Treating ear mites for your cat and dog is very difficult unless you fully understand the nature of the parasite. I am writing this article, because when my cats had them three years ago, it took over a year
To get rid of them do to lack of knowledge. Also, the internet had similar useless info and gimmick home remedies that did not work or give me answers. Therefore, I also spent a lot of money on store brands that did not work.
First let me tell you how the cats got them and the symptoms. I bought my third cat from an advertiser thru
The paper, and named him Rhyley. Rhyley had ear mites spite my knowledge and it only took a week or less to spread them to my other two cats. The first sign was all the ear scratching, almost constant. The second sign was head shaking. The third sign was seeing a brown flaky substance all over the inside and edges of the ears. It doesn't take long for a lot of the hair to fall out inside and out of their ears where you will also see brown speckles. Even washing them with mild soap on a rag and baby cutips inside takes time
Effort to clean this sticky stuff off. Once washed you still cant get the speckles out completely. Before we knew what was wrong, we clean their ears, and by the next day it was all back.
The web did help me to find out that they had ear mites. Since my first two cats have never been outside up to this point, we knew they came from Rhyley. We spent over a year using flea shampoos, store brand meds,
And it wasn't until I saw the 4 th different veterinarian, that we finaly were successful.
What we were doing right, was wrapping a towel around them exposing the head. (This prevents getting scratched or bit, as well as making sure your cat doesn't shake while using a cutip.) I was reluctant with the fourth veterinarian, as he prescribed the same medicine all the others did but he also gave us a bottle of some kind of alcohal water down based cleaning solution to use first. Then he told me to stop the flea baths.
Ear mites are like tiny bugs that feed off the blood inside the ears. They die after laying eggs, and it takes about a month for the new eggs to hatch. It is vital to first clean and treat medicine to the ears everyday for a bit over a month to kill them. The eggs cannot die from the medicine so they must hatch and then die before they lay new eggs. The wax is the brown residue you see everywhere. If you even skip one day, you may vary well end up treatment for another months cycle.
Also a flea shampoo doesn't hurt, but what I did wrong was get the ears wet. Moisture helps hatch those little pests.
As for the main key that helped to finaly get rid of them, was the alcohol based water downed solution that the veterinarian gave me. It dries the inside of the ears. The wax from the mites hold the eggs in place and helps them hatch. Drying the ear surface makes it difficult for the mites to lay their eggs in place. That was the secret that I was missing. As I said earlier, it was the 4 th medicine I was prescribed but the same brand.
All I remember is it started with a T and was a small bottle with instructions to add no more than three drops per ear a day.
One last thing to learn is how to properly insert the cleaner and medicine. Wrapped in the towel, pull the ear upwards and back a little. Holding this get about a teaspoon of the alcohol based cleaning solution in the ear. While still holding the ear tip rub below the ear opening flap off to the side a bit. If you hear a squishing noise repeating, you are hearing the solution moving all about the deep ear canal. Do this a few minutes, and then let the cat shake out and wipe inside and outside of ear clean. Then after a few minutes, repeat the same step using the medicine instead. A few drops should do, so make sure you drop them deeper in the ear canal. Then hold the ear down so it has a chance to sit in the ear before your cat shakes it out.
Extra Tips:
- Shampoo your carpet maybe a few times and especialy if you think their gone.
- Keep multiple animals separated if at all possible until their all cured.
- Bleach wash your walls.
- Throw out any rags or wipes you used to clean their ears.
- There are no one time easy cures for this. Save your pennies on those grocery store brands.
- The only meds that work the vets have.
- Ear Mites crawl everywhere on your cat but the majority stay by the ears. A flea bath wouldn't hurt
Once a week until their gone. Just remember getting the ears wet are bad for you and good for healthy ear Mite hatching.. A chemical pronounced something like pyrothenes in many flea shampoos are best to use.
I hope this is the first helpful link that's been on the web for a long time. Good luck and have patience for
At least a month.
One last warning: Ear Mites left untreated can damage your cats eardrums and cause deafness and possible mental illness. Cats and dogs who have them are commonly known to get repeat ear infections once they had them before.
