this post was submitted on 23 Feb 2025

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Maze hurt her ear! (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by toynbee to c/cat

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According to the vet, she probably scratched her ear and nicked a blood vessel, causing a hematoma. They drained her ear, but it seems to be (fortunately slowly) refilling. We're planning to schedule another appointment for Monday, when they said they could basically sew her ear together to prevent it from happening again. I would have guessed they would go for cauterization, but apparently not.

edit; She's also quite underweight (apparently she's six pounds). I thought that was because she's getting old (she's approaching fifteen years) but the vet says she just needs to eat more. We got her some wet food to entice her appetite.

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 week ago

If you need her to eat more, I've never seen our cats (and every other cat so far) go nuts for food like they do for those creamy treats in a tube.

[–] PunnyName 11 points 1 week ago

All the hugs and kisses to the kitty!

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Bless her. We had an elderly cat with an ear like that. It looked horrible but it didn't bother her, so we didn't put her through the stress of operating on it.

[–] toynbee 8 points 1 week ago (1 children)

She is an old cat for sure.

It's hard to say whether it's bothering her. The ear was very visibly swollen before the draining. She never used to hold it sideways like that, either - that's developed over the last two weeks or so.

She's mostly been minding her own business - we had trouble even finding her to take her to the appointment - but recently she's been very clingy and rubbing (to be fair) both ears against us. I suspect it's itchy at the very least.

Honestly, she's so old I'm just worried about her.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 week ago

I think when you have an elderly cat, you have to just concentrate on what will give her the best quality of life for however long she has left. In our case the root cause of the ear problem that caused the scratching and the hematoma was never found because we felt that subjecting an elderly cat to an operation would cause her more stress than just living with it. The vet gave her antibiotics and pain killers, and put her on a low dose of steroids that she took for the rest of her life. The hematoma turned into fibrosis and although it looked horrible, the ear stopped bothering her once she got used to it.

With hindsight it was 100% the right decision, and she lived her best life for another 18 months, right up to the last day.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Re: getting her to eat

Our 12-year-old kitty was recently diagnosed with kidney disease, and on top of that she had a kidney infection. After several weeks of antibiotics the kidney infection has cleared up, but we've been struggling with getting her to eat enough, especially while she was really sick.

Finding the right wet food has really helped. She can only eat kidney-approved foods right now so our options are more limited. Turns out she does not care for the paté style wet foods but she LOVES the Royal Canin options with "little slivers." I think she prefers that she can pick up the bits in her mouth rather than licking a clump of meat lol. The Royal Canin kidney diet options are specifically designed to be appealing to cats who might have a limited appetite, and I can definitely vouch for its effectiveness with our girl.

I know you're not needing kidney-friendly foods for your girl, but my point is, if she doesn't like the first wet food you try, they have different options and maybe she'll prefer another type. So experimenting might help.

At one point we needed an appetite stimulant for our girl, so that's an option too. The vet gave us a transdermal medication that you rub on your cat's ear (so they can't lick or rub it off before it gets absorbed.) That might be an option for you, although probably just in the good ear right now 🙂 The appetite stimulant REALLY helped us when our girl was in the midst of her infection. She went from basically not eating anything to being so hungry that she was purring while eating her food cause she was so happy 🥹

Originally we used the appetite stimulant every day, but it's not necessarily good for long-term use in cats with kidney disease, so we're trying to figure out the minimum dose to keep her eating. She got a half dose about four days ago, which kicked up her appetite. And I think getting used to eating more food again is relatively self-sustaining for her, because she's still eating more all these days later. So yeah, I can also vouch for the effectiveness of the appetite stimulant.

The brand name is Mirataz

[–] toynbee 1 points 1 week ago

All good information, thank you for the recommendations! Hopefully your cat stays as healthy as she can.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Hey my cat got a hematoma in her ear! They drained it once, told me it was likely to swell up again, which it did, but then it just kinda wrinkled and folded in, not swelling up again. It’s all cosmetic, is what my vet told me. Now she just has a little more character. I hope your cats ear goes through a similar trajectory, because after the initial scare and drain, it seemed to mostly just solve itself.

[–] toynbee 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Thanks for the information! Her ear is swelling back up again, so your anecdote definitely offers some comfort.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Any word? Hope it’s mostly resolved itself?

[–] toynbee 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I appreciate you checking in.

It's hard to tell, but it doesn't seem to be changing much for better or worse. However, it doesn't seem to be discomfiting her so we're just continuing to give her the medicine for the time being per the vet's recommendation. She has a follow-up appointment scheduled so if it doesn't get worse before then we'll just keep on trucking.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Well I think you still have some time. With Liz Lemons ear, it took three days before I could get her to a vet, then another few days for it to come back after being drained, then another maybe 4-5 days before it reverted to a folded state. So hopefully it’s just a little time. Because I definitely get it, her ear was definitely bothering her too. I think it’s just that weird swollen feeling as opposed to pain. I asked my vet and they said it doesn’t cause any pain, it’s strictly aesthetic and surgery could fix it but it’s not bothering her. So again, best of luck! Hope to see an update post where you are showing off their new look and they’re happy and unbothered!

[–] toynbee 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Love your cat's name.

I can't make any promises at this time, but I will do my best to let you know when I have news.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago

Oh sorry I didn’t mean to imply you need to update me, I just meant I was hoping to come across another post of yours with a healthy cat! No stress. All the best