Inner ear trouble in cats...need advice!

[Deleted]

Hi ladies,

Has anybody been down this road with a cat before?  My almost 12 y/o kitty Spencer was having trouble walking on Saturday - he couldn't balance properly.  We took him to the vet immediately. The vet didn't note anything abnormal upon initial exam and said his neurological responses were normal.  He then started going on and on about the 1,001 things it could be, all the expensive exploratory options we could look at (including a $3K MRI) and in my opinion dropped the word "tumor" too many times for an initial visit.  We decided to start with bloodwork, which fortunately came back normal.  The vet then suggested we observe him for a few more days so we took Spencer home with basically zero answers. 

On Sunday when nothing had changed, I called the vet and explained that he had several symptoms of an inner ear infection and could we just treat it as such as opposed to spending thousands of dollars trying to pinpoint and then treat. He at first brought up the wait and see approach but I pushed for something - I just wanted to try to treat what I suspected it was but with medication that wouldn't harm him if it isn't that.  He agreed to an antibiotic and also suggested a steriod in case there's any inflammation going on.  He said we should see improvement in about 10 days if it's something that the medication can fix.   

Does anybody have an experience to relate regarding symptoms, treatment, outcome, etc.?  Obviously this has me very worried for my baby!!  We just can't afford thousands of dollars of tests and it depresses me terribly to think we might be told it's the next option if this medication doesn't work.  

[calico]

No experiences with this particular issue, but if you were uncomfortable with the vet, get a second opinion (preferably with a vet from a referral). We did that with my cat 3 years ago b/c not only had the same vet missed a hernia the year before, but I felt she jumped immediately to diagnosing kitty with diabetes without considering other things. Oh and conveniently wanted kitty to be part of a diabetes study.

The cat didn't have freakin diabetes and that vet screwed me out of almost $1000 for this debacle.

[Deleted]

Mar 25, 2013 12:29:19 GMT -5 calico said:

No experiences with this particular issue, but if you were uncomfortable with the vet, get a second opinion (preferably with a vet from a referral). We did that with my cat 3 years ago b/c not only had the same vet missed a hernia the year before, but I felt she jumped immediately to diagnosing kitty with diabetes without considering other things. Oh and conveniently wanted kitty to be part of a diabetes study.

The cat didn't have freakin diabetes and that vet screwed me out of almost $1000 for this debacle.

Thanks for your reply!  I really wish that his regular vet had been in but she was off that day.  This is Banfield, so the chances of seeing a different vet every time are pretty high, but there is one vet there that we love and she is in their system as his preferred vet.  The vet we saw on Saturday was nice and knows his stuff but I'm guessing he has an IQ that rivals Einsten's and was more focused on the science of it all instead of taking the emotions people feel when their pet is sick into consideration. 

With regard to all the testing, I don't know if that's something that varies by vet or if it's because Banfield is a corporation and as many great vets they may have on staff, at the end of the day it's all about making a buck (or many bucks).  Banfield is the only vet experience I have with pets I have been responsible for. We have plans down the road to move them to a private practice.

We need more James Herriot vets in the world!