One of my feline patients has been having bad ear infections recently. It is pretty uncommon for a cat to have chronic ear infections so I advised her owners to have her anesthetized for a proper otoscopic examination (this cat had a very sore ear so there was no way to do it awake without significant pain).
Today we did the scheduled general anesthetic and I was in for a surprise. She actually had a polyp stuck in her tympanic membrane! These masses have three general causes: inflammatory polyps, nasopharyngeal polyps or cancer. Regardless, the obstruction causes secondary infections since normal wax migration is stopped.
The picture is one I found on the web as I wasn’t able to get one myself. Just like the one I dealt with today, it was attached to the tympanic membrane. There was a significant amount of purulent material around the mass.
It required a significant amount of suction, patience, swearing and manipulation to get it out. Flushing was done using saline as it is safe to cross a ruptured tympanic membrane and panalog ointment was placed as the topical antibiotic.
When a tympanic membrane is ruptured, some of the side effects can be a head tilt, pain and walking in circles. I had to wait until she was fully awake to find out if I had done the rupturing or if the membrane was already gone. It felt like a very long time before she raised her head, looked me straight in the eye and started to purr. One of the best sounds I’ve heard in a long time. It was amazing to see her so much more comfortable after the procedure.
