Vestibular Symptoms

[kayla1]

Has anyone experienced or heard of vestibular syndrome being caused by an ear flush?

One of my dogs had a general anaesthetic a couple of days ago and the vet checked his ears while he was under. One ear was fine and the other had some debris, some of which was cleaned out. When I picked him up he was showing vestibular symptoms - nystagmus, head tilt, staggering. Symptoms cleared within 24 hours.

But nobody really knows what caused it - no symptoms of any sort beforehand and swab taken before cleaning showed no infection. As I understand it could possibly be an ear drum perforation which was either there already or irritated by the cleaning, or inflammation?? He was given antibiotics (iv and injection) just in case of infection. The vet said it is quite rare but now I'm concerned about future ear cleaning, especially with that ear.

[julesluvscavs]

Sorry to hear this has happened. Haven't heard about it with dogs, but a guy I know, it happened to one of his cats at the vets. Not sure what the outcome was as I haven't spoken to him for ages, but he was very upset about it ;(

[megan_]

Could some water have been left in his ear? If I get my ears flushed out I can be very dizzy afterwards

[kayla1]

Thanks Jules, hope the cat recovered ok. It's pretty worrying - my heart just sank when I saw him. Having one dog already with vestibular is more than enough!

Thanks megan, not sure - when I got there his ear was flushed again but with warm saline. I guess if the ear drum is ruptured and the fluid got through then that could cause it. Not sure about fluid still in the external part of the ear though, whether that could cause the symptoms like nystagmus.

Actually I've been wondering if he has some hearing loss in that ear because he seems to react differently to noise, or maybe I'm worrying too much.

[kayla1]

To add, when chatting to others about this since, the first reaction seems to be that the vet has been a bit overzealous with the cleaning.