ceasers, righ-tea (!) I'd stop all of that, I doubt any of it is good for his little system. A little dog like that would be easy to feed raw too, and quite cheaply.
Interestingly, my friend who owns a basset hound changed her dog to raw a few months back and his ears- although still needing to be cleaned out for wax and dirt on a regular basis, have improved dramatically in terms of smell and infections, even his coat is better, and he is less sensitive all over. He was getting hot spots in the inside of his legs which have virtually cleared up. This of course in anecdotal, but she was at her wits end and had the poor old boy on antihistimines, which she had since stopped.
Even if you don't go the raw route, get your dog as high a quality dog food as you can and make sure everyone in the househould sticks to feeding this. I know it's so very hard to resist an adorable face looking for treats, so maybe boil up some chicken, let it cool and shred it for treats. No more biscuits and wheat based products. Poor you, it's so awful when there is something wrong with our pets.

DBB

Hi op,
Bichons are very prone to skin problems, as all white dogs are. Skin problems are very, very commonly caused by allergies to food.
Your little dog is getting a huge amount of stuff there that contains the most common food-related allergen, wheat/gluten. Other cereals are also responsible for allergies because they contain gluten, the only common one which doesn't is rice.
Caesar dog food, like all supermarket "wet" foods, actually contains very little meat, the "meaty" chunks in it are comprised largely of reconstituted cereals made to look like meat. The Ceasar HAS to go.
Royal Canin is also high in cereals. It has to go. Dry food also contain little bugs called storage mites, no matter how expensive that food is, and they are right up at the top of the list of things that make dogs itchy.
Sausages are full of husk and wheat. They have to go.
Bread and biscuits contain flour, which is made of wheat. They have to go.
Bonio and all crunchy, biscuity-style chew treats are full of wheat. They have to go too.
Anything that contains lactose has to go, so that's milk and chocolate. Small amounts, and I mean really small, of hard cheese should be ok.
Anything sugary has to go, because sugar promotes yeast infections, and it sounds to me like your dog has a yeasty overgrowth in his ears, hence the smell. That's the chocolate gone on two counts.
I'll be honest op, I am absolutely gobsmacked that your vet has not investigated diet as a cause. Take it from me, it is the first thing you think of in any white dog with itchy feet, ears or body skin. I'd be looking at getting another vet, because if they didn't investigate this, then what else are they missing?
Before you do anything, get a second opinion just to make sure there's not something else going on. But no matter what, the diet you have your dog on right now is not great anyway, and needs to be changed with almost everything you list as not being nutritionally complete, or just plain bad for him.

So, what to do? You're looking at completely eliminating all of those rubbish treats everyone's giving him: they're all unhealthy treats in any case. You also must ditch the Cesar, and the dry food.
It would be a good idea to completely avoid beef and chicken for at least 8 weeks, as many dry foods create a sensitivity to these meats.
Get a complete, highly nutritious "wet" food that contains no cereals other than rice, that has a lot of meat in it, and that is available in flavours without beef or chicken. This food will eliminate his exposure to storage mites as well as wheat and gluten. I strongly recommend Naturediet, because it fits the bill, has a good variety of flavours, and is good value. It is available at its cheapest from either www.zooplus.ie, or www.vetuk.co.uk. A dog the size of yours will need about two-thirds of a pack per day. Most dogs devour it.
Alternatively, make your own fresh food for him: turkey or fish with veg and spuds. No gravy, it contains wheat. I'd also add oily fish to his diet several times per week: sardines, pilchards, herring... The tinned stuff is fine, just not the stuff in vegetable oil. Drain off and rinse the fish if you go for fish in brine. Oily fish is super for skin problems.

In eight weeks, you can cautiously start to add in chicken, because it's a handy meat to get. I would be very surprised if this elimination diet didn't reap rewards. But you MUST be strict: you have to ensure that any treats you give him contain no wheat... That's all Pedigree treats, Bonios, any of the biscuit-style treats are a no-no. If you want to give him chew treats, order some of the dry meat treats that zooplus does an impressive range of (whilst you're ordering your Naturediet? ;-)) remembering to avoid beef and chicken, and pork. Go for venison, lamb, ostrich, buffalo. Or you can give him carrots or other veg.

I know this sounds like a pain, but it must be done, and once you have the right food ordered and ready to go, it's easy. However, as your dog has been suffering with this for a long time, it's possible he has damaged his ears very deep down, and infections deep in the ear can take ages to clear. At worst, surgery may be required.
Again, I'd have a big question mark over your vet on this one. I'd urge you to get a second opinion.

darkside71

Hi,

I'm really sorry to hear about the problems you are having. As other posters have outlined you really need to check diet. Another possible cause might be a yeast infection in the ear(s). We have a Labrador that has this problem, it can be diet related but our case it was water related. It took a while for our vet to trace this down. Dogs with floppy ears that restrict air into them can be susceptible to this.

There's a very good cream that will flight the yeast infection called ORIDERMYL, your vet will need to prescribe this. Other ear drops that we had used before this didn't have any effect. As another poster has already pointed out an operation now might be required, I hope this is not the case, but ear issues can take a long time to clear up even with the right treatment.

Best of luck and I hope you find the cause very soon.

ZiabR

I would one, change the diet and two, change VET. They vet in fairness should have already recommended diet changes.

Coopaloop

My parents have a king charles and he suffers really bad from itchy paws and belly, to the point where he chews his paws and make it bleed and the poor thing cant even walk properly. The vet they had been bringing him to just threw tablets at him but it never helped really! So they changed to another vet in the town and they took a real interest in him and did skin test on him and results showed that he was allergic to grass, pollen and dust! Not exactly easy to keep him away from any of these things but once we knew what it was it did help, in terms of keeping him off the grass as much as possible etc...they also gave a new diet for him, which really did help a lot, so all in all much more comfortable now. Thats the problem which those pure breeds, these sorts of things happen a lot, also the cost of getting the skin tests was not cheap, but worth it in the end.

Just a side note, my own two dogs and also a couple of our neighbours dogs all suffer the odd time from cat mites in their ears, our estate has an enormous amount of cats who are forever jumping through the gardens, but this is easily cleared up with drops and doesnt really bother them too much, so its probably not something as simple as this!

I hope you get sorted soon!

aonb

Guys, the OP said s/he had taken this poor dog to MULTIPLE vets - all with no success. I find this absolutely extraordinary, with a dog in this much pain. I would be going up the walls looking at any of my lot with this much pain unresolved.

Hopefully the diet change will bring the dog relief quickly - let us know how you do?

Have EAR MITES/CANKER been ruled out?
Ive heard THORNIT EAR POWDER (available on amazon etc) can bring fast relief - worth a try while your poor dog is still in pain and the diet change is clearing out his system?

westies4ever

aonb wrote: »

Guys, the OP said s/he had taken this poor dog to MULTIPLE vets - all with no success. I find this absolutely extraordinary, with a dog in this much pain. I would be going up the walls looking at any of my lot with this much pain unresolved.

Hopefully the diet change will bring the dog relief quickly - let us know how you do?

Have EAR MITES/CANKER been ruled out?
Ive heard THORNIT EAR POWDER (available on amazon etc) can bring fast relief - worth a try while your poor dog is still in pain and the diet change is clearing out his system?

he said he took the dog to the vet multiple times, not multiple vets. looks to me like they need a second opinion as well as looking at the diet.

DBB

aonb wrote: »

Guys, the OP said s/he had taken this poor dog to MULTIPLE vets - all with no success.

They said they've brought the dog to the vet multiple times, but have not mentioned multiple vets outside of this one practice ;-)

Edited to add: posted at same time as W4E :-)

aonb

CapriSunFun wrote: »

Hello,
My 2 and a half year old cavalier/bichon dog has floppy ears and over the past year has had extremely itchy ears, he scratches them until he yelps and sometimes has cuts inside his ears from the constant scratching. We've brought him to the vet multiple times and they keep telling us to keep his ears clean, make sure no water goes into them when we wash him etc, but we never get a definite answer as to why he is so irritated. Then today they got so bad that he wouldn't stop crying and screaming and yelping as he constantly scratched his ears so we brought him to the vet, they said they don't know why it is, but it's obvious he's in a lot of pain because his ears are very hot and red inside. They asked us if we were using any bleach etc in the house that could hurt his ears but we don't. They gave him an antibiotic with a few more tablets for the rest of the week but a few hours after we brought him back from the vet tonight he started scratching and crying and screaming again, and when we tried to help by cleaning them out with a cotton pad there was blood. He's inconsolable and we don't know what to do anymore, we just want answers on how to help him because it's horrible seeing him in this much pain. Is it just an infection? His ears usually start to smell bad when he gets to the stage where he won't stop scratching them, could it be some sort of bacteria? We have gotten no answers no far from multiple vets, if anyone here could give their advice on any specific vets to bring him, or what we can do at home regarding food, washing him etc I would very much appreciate it.
He's a beloved family dog and seeing him in this much pain is unbearable.

Thank you so much

they did say MULTIPLE VETS?!?

DBB

aonb wrote: »

they did say MULTIPLE VETS?!?

Oops, you're right, sorry about that!
But I'm willing to bet that we're talking vets from the one practice, in which case there can be a bit of a tendency for groupthink.
I kinda hope this is the case in a way, because if this dog has seen multiple independent vets, and none of them suggested diet as a cause, that'd be very worrying!

fatmammycat

aonb wrote: »

Guys, the OP said s/he had taken this poor dog to MULTIPLE vets - all with no success. I find this absolutely extraordinary, with a dog in this much pain. I would be going up the walls looking at any of my lot with this much pain unresolved.

Hopefully the diet change will bring the dog relief quickly - let us know how you do?

Have EAR MITES/CANKER been ruled out?
Ive heard THORNIT EAR POWDER (available on amazon etc) can bring fast relief - worth a try while your poor dog is still in pain and the diet change is clearing out his system?

My friend tried Thornit, and it didn't make a lick of difference to her basset at all, just masked the smell a little, sort of like talc would

DBB

fatmammycat wrote: »

My friend tried Thornit, and it didn't make a lick of difference to her basset at all, just masked the smell a little, sort of like talc would

Lots of people swear by it for ear mites, but afaik there's nothing in it that should kill mites, and I remember getting a ticking off from a group of vets for the mere mention that it would!
I'm not sure if it's ever been clinically trialled for mites. I think its primary purpose is to help make ear hair easier to pluck?

CapriSunFun

Thank you so much for all your replies.

We have brought our dog to other vets before but not regarding the ears. we have asked other vets about his paws which he constantly nibbles and licks and they say its just him hurting himself after digging in the garden etc. I agree with a lot of you saying we should change our vet, our local vet is old and although very friendly seems to dismiss us when we ask about his paws and ears, he says he's "just a digger". he has never once mentioned diet, he actually told us Caesar dog food and royal canin are good to give him, I feel awful now for knowing we've been feeding our beloved dog essentially junk food!

We will definitely change his diet asap and be very strict. Would you advise a 100% raw diet made up of raw meats, bones and vegetables. or a freshly cooked diet of turkey, vegetables, rice, oily fish etc? or is a mixture of both good?

Is there also any things we could do to help our dog when he does scratch his ears, hot compress or cleaning with a dry/wet towel? I just want to know everything we do from now on is correct, because frankly I don't trust anything our vet says anymore!

Thank you so much again.

juniord

there is an ointment called nu stock i use for mites and cuts , i find it super , can be used for multiple applications ,

FlowerGarden

I have a bichon who is very itchy due to a dust allergy and scratches her ears and bites her feet. I changed her onto a raw food diet two years ago but unfortunately it did not help really with the itching as it is impossible to elimate dust.

I would say to try and find a vet in a large town or city who only deals with small animals. That way they have generally dealt with many dogs who have the same issue and will take your concerns seriously.

My dog is on Atopica medication after I have tried many different solutions including raw food, homeopathy, filtered water and steroids. Atopica and steroids are the only things that worked but even though it's expensive Atopica is the lesser of the two evils. If it didn't work I would probably have put her on a low dose steroid to improve the quality of her life. She is miserable when her itching is very bad.

CapriSunFun

FlowerGarden wrote: »

I have a bichon who is very itchy due to a dust allergy and scratches her ears and bites her feet. I changed her onto a raw food diet two years ago but unfortunately it did not help really with the itching as it is impossible to elimate dust.

I would say to try and find a vet in a large town or city who only deals with small animals. That way they have generally dealt with many dogs who have the same issue and will take your concerns seriously.

My dog is on Atopica medication after I have tried many different solutions including raw food, homeopathy, filtered water and steroids. Atopica and steroids are the only things that worked but even though it's expensive Atopica is the lesser of the two evils. If it didn't work I would probably have put her on a low dose steroid to improve the quality of her life. She is miserable when her itching is very bad.

Oh no your poor little doggy
I really hope my dog just has a food allergy now and not an allergy to dust like your dog, I would hate to have him on steroids or atopica for the rest of his life.
I'll try the diet change and just hope to God that it helps.

juniord

if you are thinking of feeding raw its a good idea to get a freezer just for dog food , if a cheap deal comes up you can stock up , where are you based op

CapriSunFun

I'm from lucan in west dublin.

ButtersSuki

I have a Westie who suffers from a similar problem. He has floppy ears and as a result has always had problems with them. I gently clean them every day and use Epi-Otic weekly and Surolan monthly.

Echo the diet being a contributory factor. We have changed completely to a hypoallergenic diet and freeze everything (to kill any remaining dust or other mites etc) and thaw and feed as required.

Hope things improve.

CapriSunFun

I just bought 38 packs of the naturediet wet food online and a tube of nu-stock. We bought liver and are going to start giving our dog turkey, liver, oily fish, rice, carrots, spinach, apples, potatoes, then after 8 weeks slowly introduce beer and chicken again. I've told everyone in my family under no circumstances are we allowed to give him anything other than what's on his new diet, so we've thrown out the royal canin, Caesar, choc drops and bonios, so there's no risk of that.
I'll keep this thread updated to let you's know if there's any improvement.

Thanks again for all the replies and advice, I've gotten more info on here today than all the multiple times we've visited the vet combined!

Cocolola

CapriSunFun wrote: »

We bought liver and are going to start giving our dog turkey, liver, oily fish, rice, carrots, spinach, apples, potatoes, then after 8 weeks slowly introduce beer and chicken again.

Lucky dog

ABajaninCork

My Shih Tzu suffers from hay fever which comes out in his ears and paws. When his ears get very bad, I use Canaural, but can no longer get it over the counter so will need a prescription.

Last month, he got an ear infection, so I used Surolan which worked a treat. So I've stocked up on that now. Meanwhile, I wash his paws and face in chamomile tea which seems to help. Actually, I've just made his tea and am about to wash his face and paws!

You could also try washing his paws and wiping his ears in warm salt water. Some people use Hibiscrub, but I try to keep off that because of the chemicals. Only to be used as a nuclear option...

Perhaps he's allergic to the shampoo you use? What do you bathe him with?? Maybe try switching to a puppy shampoo, see if that helps.

DBB

CapriSunFun wrote: »

I just bought 38 packs of the naturediet wet food online and a tube of nu-stock. We bought liver and are going to start giving our dog turkey, liver, oily fish, rice, carrots, spinach, apples, potatoes, then after 8 weeks slowly introduce beer and chicken again. I've told everyone in my family under no circumstances are we allowed to give him anything other than what's on his new diet, so we've thrown out the royal canin, Caesar, choc drops and bonios, so there's no risk of that.
I'll keep this thread updated to let you's know if there's any improvement.

Thanks again for all the replies and advice, I've gotten more info on here today than all the multiple times we've visited the vet combined!

Jayney op, when you make up your mind, you REALLY make up your mind :-D
I hope he likes the Naturediet now that you've bought so much... If he doesn't like it, I'd suggest you offer spag bol, chilli con carne, or shepherd's pie as the family dinner for the next while :-D

Millem

I find cleaning out the ears with diluted vinegar is amazing and works a treat. I soak a cotton wool ball and then clean it using dry cotton wool. I wouldn't use it on ears that have been cut as I guess it would be too stingy. My dog used to scream when vet cleaned her cut ears with hibiscrub. I use
Organic apple cider vinegar but I think white vinegar would do the trick. The ratio is 1:1 (to water)