Experience with a dog's ear hematoma?

Butterfly

Butterfly

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Location
Albuquerque, New Mexico USA
My Bonnie has a big fat ear hematoma (little veins in the flap of the ear burst and blood drains into the space between the front and back of the ear and the ear gets very fat). In all t he dogs I've had, I've never experienced this. Bonnie is pretty uncomfortable right now. The vet put her on some prednisone to see if it will resolve without surgery to drain it.

Has anyone had any experience with this? How was it treated, and did it come out OK? Vet doesn't want to try to drain it right now because Bonnie has a bit of an ear infection inside her ear; we're treating the infection, too.
 

We once had a cat that did that to his ear. The vet drained it and applied plaster and bandage.

The cat had that off within 24 hours and the ear swelled up again.

The vet then tried plastering it but that lasted about 2 hours.

In the end, nothing as done, Mum had to squeeze it out for a few days and puss ended up with a crumpled ear.
It didn't trouble him and gave his a rather rugged appearance.
 
We have had two dogs that had that. In both cases surgery was the answer. If I remember correctly our vet charged us about 260.00 dollars. They split the ear open, clean out the mess and seal the affected blood vessel. Dogs of course had to wear a cone for a few days while healing. Ya gotta do what ya gotta do.
 

Well, doc says surgery will have to wait till the ear infection is resolved, in any event because of the risk of the wound becoming contaminated. I guess I'll just have to wait and see. Last time Bonnie had to wear a cone, it irritated her neck so that she got a secondary skin infection in her neck, which was a big mess to get rid of. Sigh -- if isn't one thing, it's another!
 
Of course you need to clear up any infection first. Ninja the cat got a hematoma earlier this year. Unfortunately the cost of repairing it was way beyond our budget. In time it disappeared on it's own. As Warrigal said, his ear healed wonky looking but otherwise he was fine.
 
I had a cat with that problem once. The vet numbed the ear, drained out all the fluid, them stitched the ear with what looked like matchsticks to the ear. It didn't look real pretty, but it did fix the ear.
 
Bonnie's ear seems to be getting better. The big fat spot is softer and not as big. The vet looked at it today while Bonnie was in for her regular medicated bath and says it is doing very well and if it keeps up like it is, she probably won't have to have surgery. She has to stay on the meds for a while, though -- we start tapering down on the prednisone today, which is good. She gets a little squirrely when she takes prednisone.

I wish Bonnie had been treated better in her prior life -- if she had been, she probably wouldn't have so many problems (says the vet). But I love her dearly and she is quite the spoiled diva now!
 

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