Aural hematoma (swollen ear, UPDATED)

[Zass]

Alright, it's about my 12 year old pitbull, BEST dog ever, good with kids, kittens, other dogs, heck, I even let rabbits lose in his play yard, alone with him. Maybe I'll find a pic of him sniffing noses with a bunny out there, the rabbits quickly learn he's no one to fear.

This dog had bad arthritis, and doesn't move for anything except to get up to eat and potty, SOMETIMES he gets up to greet people when they come to the door, if he likes them a lot. Otherwise nope. Never leaves the couch. He's begun having pee accidents in the house, not very often, and after a lifetime of perfect potty training, I'm not giving him a hard time about it. I mean, it will just start running out of him while he's walking to the door to try and get out.

So yeah, since all dogs age different, I thought it would be helpful describe his "age symptoms"
He's a well loved dog, and sleeps in the bed with my husband and I.

He has seen the vet and was treated for the ear infection that caused the irritation, leading him to shaking his head so hard he that he broke the blood vessel in his left ear, causing it to swell up like a BALLOON. (the Hematoma this is about)
It looks awful, but doesn't seem to hurt him, even when it's handled.actually, he doesn't look anywhere near as bad as most of the dogs in these pics.

https://www.google.com/search?q=aural+h ... 80&bih=929

The VET (someone new this time)
Well, she's INSISTED that he needs that really painful looking surgery. It's pictured in a lot of the images in that link.

Info online suggests that that surgery is largely cosmetic, and the ear will heal on it's own. It will curl and heal weird, but it won't harm him(the blood will be reabsorbed by his body), one of the biggest dangers of NOT getting the $500 surgery is that the ear will break open on it's own and get blood in my house. (I have hardwood floors, the couch is covered, see, I have lots of animals, I'm not worried)

Yep, seriously. She (the vet) also suggested that it might become more prone to infection, after it was very clear that we weren't going to put an elderly animal under anesthesia without a REALLY good reason to. Well, that ear has ALWAYS been prone to infection.

What would you guys do? Has anyone else had a hematoma in a cat or dogs ear and refused the surgery?

Thanks everyone for the good advice!!!! Here is the old dog with the swollen ear. It just doesn't seem that bad to me, or to be bothering him too much. I'm going to go ahead and wait and watch for now. Not because of finances, but because the surgery and sutures look more uncomfortable than the current condition. Add the danger of putting him under, and I feel that I'd be PAYING a LOT of money to HARM my dog more than help him.

If it was worse than this I would lance it myself. The dog is EASY to work on, and will tolerate almost anything. But I don't want to poke, even small holes in my dog if I don't have to.

It means time to switch vets too, I think.

 

[MamaSheepdog]

I would lance the ear myself- I did it for a friend who wasn't financially able (or willing) to take her dog to the vet.

Get a brand new exacto blade and just slit the ear near the base of the hematoma to allow for drainage. Make the slit about 1/2" if you can- bigger is better, especially if clotting has begun, because you will want to express the coagulated blood.

Irrigate the wound with a weak betadine and water solution to flush out as much blood as you can if he will let you.

My "patient" healed with no disfiguration or infection, and he was not given antibiotics. He was an outdoor ranch dog.

 

[MaggieJ]

I know nothing about the condition but I would not recommend surgery for an elderly animal with a relatively minor condition. Too risky in many cases. Some vets will try to play on your feelings about these issues.

 

[Dood]

I would lance it as well and then treat like any open wound with irrigation, expression of any built up fluids for a couple days and let it heel from the top down toward the lance site.

This should be fairly easy to fix if the dog is basically a couch potato and won't be rolling in muck or getting his blood pressure up by playing hard.

 

[Kyle@theWintertime]

If the dog is exhibiting pain or discomfort, i.e., pawing at it, excessive head-shaking, restlessness, hesitation to be petted due to pain...lance it and bandage it as described below. If it ISN'T painful to the dog...just leave it, they WILL go away eventually.

As a groomer in what amounts to the chop shop of grooming, we'd see a lot of dogs with SEVERE matting and when centered on the ears, the pulling and pressure from the mats could cause raging hematomas. My own Cocker had 'em BAD, when I got him his ears were matted with clumps of hair the size of softballs, full of rancid, rotting food stuck in his fur. When I shaved them, he had massive hematomas in his ears...as well as a split, where the matting had pulled his ear leather apart and bifurcated the eartip up about half an inch. It was horrifying.

Since his ears weren't painful, I just left 'em. Almost all hematomas will go down on their own. His went away rapidly, and his ears healed completely in less than a month.

If you DO lance it, be sure to bandage it tightly to the head. Wrap gauze around the head and ear, smooshing the lanced ear to the head...otherwise, when the opening scabs, it may fill right back up with blood. On top of the gauze, lots of vetwrap. Change as needed but be careful not to let the dog shake it's head when the bandage is off.

Hematomas in the ears are thankfully one'a those things that LOOKS god-awful but is actually pretty simple and straightforward, and usually has good results. I have NEVER referred a client to the vet for an ear hematoma...usually I give them a stern lecture about brushing their pet and insist they not let the ears mat.

In your shoes...I'd leave it. Frankly I would rather let it heal on it's own than lance it...an open wound is more suceptible to bacteria and infection, and it already has a direct link to the bloodstream so it could infect other parts of the body.

For the record, I've also never seen an ear get totally disfigured from a hematoma, either...other than the split end, my Cocker's ears were just fine when they healed, no funky crinkling or curling.

 

[MaggieJ]

After hearing what MSD, Dood and Kyle have to say about this, I am even more inclined to criticize the vet for recommending surgery! :evil:

 

[Mary Ann's Rabbitry]

:yeahthat: I think vets are starting to be more about money than the animal welfare

 

[Kyle@theWintertime]

After hearing what MSD, Dood and Kyle have to say about this, I am even more inclined to criticize the vet for recommending surgery! :evil:

Well to be honest, I "get" it...a hematoma is one of those things that is really ugly, scares dog owners, is an easy/cheap/quick fix for a vet to do and they can charge through the nose for it.

Good vets who understand the need to avoid uneccessary procedures are getting harder and harder to find. I knew I'd found the right vet when I took my Persian in the same week I got her...she had black/brown discharge coming from her eyes. It was like she was weeping mud...plus I didn't have vet records for her and wanted to get a rabies shot anyways.

The vet said her sinuses were blown out from infections as a kitten, combined with some facial deformity...and then dropped the bombshell: "She has entropion."

I felt my guts hit the floor. Entropion is when the eyelids roll inward, and it causes the eyelashes to be on the INSIDE...you know how it feels to have ONE eyelash in your eye? Imagine DOZENS, but you can never get them out. Abbrasions from the lashes can even cause blindness. The surgery to fix it is VERY, VERY expensive.

I sucked a deep breath and asked, "Okay, how much to get it sorted and when can we do it?"

My vet then shrugged and said the condition on her is not severe, it's only on her lower lids, and the eyelashes don't touch her eyeballs so it's okay. Surgery for her entropion and facial deformities would be "cosmetic only." Forget that!!!!

So my kitty has gunk on her face I wipe off twice daily, and it doesn't bother her a whit.

Frankly I also think part of the problem is people who view pets as furry humans, and they begin to assign human values and motives to their pets. An ugly hematoma looks scary, and owners feel like ignoring it is "abuse" sometimes. So I'm sure there's a push for them to get vet care for stuff that will resolve on it's own.

Hematomas in the ears are actually pretty common...I've seen it hundreds of times. Not one needed veterinary intervention. Now, hematomas ELSEWHERE...maybe. But not the ears.

 

[Wheels]

Last time I had a dog with a hematoma (it's been a LONG time ago) the vet did pretty much what Kyle described above - I think he may have put a stitch in. lanced it - Wrapped his head up like a mummy gave us a bottle of antibiotics and instructions to leave it alone for a week, after that unwrap and keep the fleas of the dog. (dog broke his ear scratching fleas)

If the dog is old and it's not getting bigger I'd leave it alone too. My own 15 year old dog has a growth behind her ear the size of a ping pong ball - it's benign so we haven't done anything about it and thankfully she's so hairy no one can see it

 

[MamaSheepdog]

I wrapped the dog's ear to his head too. But he didn't have an ecollar, and wouldn't leave the bandages alone, so the owner removed them.

 

[Zass]

Alright, after carefully considering everyone's advice, and also the condition of the dog, I decided the easiest thing I could do for him was...nothing at all.

I was really tempted to lance it, but I thought maybe, I would try giving his own body a chance to heal it first. (as you can see, I really can't stand doing anything to him that might hurt)

I seem to have deleted and lost the original images,(most of the ear was swollen 3/4ths of an inch thick) But here is the followup, how long has it been? 2 months?

The swelling is almost completely gone. The skin is pink and never became infected. It never seemed to irritate or hurt him, even when I handled it.

I expect it to finish up soon, as it has been reducing rapidly these last few days. The ear did crinkle a bit, exactly as I expected it too, but it's really is not that bad.

Had I lanced it, it probably would have healed faster and straiter, but...I'm happy with it this way.

The vet swore up and down this would NOT heal on it's own.

Lair.

 

[Dood]

The vet swore up and down this would NOT heal on it's own.

of course he did, he wanted to make a buck, or several hundred, off you

Unfortunately there are a lot more un-ethical vets out there than not which is why I quit the biz. The straw that broke the camels back was when a vet at my clinic quoted an elderly couple $300+ to fully sedate a 12 year old dog with a bad heart to remove a fricking fish hook! The people had been coming to us for 6 years and I told them to take their pup and go home I then spent my lunch at their house cutting the end off the hook and looping it out. Then I rummaged through their left over human antibiotics and put togeather a weekly pill container for their pup. He healed with no complications.

 

[Zass]

The vet swore up and down this would NOT heal on it's own.

of course he did, he wanted to make a buck, or several hundred, off you

Unfortunately there are a lot more un-ethical vets out there than not which is why I quit the biz. The straw that broke the camels back was when a vet at my clinic quoted an elderly couple $300+ to fully sedate a 12 year old dog with a bad heart to remove a fricking fish hook! The people had been coming to us for 6 years and I told them to take their pup and go home I then spent my lunch at their house cutting the end off the hook and looping it out. Then I rummaged through their left over human antibiotics and put togeather a weekly pill container for their pup. He healed with no complications.

She, the fresh out of school vet, quoted $500 for this one, and even tried to bully us into agreeing to it. Our other local vet is even worse. I'm totally out of luck.

 

[DumansArk]

...Had I lanced it, it probably would have healed faster and straiter, but...I'm happy with it this way.

The vet swore up and down this would NOT heal on it's own.

Lair.

Boy, we heard this story too. I can tell you that having it lanced is not always faster and it certainly doesn't always heal pretty; I've compared notes with others whose dogs still healed with a scar or crinkle too. (Why? Because some dogs will shake or tear or re-injure it in some way)

Glad your sweet guy is healing. Over the decades we've had hematomas happen a few times now with dogs, and we stopped taking them to the Vet. It was far, far more traumatic to complete the surgery with followup cleanings & antibiotics than it is to manage their temporary discomfort at home.

Plus the last time we took them in, the Vet insisted it required an overnight stay. I hate, HATE leaving my dogs - I hope I never have to do it again. And for a procedure like this, when I know they don't *have* to stay overnight, I WONT do it again. I despise Vets that bully you too; I cannot believe how many do that now. It's Horrible!