Pet Case Study: Max

“Max” is a 12-year-old, male neutered Labrador Mix who visited Dr. Gimmler in Dec 2017 for recurrent ear and skin infections since 8 years of age. His ears would improve with ear drops and steroids, but the infection would always come right back after stopping medications, especially the right ear.

After cleaning a big chunk of debris out of the right ear, Dr. Gimmler found that his ear drum was very red and thickened, indicating there was infection behind the ear drum (in the middle ear). She sedated Max and performed a myringotomy (intentional puncture of the ear drum), then flushed out the middle ear to remove the infection trapped there. After, Max was treated with a steroid (prednisone) to reduce irritation and swelling in the ear and strong antibiotic ear drops for 2 months.

By February, he was doing great with no signs of infection at all. We weaned off the steroid and performed intradermal allergy testing. These results were used to formulate oral allergy drops (sublingual immunotherapy), which is a mixture of all the pollens to which he’s allergic. Over time, it will control the underlying environmental allergies that caused the ear infections in the first place without causing harmful side effects.

As of late May, his ear infections haven’t returned and he’s doing great on his oral allergy drops!

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