Ear infection question
Submitted by Peggy and Stoney on June 7, 2010 - 8:07amI was reading another post and it said that sometimes eye stains can be caused by an ear infection. This post got my attention because I have been fighting with stains lately and a light went off about ear infections. Would a symptom of an ear infection be when they shake their head back and forth so that their ears flap side to side? Stoney seems to do that a couple of times a day. Is an ear infection in a dog like in a human? Do they need antibiotics, should I take hime in to be checked?
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Peggy and Stoney
You might want to use....
An ear cleaning solution. My vet gave me one yesterday to be applied daily. Bear has yeast infection in his ears which can also affect tear stains. You may also want to use distilled water or try Angel Eyes which works wonders. But I think the same infection causing ear infections can affect tear stains.
just got back from the vet
Thanks for your input. I just couldn't see waiting for things to maybe get worse, so we saw the Vet. She seems to think he may be starting with allergies. So before we start with changing foods and expensive testing we're working on clearing up a slight ear infectionwith oral meds and drops. She gave him some medicated shampoo, and we're using Douxo for eye folds and the tail.She said to stop using Desitin in his folds, so we'll try it her way. I do use filtered water not distilled, do you think distilled would make a difference if this is allergies? I read where Angel Eyes might not be good for them in some way? So here we are some $240 later and just wanting him to be more comfortable.
Peggy and Stoney
I don't know that...
distilled water makes a difference in allergies, but as far as tear stains, it makes a huge difference. I only use Angel Eyes once in a while when I was doing filtered water. I have not had to use Angel Eyes since switching to distilled. You may want to try and see if it makes any difference.
Question
Are you saying to use bottled water only if you are on well water or city water?
Distilled water seems to work better than city water...
I buy gallons of distilled water at the grocery store.
I don't know much about well water...
Don't know if that would be the same as distilled.
Re: well water
Well water can be good or bad depending on what type of groundwater a particular area has, and other factors. Distilled water is the condensate from heated water and is (or should be) very pure with no minerals in it.
Where we live the well water is very high in iron and if not treated will leave red/orange stains in sinks, on white clothes washed in it and even build-up in your hair from showering in it. So we have a multi tiered filtering system using iron-out water conditioning pellets. The treated water is far better than the un-treated, but still not great to drink tastewise. The solution was to add an RO system and that helped cut down on tear stains on the dogs and makes the water on par with bottled.
I'm only a little familar with the Angel Eyes product, but do know that the main ingredient (what makes it work on tearstains) is Tylosin, also known as Tylan powder. Tylan powder is used in chickens as an upper respiratory antibiotic. Some people use straight Tylan powder to help clear-up tearstains in preparation to showing a dog. But you need to be careful and only give tiny amounts (1/8 tsp daily for a fully grown Bulldog) and only give it for 2 weeks at a time. I think the Angel Eyes directions say to use the product indefinately to keep the stains away. That could get costly and would be giving drugs to your dog that it doesn't need.
Thanks
for all the great advice. I am going to use distilled and see how that works.
Roanne