Mt Martha Vet ClinicEar Infection Diagnosis and Testing

Ear infections are painful, and we want to use the medication that will act the quickest and be the most successful at eliminating the organisms causing it. Our patients always have cytology performed on their affected ears. This means we make a smear of the discharge from the ear, stain it, and look at it through a microscope to identify what types of bacteria or yeast we need to target. If an infection is not responding as we would expect, then we would send a sample for culture and sensitivity to an external laboratory. The lab grows the bugs from a swab and tells us exactly what organisms we are dealing with and which drugs they will respond to. If the ears are sore, this sample would sometimes need to be taken under sedation to ensure we are getting a sample from deep enough in the canal.