How to treat a stray cat's dirty, sensitive ear if I can't vet it?

Unfortunately there are no over the counter medications that I would recommend starting until you can see your vet. I also don't typically recommend cleaning a cat's ears with any washes or solutions unless your vet instructs you to - cats have very sensitive ears and can develop vertigo from vigorous ear cleaning. Your best bet is to see your vet as soon as you can.

Thank you for submitting your question regarding Oreo. I recommend that she sees her veterinarian. Inner ear infections result in vestibular signs such as loss of balance, circling and eye problems. If so, she will need oral antibiotics. In some cases, anti-nausea medications are prescribed as well. I hope this information helps!

How lovely of you to look after this stray cat! It does sound like he needs treatment badly for his symptoms, but it needs to be diagnosed first so he can be treated properly. I would take him into the vet if you can so he can be diagnosed and treated. If you don't want to assume financial responsibility for him, I would take him into the SPCA. They can treat him and find him a home. I hope this helps!

Hi, I am sorry to hear about Sparrow's ear. The inside of his ear looks clean as you have shown in the picture. The back/base of his ear unfortunately looks quite infected. It is great that you are keeping the Ecollar on to prevent him from scratching the ear. Sometimes topical treatment alone will not be able to heal this type of infection. The area looks very moist, either from infection or the ointment(s) that are being applied. Typically when cats have an infected area on their skin, we want the area dry and do not put on topical treatments. This wound would most likely heal very quickly with a visit to Sparrow's veterinarian. The doctor can clip and clean the wound with medical grade gentle cleansing solution and get Sparrow on antibiotics. The antibiotics (which needs a doctor prescription) is the main treatment to get this to heal. I cannot recommend any further over the counter treatments that would allow this to heal. I am sorry about that. I would recommend to keep him indoors only, keep the ecollar on, and hold off on the ointment so the area can dry up. The veterinary appointment can hopefully happen soon and Sparrow will be on his way to healing quickly. Best of luck.

Owie, it looks like your kitty has a cat bite abscess in her ear. Almost all cat bites are infected, so this is not unusual. The location is rather unusual. Maggots are gross, however in this case I think they helped clean the wound. Maggots are often used in human medicine to clean out infected wounds, so this is a tried and tested method, albeit, in your kitty's case not originally intended. This is all you can do for tonight. You did na nice job cleaning the wound and I see it is quite swollen, so now the swelling needs to go down. That might take a few days. Your vet will likely prescribe an antibiotic to keep the wound from festering again. If you have an e-collar at home, you could put that on your kitty to keep her from scratching the wound, however I suspect she will leave the wound alone anyway.

It is difficult to diagnose an ear infection without examining the discharge under a microscope to see if there are any bacteria, yeast, or mites. Based on the pictures, it does not appear to be a large amount of discharge. There aren't any OTC ear medications for infections but you could clean the ear with just an ear cleaner labeled for cats and see if that helps. Clean three times a week for now and then once weekly and see if that gets rid of all the discharge. If not, he really needs to go to a vet for treatment.

Thanks for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach! I am sorry to hear Piper isn’t feeling well. If you have a pet ear cleaner you can use it once until you can get her to a vet. Ear infections are not an emergency per se, but do need to be addressed when your vet is open. If you don’t have a pet ear cleaner, I would leave it alone until you see your vet. Good luck and kisses to Piper!