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Aural hematoma in dog's ear

rossowmnrossowmn Member Posts: 1,959 ✭✭✭
edited June 2007 in General Discussion
My good dog Nudge has developed an aural hematoma (blood pocket) in her ear. Has anyone out there experienced the problem and treatment with their own dog? How were the results? And, I hesitate to ask, what was the vet bill? I've had the repair done on a cat with bad (deformed) results. Any advice?

Comments

  • B17-P51B17-P51 Member Posts: 2,199 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    If you mean on the floppy part of the ear,yes. Vet bill $50.00. Local anestetic, cut into bleeding pocket, pinched off leaker, cauterized leaker, 3 sutures. dog is fine, Dont let it scratch, get a funnel collar.
  • rossowmnrossowmn Member Posts: 1,959 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    Originally posted by B17-P51
    If you mean on the floppy part of the ear,yes. Vet bill $50.00.

    Thanks for your encouraging reply. Yes, it's in the floppy part of the ear. But I'm betting I'll have to add another zero to the vet bill. I may have to do some calling around to see if I can find a competitive price. I'll know more later this afternoon. (Heck, it cost $104 several years ago to do my cat, and the ear ended up crippled. Interestingly, his good ear has undergone a sympathetic adjustment and now droops just like the damaged one. I have to look very hard and do some feeling to know which one had the original problem. People think he's an exotic breed like a Scotch fold or something.)
  • mateomasfeomateomasfeo Member Posts: 27,143
    edited November -1
    quote:

    Aural hematoma in dog's ear




    Is that anything like the aurora borealis?
  • cmd66cmd66 Member Posts: 1,418 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    A friend of mine's dog had the exact same procedure done a few week's ago. The dog had to wear one of those plastic thing's on his head for a few day's. The dog is fine now. The vet bill was like $370.00.
  • aramisviaramisvi Member Posts: 4,589
    edited November -1
    could be worse... i suffer from * glaucoma.... i just can't see my ash goin to work most days.[:D]

    one of our cats had a urethral blockage...visit 1 : $300.00
    visit 2 : $300.00
    new cat food: $20.00
    no more blockage.

    our dog ate some cat litter once. we woke up to take him out and his tongue was hanging out farther than normal, back legs weren't moving. he just couldn't poop. paid $600 for the dog...and $600 to make him poop again. poop.


























    poop.
  • rollnblockrollnblock Member Posts: 384 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    my lab had it a few years ago. the vet put a IV like needle in the ear. i had to massage and drain it twice a day for a week. it came out to about 1/3 the bill for them to do surgery. worked out fine. left a lump that lasted about a year afterwards.
  • n/an/a Member Posts: 168,427
    edited November -1
    Down here you are looking at a 400 to 600 dollar bill...
  • rossowmnrossowmn Member Posts: 1,959 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    Well, I took Nudge to the pet hospital late Monday afternoon. The vet (a younger guy) looked at her ear, felt it, and declared with great wisdom and authority, "Yes, I know exactly what the problem is!"

    I probably deflated his professional demeanor a bit when I said, "Yeah, an aural hematoma. How much to fix it?"

    Jeez, it's not like diagnosing liver cancer or sterility -- what else could it be when she's fine one day and not the next -- maybe swallowed a balloon and it migrated to her ear flap?

    He was probably further deflated when he asked if I had seen the problem in a dog before. I told him not in a dog but in two of my cats who were treated at his hospital -- one of which ended up with a totally crippled ear after the surgery, and the other of which died as it was coming out of anesthesia. (I wasn't being a smart-* with him, just feeling a little cranky about another big vet bill -- I put $137 into Nudge 10 days ago for shots and heartworm check -- and feeling a little leery about ear surgery after my experiences with the two cats at the same facility.)

    He retreated to the computer, did some calculating, and came back with an estimate of $255, plus I'm sure another $26 for his three-second confirmation of my amazing amateur diagnosis. Not actually as bad as I thought, though, so I dropped her off this morning and will pick her up later this afternoon -- if she doesn't die coming out of anesthesia. Then it'll be days of keeping her in a clown collar, tricking pills into her, etc. But she's worth it. She was a rescue dog when I found her last summer, apparently having been abandoned by some visiting "folks" who worked the pea fields and then headed south, leaving her behind as unnecessary baggage. (I'm told it happens all the time in the area in which she was picked up as a stray.) She was then kept in a 3x3 wire cage for five months before I adopted her and was in bad shape, with open sores from scratching, bloodshot eyes, terrible skin and a nose that looked like a dried mud flat. But today she has gained 10 pounds, has healed up and is a beautiful, loving, gentle obedient dog. She stays 100% on my 7 acres, even though there is no fence. She doesn't harass my cats, chase deer or poop in her kennel when I'm not at home. Heck, I couldn't ask for a much better dog if God himself were to make one to my specs.

    There, now I don't feel so bad about the vet bill. [:)][:)][:)]
  • LOKO383LOKO383 Member Posts: 7,503 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    pets,ya gotta love em, she deserves the best,sounds like she had a rough life before you rescued her,glad to hear it, hope she comes home fine [:D]Loko
  • RickstirRickstir Member Posts: 574
    edited November -1
    Our male lab had that and the vet drained it the first time. It partially came back he said to leave it alone. It healed on its own. His ear looks a little funky, but he looks wonderful to my eyes.
  • rossowmnrossowmn Member Posts: 1,959 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    UPDATE: Well, as predicted further down in this thread, I added that extra zero to the vet bill -- I cracked the $500 mark yesterday with room to spare. Poor old Nudge had to have the surgery all over again (at, thank God for small favors, a reduced rate). It seems her ear just won't heal back together. But I have the senior vet (30 years of experience) working on it this time, so we'll see what happens. This has been going on now since May 1. At least I feel really good about keeping the money in the community instead of sending it off to Florida or New York or somewhere for things like, oh, guns.[:(]
  • jwb267jwb267 Member Posts: 19,666 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    a pet is like a child.you have to take care of them
  • rossowmnrossowmn Member Posts: 1,959 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    quote:Originally posted by jwb267
    a pet is like a child.you have to take care of them



    I totally agree, hence spending $500+ on her. I just wish I could take care of her as cheaply as I could a child. (Seriously, with insurance I would have paid less for an appendectomy!)
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