Ear Ablation Surgery

[mycandy]

Do you have a room where he can stay. One room is much easier to control. It takes time to heal, but it is worth it. No polyps in the other ear? Zeus's other ear canal was clear, so very thankful for that!

 

[mycandy]

Yes his currently in a diner room next to the kitchen that has a glass panel door so he can see out.
It's been a week now and although his done well in recovery, he has Horners syndrome. Which they say will improve hopefully over time. His desperate to go out but I can't at the moment.
His other ear is clear of any polyps.
About him returning to outside access?
He was probably deaf in the ear before hand. We live on a back rd. Bumped but do get car rush down it! But he is an outside type of cat loves to go out and hates to be restricted. But his third eye is across also a present making his vision bad.
How long should he stay in for?

 

[mycandy]

Yes his currently in a diner room next to the kitchen that has a glass panel door so he can see out.
It's been a week now and although his done well in recovery, he has Horners syndrome. Which they say will improve hopefully over time. His desperate to go out but I can't at the moment.
His other ear is clear of any polyps.
About him returning to outside access?
He was probably deaf in the ear before hand. We live on a back rd. Bumped but do get car rush down it! But he is an outside type of cat loves to go out and hates to be restricted. But his third eye is across also a present making his vision bad.
How long should he stay in for?

 

[stella96]

Thank you to everyone sharing your experiences with total ear ablation. It helps me to understand some of the likely post-op considerations.

My own cat has been diagnosed with an ear polyp that turned out to be a ceruminous gland adenocarcinoma, and of course total ear ablation (TECA-BO)  has been recommended as the treatment. But she is 20 going on 21 years of age (in generally ok health but already a bit delicate; persuading her to eat sometimes takes some management) and we're trying to understand the level of trauma and pain she would likely experience as a result of the surgery, and the possibility that the surgery may actually not extend the quality or length of her life. We'll be discussing the situation with a surgeon, but it's helpful to have the perspectives of cat owners who deal with the hands-on after care, which sounds like it can be painful and lengthy.

Are there any thoughts about this from folks who've gone through this or faced the decision? 

Any insights would be tremendously appreciated.

 

[kskatt]

I would have serious reservations about the anesthesia, at her age. That is what vets are quick to raise concerns about in my experience. It's so hard to know what's best. Generally the idea is adding more time and concerns about quality, only you and your vet can judge that. You have my thoughts and prayers. 
Please let us know what happens. We would love the chance to help you through what ever you decide.

 

[mycandy]

Hi, my boy has done very well with coping the the operation, but after care is hard for me as, he was very much a outdoor cat, always about but loves his freedom. We live on a back street so probably safer than most places. But he now suffers from horners syndrome, which is affecting the side of face where op was done. I can't risk letting him out as his third eye across. Which should improve over time.
However my cat of 20 yrs I had to have put to sleep a few months back. As he had an ulcerated eye which didn't improve with treatment I could not put him through removing his eye. Really due to the fact he had an overactive thyroid he was very thin and I did not think it was fair on him. He looked so old to put him through the operation

 

[kskatt]

Zeus had the Horner's and could not blink one eye after the surgery. I was given ointment to use, to keep the eye moist. I can't remember just how long it lasted, but it did go away and he has no issues any more. I know it's really hard to look at, feel so bad for the cat. But, it does go away!

Hearing is compromised, for sure, no way around it. Outside is dangerous enough for cats with all, perfect senses. I'd be very scared to let one out with less than perfect anything.

 

[rikichef]

Very interesting thread. My 2 year old kitty got an ear infection about 2 months ago. She got really sick almost overnight (couldn't walk, stumbling, throwing up, jumping eyes - basic vestibular syndrome) and at first the vet thought she'd eaten something toxic, but it continued the next day I asked about her ears - he checked them and found an infection and she ended with IV antibiotics for two before comting home. With a 10 day antibiotic regime she got noticeably better, however then she started  taking two steps forward and one back for about two weeks. Took her back the the vet - he checked for yeast which there was non so started her on another 10 day antibiotic regime. She again got better, but still had some discharge, so another 10 days of antibiotics. Again, she continued to get better, but still a little discharge and head tilt, so another 10 days of antibiotics - after about a week vet suggested putting her under to look at her ear to make sure she didn't h have anything in her ear. At this point she was about 90% back to normal.  So when he looked in her ear, it was completely occluded and he couldn't even see her ear drum. He did a shot of prednisone to see if it's just swelling and can get it to go down.   Not sure what the next step is, but will probably have to take her to another vet since ours see's very few cat ear infection and has never seen a completely occluded ear, even after +30 years of practice.  Thanks everyone for sharing your experiences, if we ended up needing to do surgery I'll be coming back to read through all these posts again!

 

[kskatt]

I hope you have a specialist in your area, if not is there a university with a vet program? That is an excellent place to find multiple specialists with some of the best equipment. Always best to avoid surgery of any kind if possible, but I hope reading here has helped you to feel more confident should it be needed. This thread has been around very long time, it has been helpful to many and we are always ready to help again!

 

[stella96]

Hi again, all - and thank you for your support. I posted a few weeks ago - have 20 going on 21 year old cat with cancerous polyp.

The highly-qualified surgeon we consulted did not outright say "no," to surgery but he did say multiple times he was was not entirely optimistic that the growth hadn't spread past the ear (he noted that in the physical exam, but of course a CT would be needed to know for sure).  I can say that when we took her to have the biopsy (an hour long drive each way), she seemed to teeter on the edge of great frailty for 4 days - had to feed her baby food and she was very weak.  And that's a minor procedure without anesthesia.

Our family vet seems to be against the idea and impresses upon us how difficult the surgery and recovery are on a cat in her situation.  I've found it very interesting that none of the 4 vets we've seen so far about this have directly said whether or not they think we should do it. Guess it's part of their professional training - to not flat out opine directly one way or another. 

We're pretty certain we're not going to move forward with surgery on our precious girl. We just have a hard time imagining her coming through the surgery and recovery in a good way since she's already rather fragile.  I also find it interesting that the surgeon indicated that recovery from the procedure is 2 weeks - which to me sounded like the "best possible" scenario, not factoring in her very advanced age or delicate condition. She seems to generally be ok, if her routine can be maintained (having breakfast and dinner brought to her in her cat bed; hobbling to bathroom; hobbling slowly over to us at some point in the day, yowling for tummy rubs on the floor; hobbling over to her food dish - we've had her on Hill's A/D for several months in an effort to keep some weight on her tiny frame). 

Her scratching of the ear is intermittent, but very bloody. We're administering Tresaderm and have established a relationship with a vet who seems versed in palliative care.  In fact, that palliative care vet seemed to be the only vet who expressed a lot of concern about the idea of putting her under anesthesia when we discussed the surgery option. Then again, I live in an area where we're fortunate to have lots of specialists and so on - so maybe from their perspective the anesthesia wouldn't be a big deal...

At any rate, it's heartbreaking, but I can't see putting her through the pain and disruption - and we believe there would be a good chance the surgery or recovery might be too much of a blow to her and might drag her through a nightmare in her final days.

These decisions are so hard. She's one of the great loves of my life.

Now it's a matter of caring as best we can for her, trying to mitigate the pain or discomfort from the ear….and trying to gage quality of life vs. pain. It is really heartbreaking. 

 

[kskatt]

Hospice with animals. I've done it with cats, dogs and horses. You live long enough, you get experience. Thank you for being the kind of guardian that takes responsibility seriously. It does give you that extra time to cherish. 

 

[satsun]

Hospice with animals. I've done it with cats, dogs and horses. You live long enough, you get experience. Thank you for being the kind of guardian that takes responsibility seriously. It does give you that extra time to cherish. 

Have

 

[satsun]

Have

Read entire thread. Very informative. Thank you all. Satsun has occluded canal and what will eventually happen if no ablation surgery? Just started 2 weeks of panalog. Very worried about what to do or what will happen. See vet in two weeks. Thanks in advance for any answers.

 

[kskatt]

I don't see any questions. If I may ask a few. How is the canal occluded? Is it chronic infections? Is the vet recommending ablation? How old is SatSun? Is your vet a specialist? My vet is very good, but she did not hesitate to send us to the university clinic. I know it's so very hard to see our babies in pain. Zeus's only long term difference is his ears flopped down and some hearing loss. He can still hear, it's just muffled. He's just so much better now. It was worth it.

Zeus + 1-10-16 006.JPG

• kskatt
• Feb 1, 2016

 

[satsun]

Chronic otitis. He's had a growth in canal for years but now it's bigger and infected and occluding whole canal. Vet referred to it as tumor but has not tested for cancer. SS is 14 years old and in very good health. Just wondering what would happen if it stays occluded ? Vet is very good and has not suggested ablation at this point. Panalog for two weeks and then another look. Just unsure if I want to put him through such major surgery if it comes to that.

IMG_0339.JPG

• satsun
• Jan 15, 2017

Thank you for any advice.

 

[kskatt]

Thank you for any advice.

Dang. You have good reason to be concerned. If the growth has been there for years, growing, now infected, the odds on it not getting worse, are pretty much non existent. It's not going away. Panalog for a tumor that's infected, really? No antibiotics? Your vet may be wonderful, but please get a second opinion! By a specialist. Your vet may be in over his/her head. That growth and infection can't be comfortable for SatSun. We may be talking about quality of life. He may have been fine in the past, but this is different, this is getting worse.

I wish I could give positive advise, but I have to be honest and it's not good. You really need to consult a specialist.

 

[inkysmom]

My 14 going on 15 year old cat has adenocarcinoma in both his ears as well as chronic otitis and cystamatosis, chronic cysts and awful ear infections I guess as well as now cancer which luckily seems to be confined to his ears and more one than the other. He also has diabetes and x rays showed asthma in his lungs. He was completely feral and I accidentally trapped him to save his buddy cat when he was two. The buddy was tame and had pneumonia so I saved them both, and just kept a completely freal cat i couldn't touch or handle for about ten years along with my other cats. He gradually started sleeping on my bed along with his soul mate cat who was very tame and loved me tons. He also started rubbing against my legs mornings at breakfast but I couldn't touch him.
Then April through June 2015 his soul mate and best buddy cats died at ages 16 and 14 both of cancer and he got sick and depressed. He actually let me put him in a carrier and take him to a vet. Otitis, skin infection secondary to diabetes. Insulin and multiple syringes of meds twice a day on a feral cat who his whole life had hissed and drawn blood if I'd tried to pet him.

And a special diabetic diet and no treats as motivators.
You really can tame an adult feral cat. Don't believe the shelters and the trainers and the behaviorists. When their life depends on it, you have to. I wore oven mitts and used a lot of praise and a lot of swearing and of course that lousy convenia shot never worked. But that cat loves belly rubs it turns out, and loves being praised on a soft voice even if you're using swear words lol. And he needed me to feed him after all the meds and the insulin made him feel better. He gained six pounds in less than a year.

Now his diabetes is under control and he went from thin to obese, he's a foodie. His right ear had awful cancer which was bleeding everywhere, it was hurting him and he was scratching it constantly and bleeding out all over my bed, my bathroom. My dog was constantly licking it telling me he needed help. He git an abscess on the other side below the left ear so had surgery there then the total ear canal ablation canal

 

[inkysmom]

Surgery then another abscess surgery so has had three surgeries in the past three or four weeks. He has to have the other ear canal removed once everything is healed to reduce the risk of more infection and abscesses. But he can't have cancer left in there. He has the Horner syndrome and can't blink the eye where he had the teca hopefully temporarily so gets eyedrop which he's not thrilled about.
He's a champ and has no issue with the cone. Or the blowup donut except he can and does constantly scratch around it to get his ears so now is back to the cone. He shakes his head and scratches his ears constantly but still has an infected wound on one ear and cancer on the other ear so has to wear the cone until all is healed. It's been at least two or three weeks now and he's fine. When I take it off he scratches so back it goes. He stayed in the hospital two nights after teca due to diabets and age and came out with bandages everywhere so didn't seem that bad. I did have to bring him back fir recheck every two or three days at first but he had three surgery wounds and infections and diabetes. He can see and hear fine. Responds to noises, his name, everything. Is feisty and eats everything in sight like always, wasn't so good when wounds were infected. Sleeps on bed next to or on my head and cuddles with paws wrapped around my arm. He head butts me, fun with the cone, and managed to lick my nose yesterday so seems so much happier now that the awful cancer is out. He was in so much pain before and suffering so much. I'm so glad I did it. It was like he was saying thank you for helping me and taking care of me. Now he's grooming the dog and other cats and clingy with me and the hospital staff keep telling me how loving and affectionate he is and no one believes he was feral less than two years ago. When they're sick and in pain they're also less able to trust humans. If they associate humans with helping them that helps them trust and love them.
It's still ongoing, I've had many cats and all have been special, this one feral adult has taught me so much.
Sorry for the long post!

 

[littlebear]

I just wanted to thank everyone who's posted in this thread. I read the entire thing before we decided to go ahead and have the TECA surgery for our cat, Mr. Toes, a few weeks ago.  We were VERY nervous about the surgery, mostly because he's been in good health, except for chronic ear infections, which is where this entire journey started for us. If you don't want to read more, I will say upfront that we are very glad we went ahead with the surgery. We think it was the best thing for Mr. Toes and honestly it was the best case scenario and we (he) has had a best case outcome so far. Mr. Toes is 12-13 yrs old and is an indoor cat. He started having chronic ear infections a couple of years ago. We got his ears cleaned frequently because we could tell they bothered him and no, we didn't know why. A mobile vet who was cleaning his ears noticed a polyp in his right ear. She said it wasn't necessarily anything to be concerned about, just to keep an eye on it. That was probably around the Fall of 2015. Between then and this past December, the polyp developed into a tumor, diagnosed as ceruminous gland adenocarcinoma. We got more than one opinion on it, but all agreed that it is a rather slow metastacizing cancer that usually spreads to the lymph nodes and/or lungs. It isn't a common cancer, but it is the most common ear cancer in older cats. And all agreed that if you remove just the polyp/tumor, it almost always returns.  It has a high rate of recurrence, which is why they recommend the TECA surgery, to make sure they get all of the cancer cells. Our oncologist recommended first an Xray and lymph node aspirate. This is a "first look" to see if they can tell if the cancer has spread. Depending on this outcome, she recommended a CT scan to provide more details of how they can do surgery and to further rule out the cancer spreading. Then she recommended the surgery. I think they only recommend this if the cancer is contained to the ear. If it has spread, I believe they recommend palliative care (sadly). Mr. Toes' cancer had not spread and when they did the CT scan, they discovered that it was a very small tumor and hadn't grown into anything else so they highly recommended the surgery, saying if the ear canal came back from pathology all clear then he would be cancer free, which is what ended up happening, thankfully. If the ear canal pathology had contained cancer cells they may have done radiation but we didn't have to do that.

We are three weeks out from the surgery and Mr. Toes is doing great. I was fully expecting him to be a "dopehead" but he was almost himself as soon as we picked him up from the vet. He was meowing in the car and when we arrived home he went directly to his food bowl. When we were home and could monitor him we left the cone off, especially so he could use his litter pan and clean himself. He does have Horner's syndrome but we think that is getting better. I expected his recovery to be much more traumatic (for all of us) but it hasn't been at all. He is his normal, playful self, and seems happy that his ear isn't bothering him anymore. His ear is healing nicely and he rarely messes with it. Yes, it was expensive (probably a total of $5,000-this is surgery plus the CT scan, Xray costs, and labs) and we are delighted that we have more time with him. It was totally worth it. I hope this information helps someone else and their kitty.

 

[inkysmom]

Has anyone had a cat have the total ear canal ablation surgery on both ears turn aggressive after the second ear surgery? My poor cat finally healed from all his abscesses and fit's ear ablation surgery so last week had the second ear canal ablation surgery. The vets were confident that the cancer in both his ears hadn't spread and that they got it all out. The wound looks good and I've been leaving the cone off since he's not scratching it at all. He's eating and drinking fine. But since I brought him home two days after the surgery he's been attacking my other two cats who he's always gotten along fine with. He's lived with one of them for at 10 or 11 years with never any issues and the other 6 years and those 2 used to be best buddies. The vet says it's behavioral and not a side effect of any of his medicines. I'm scared the cancer went to his brain. Or maybe he's freaking out from being suddenly deaf? He could still hear somewhat before this last surgery. Now he definitely seems less able to hear although I read that even without ear canals he might be able to sense some sounds through his cochlea. Who knows, but it's a sudden drastic behavior change. He's even bit and cuffed me a few times.