Ear cleaning

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Carrie Jackson

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So I have recently rescued a guinea pig with a head tilt, I’ve taken him to the vets and been given medication. However the vet says he’s not hopeful that medication will fully work without cleaning the inside of his ears, but he said he would have to pierce his eardrum to clean the part that needs to be cleaned.

Has anyone had this done to there guinea pig or know of a way to clean the ear without piercing there ear drum? As I’m not very happy about making my guinea pig deaf to clean his ears.
 
I have never heard of doing that. One of my boars had an ear infection and slight head tilt and calcified bulla due to the spread of a respiratory infection. The tilt improved with a long course of anti biotics (Baytril, 2 months).
I like you don't like the sound of this, if he was mine I would be looking for a second opinion from a vet with a lot of piggy experience.
 
piggieminder said:
I have never heard of doing that. One of my boars had an ear infection and slight head tilt and calcified bulla due to the spread of a respiratory infection. The tilt improved with a long course of anti biotics (Baytril, 2 months).
I like you don't like the sound of this, if he was mine I would be looking for a second opinion from a vet with a lot of piggy experience.
Click to expand...
Thank you, apparently he is a guinea pig specialist, I have got a course of loxicom and doxycycline. I’ve told the vet I will give the course ago and see if it works before going further but really don’t like the idea of making him deaf it’s just horrible.
 
I find it very hard to believe that piercing the ear drum will help and it certainly doesn’t sound to be a good idea. I’ve never heard of that being done.
If he has an infection then antibiotics should deal with it.

Calcified bulla is a situation where there is an infection in the middle ear infection but the bacteria inside gets walled off. If that happens then antibiotics will not be able to reach to kill the bacteria. You still wouldn’t pierce the ear drum though….
 
Piggies&buns said:
I find it very hard to believe that piercing the ear drum will help and it certainly doesn’t sound to be a good idea. I’ve never heard of that being done.
If he has an infection then antibiotics should deal with it.

Calcified bulla is a situation where there is an infection in the middle ear infection but the bacteria inside gets walled off. If that happens then antibiotics will not be able to reach to kill the bacteria. You still wouldn’t pierce the ear drum though….
Click to expand...
I think that’s what the vet thinks he has so he said as he said that he must of had an infection that’s travelled into his ear, so he said about cleaning his ear out but having to go through the ear drum. I may go to another vet to see if there’s another way of getting the bacteria out if the medication doesn’t clear it.
 
If your vet is thinking that your piggy has CBS (for which there are several symptoms; a head tilt can have several other causes without being CBS) then an x ray is the diagnostic tool for that.
If it was to be confirmed, then I’m afraid there is no way to kill the bacteria effectively. It becomes about management rather than cure.

I’ve added a guide below which explains the condition but also the other possible causes of head tilt.

CBS Syndrome (Calcified Bulla Syndrome/Walled-in Otitis Media - Symptoms and Care)
 
My boy has CBS and a vet mentioned a surgery to puncture the bulla but it has a very high fatality rate.

Two and a half months of antibiotics cleared his ear infection.
 
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