Need a little advise i have a pregnant girl that has a large hematoma on her ear she is due in 4 weeks The vet has her on amoxy 2times a day and says she will have to be on itfor the rest of the pregnancy i also drain the ear every day it seems to be getting worse he says it dont hurt her but i dont agree. he wants to stich it up after the pups are down any ideas would be great. IT Has To HURT ALOT!!!!

When one of my girls got a hematoma on her ear my vet sewed quarter sized buttons on both sides of her ear so the area couldn't fill up again....worked great...

There is a non-surgical way to treat a eat hematoma. A local vet here, draws out as much fluid as possible and injects the hematoma with a 2-3 cc of the drug Depomedral(I think). It was gone with one treatment. (about 2 weeks later) I've told a couple of other local vets about it and it workes for them too. A lot easier then surgery. The vet I spoke to said, he always trys it twice, and if it still doesn't heal, then he uses surgery. If you would like the phone # and name of the vet, just in case your vet wants to talk to the vet who has used it, then I can e-mail it to. I have the info writen down, so I will find it to make sure it was Depomedral and I'll post it hopefully this evening.

thanks sounds great thanks for input i will be watching for the post anthony

Don't know if you want to go this route but I had success with steroids with my girl with hematomas in both ears. Not sure how your vet would feel using this on a pregnant girl however.

And I agree that it does hurt them

I had one of my older girls done that way too, it was some sort of steroid. Procedure worked well although she has what the family calls "Yoda" ears now (shortened) and narrowed ear canals. My vet claimed they would shorten due to the extent of the hematoma's with surgery or the injection.

It saved my girl a surgery that she might not have made it through. Just my experience

I don't know if the injectible mentioned above is ok for a bitch in whelp or nursing, you would have to check with your vet

Wishing the best of luck and health for your girl, her pups and ease with the upcoming whelping

My vet has also drained the fluid with a syringe and injected a steroid with 2 of my Labs. It worked great.
One has a tiny bit of a thickness, but the other went back to normal very quickly.

Justed wanted to point out that my girl was on oral steroids. Don't know if this is better or worse than injectable but it did the trick.

Just be sure not to use steriods while she's still in whelp! I would check with your vet and ensure it's safe for nursing pups too...otherwise, just keep draining it, warm compresses usually help.....

Oh wow, it's terrifying to see steroids even *mentioned* in a post about an in whelp bitch!!!

Please stick with your vet's recommendations. I hope all goes well.

Steroids are the cause of many congenital deformities - stay away from them during pregnancy! Otomax, a common ear infection treatment, is known to cause cleft palates. Good luck with the current treatment... A lot of work I'm sure!

My bit_h started to develop a hematoma 2 days after whelping and a good friend suggested icing it to derail it...it worked! I iced(a few cubes in a plastic baggie covered with a thin washcloth) on and off every 20 minutes or so for a few hours the first day I noticed it and then a few x the following day. It slowly diminished and by the 2nd day was totally gone. I know how she started it. I saw her rubbing her head and body along the fence line and she must have injured the ear then. Good luck.

Didn't read everyone's posts; dialup's slow tonite.

Anyways, I have a 13 year old girl that got a ear hematoma last fall. I wasn't comfortable putting her under for it; vet insisted that was the only way. Old vet would lance them (on the cats) and the new one refused saying it was too "risky" that it'd get infected without proper surgery. (Also my impression of my current vet is that while they do take excellent care of my dogs, one of them seems to overkill on the care. i.e. she insisted that only prescription drugs could make Bridget's arthritis comfortable; her partner a few months later put her on a daily dose of aspirin that I pick up at the grocery store.) After consultation with friends & parents (as she's really the family's dog), decided to leave it alone and deal with the scar tissue and clear up the ear infection. We had already decided that she would *never* have surgery at her age, and that was a year prior. Hematomas are generally uncomfortable for a few days but once they're formed, that's it, it's really the ear infection that causes them the most discomfort. Hers was never painful and could be palpated without pain.

Anyways, within a month, it was GONE. It healed completely, even without the scar tissue that normally accompanies them. Now naturally if you plan on showing this bitch I wouldn't reccomend doing *nothing* as we did. But she certainly isn't in major pain (at least not from the hematoma--I'm sure the lancing is) and it's not going to kill her unless it gets infected.

thanks guys for all your help i will keep you all informed this is a great sight it has helped me out a bunch of times i hope i can return the favor some day

Fluttervale, we didn't know you were on dialup. Text should be okay with it but I don't know how you're able to view photgraphis on the Woodhaven list. That's gotta be tuff. So how was your bitch treated, you did nothing and it healed? Kind of confused what you mean We wouldn't do surgery on a 13 year old bitch either.

Anthony, let us know how it all goes please/

On Woodhaven, I hit "stop" once the text loads, and then load the pictures in a separate window if I want to see them (for the most part, I skip picture posts or at the very least pretend the pictures & siggies aren't there.) Sometimes it goes faster if I stop it early and click "reply" because all the text loads at the bottom but no pics, so it goes faster. This forum works very well on dialup, and it's what I use to judge whether it's a webpage that's got server issues, or I need to reconnect :)

With Bridge, we treated the underlying ear infection only. She has corn allergies, and we figure at some point in her raids she got into something that set it off. We accepted the risk that she might be scarred in that ear for life, but also having had semi-feral cats get it that once the hematoma has formed, it really isn't painful. The lancing hurts more than the hematoma, IMO. If left untreated, MOST of them turn into cauliflower ear, where it stays split and scars up. Hers didn't and has fully healed, even to the point that the ear is not divided anymore. I speculate that it's because the split was right in the middle of the ear leather, not closer to the top or the bottom, and that provided strength, but that's just speculation. It also was never a full hematoma, but just at the base of the ear and about the size of a ping-pong ball. But that *IS* rare, so if the OP wants to show her, I would still treat it. (I would've done the surgery on a younger dog.)

Anthony I sent the info I could find via e-mail. I have no idea if depo. is a steriod or not. But your vet will be able to tell you. Good luck

You can go into your personal settings on Woodhaven's forum and cancel the ability to see the sig. pics and avatars under people's I.D. on postings. Saves loading time and eliminates all that clutter.

Just to second the suggestion - I have saved at least 4 hematomas with ice. Ears healed within about 3 days (repeated ice packs for about 20 minutes several times a day) and went back to perfect, normal ears.

Thank you so much for the hint on turning off the signature pictures on Woodhaven. They are cute, but take up so much room.

Also, thank you all for the hint on ice. I had one girl that kept getting them. I would drain them and then tape the ears to the top of her head. It worked but took time.

Janis G