My Sussex Spaniel Winnie has had recurrent ear infections for about 3 months now. She has had 9 ear flushes, all under general anaesthetic, another one today and probably more next week. Her ear drums are perforated. The vets have taken swabs and the results come back as yeast infections. She has had various ear drops and is currently on Surolan, which to be honest isn't having much effect. The vet is now talking about surgery to remove the ear canals if the flushes next week don't help. Has anyone had experience with this procedure? He says she will be able to hear but not as before.

Thanks in advance
Karen

If your Vet is meaning an aural resection, which is bypassing the original ear canal by making a new one further down, then I've seen it performed many times with great success.  The dogs have lived happy lives without any recurrance of the infections.

My Shar Pei was in the same position and ended up having surgery after us trying to treat it for a year and the vet flushing it out.  The actual surgery was very successful although it didn't heal very well and got infected.  His hearing was about the same as he had lost some hearing when his ear drums were perforated.  It made his ears a lot more confortable for him.

Good luck

Well it looks as if we are on top of the infection at last. She was flushed again yesterday and will be done again tomorrow, but, fingers crossed they hope that will be the last flush. I just have my doubts that this will keep recurring, but we'll wait and see.

Best bet would be a Homeopathic Vet who would actually cure the infection rather than treat symptoms repeatedly only for them to recurr deeper etc.  To find one near you, try

http://www.bahvs.com/

http://www.trusthomeopathy.org/trust/tru_over.html

If the conditions which allowed the infection to occur in the first place are still the same (eg narrow, warm, moist ear canal where cleaning has been unsuccessful), then I think you are right to suspect that the problem may reoccur.  I hope not.  It would seem from your first post that your vet was looking beyond treating the infection to treating the cause.

I have only ever seen a dog which had an aural resection, not total removal.  It didn't look very nice for the dog, I have to admit.  I have no knowledge of the success rate or risk involved - if success rates were good, then perhaps it would be worth the short-term unpleasantness.

Anyway, I hope the flushing does the trick and no further treatment is required. :-)