our kitty was prescribed ear drops to be given for 7 days to treat a fungal infection in his ears. however because of his indoor/outdoor nature and his strong resistance to try to apply them , we have been unsuccessful in treating it. is there a homeopathic or effective oral treatment that we could put in his food . our 2 other cats ( both indoor/ outdoor and one was a now tamed when she feels like it h aha once feral kitten) on occasion also scratch their ears so we are trying to avoid the same possible infection.
thank you for any suggestions.... we are trying to avoid yet another vet visit that terrorizes the all...
Hi Okidiki,
I'm afraid I don't have an easy answer for you. My guess is that your cat has fungal yeast overgrowth in the ears, as this is very common. Oral medication unfortunately does not work well for ear infections in animals as it cannot penetrate the ear canal environment. This is very different from people (mostly young kids) where the infection is more internal at the eardrum and responds well to oral medications. The most successful approaches are with topical medication in animals. Most cats with fungal overgrowth in their ears have an underlying environmental allergy condition that is allowing the yeast to overgrow. In an outdoor cat it's naturally difficult to say what that allergy would be to and most animals with allergies have them to multiple allergens. Atopica is an oral medication that is used to treat underlying allergy conditions in cats and may be helpful in reducing the recurrence or severity of the ear infections, though the ear infections themselves will still have to be addressed with an antimicrobial. I cannot speak to homeopathic remedies well, but alternative medicine practitioners I have spoken to in the past will still advocate treating bacterial or fungal infections with antimicrobials. You can speak to your vet about one of the long-term leave in medications like Claro or Osurnia. These are labeled only for use in dogs, but have been used off-label in cats in certain circumstances. I have seen ototoxicity seen a couple times (which is reversible), so it is a cost/benefit assessment.