About Ear Mites
What are ear mites?
How to tell if your pet has ear mites?
Are ear mites contagious?
Are ear mites curable?
What if I can’t get rid of ear mites?
If left untreated what type of complications can ear mites cause?
Ear Mite Life Cycle
1. We thought you should know the true medical term. Ear mites are mites that live in the ears of animals. The most commonly seen species is Otodectes cynotis.
2. Ear mites are small parasitic insects that live in the ear canal of an animal, and that are able to survive outside the ear for only very short periods of time.
Ear mites are very small, tiny, organisms resembling microscopic ticks. They are infections and can barely be seen with the naked eye. It is important to recognize that ear mite infestation in cats is a very different syndrome than the condition in dogs. For this reason we have included links to “Ear mites in cats”, and “Ear mites in dogs” for you to review. Because ear mites are more common in cats we have produced most of the information here based on that fact.
What is the significance of that statistic? Adult dogs rarely have ear mites, so a diagnosis of ear mites in a mature dog is suspect, but not unheard of.
How to tell if your pet has ear mites?
They must be detected with a microscope by taking a small sample of ear wax. Infection usually produces a characteristic dry black or brown ear discharge commonly said to resemble coffee grounds and or somewhat crusty. The discharge is composed of ear wax, blood, inflammatory biochemicals and the ear mites themselves. Do your pet’s ears have a strong rancid, rotten, or yeasty smell? Then your pet probably has an ear infection on top of everything else.
Humans should be concerned about getting contaminated with ear mites but not overly concerned. Ear mites are extremely contagious in animals but not so much in humans. They can be passed from the mother animal to her offspring. Additionally, the mites are easily spread to other pets within the household including cats, dogs, rabbits, hamsters, gerbils, mice, ferrets, etc. Humans are not affected. So when your child hugs your pet closely and ear to ear please just savor the moment with no concern of contagion.
The best thing about ear mites if there is one, is that humans very rarely can get ear mites from an animal. Humans have been reported to develop skin rashes but it is rare. It is extremely unlikely that a human will ever get ear mites. As happy as you are about finding that out you still care about your pet. Ear mites spread rapidly from brief physical contact with other animals.
Ear mites affect animals, pets, most commonly cats, and less commonly dogs. They can affect guinea pigs and ferrets too. You can spot an infected animal that has ear mites by looking at their ears. If the ear has a crumbly dark brown matter then your pet likely has ear mites. If you look closer you can see tiny white mites in the debris. Ear mites live within the ear canal and do not burrow or go under the skin as some would think.
Ear mite infection is certainly contagious among cats and dogs. Typically, the victim is an outdoor cat. Contradictory to the term "dog or cat ear mites", these parasites can live anywhere on your pet’s body and are highly contagious to other pets that live in the same household. Ear mites readily transmit from host to host by physical contact. Because mites are easily transmissible by physical contact, treatment for mites often must include all household pets.
Your pet will always get ear mites by direct contact with the head of some other animal, so it's unlikely to be some lifelong chronic situation. How is it that some pets with ear mites do not get cured? One of the most common reasons is that the ear gets full of dead skin, ear wax, and ear mite debris from secondary infections from itching or scratching at the infected area. People put medication in the ears to kill the mites, and it may never get to the mites. It could just sit on top of the debris, which now brings us to the treatment of ear mites.
Are ear mites curable?
Ear mite infections are very easy to treat yourself. The application of mineral oil is a great place to start and it’s relatively inexpensive. It aids in dissolving ear wax and all the exudates that might be plugging the ears of your pet and it can smother and kill the ear mites. You need to spread the oil by massaging the insides of your pet's ears. The massaging helps loosen both ear mites and ear wax. The correct way to do this is by grasping the ears with your thumb inside and the rest of your fingers on the furry ear exterior.
Mineral oil treatment is considered the most effective ear mite control a pet owner can do at home. It's also regarded as the only natural form of ear mite treatment. Never resort to any natural oil alternatives such as olive oil, almond oil or even corn oil. These oils may smother ear mites, but they can also cause a lot of discomfort to your pet. Mineral oil is always the best product when it comes to the removal of ear wax and ear mites. It's been tried and tested for many years
Mites are also laying more eggs, which hatch out about ten days after they are laid. If you don't treat for a long enough period of time, new mites hatch out and start it all over again. You should treat your pet daily for ten days, and repeat a single treatment on day 20 and day 30 for late hatchers.
If you have multiple pets, they are liable to pass the mites back and forth. You have to treat ALL the pets that are in direct contact with one another.
Many medications for ear mite treatment consist of nothing more than an insecticide in an oily base. This is fine if there are no complicating factors. Unfortunately, if the ear is full of crust, as noted above, these types of treatments don't do much.
First clean your pet’s ears with wax softeners and gentle flushing so that the medicine can actually contact the diseased skin.
If there are secondary ear infections, those need to be treated as well. If the ear is sore insecticide does nothing to relieve that. Transderm for ear mite treatment, as it usually kills the secondary yeast and has a little cortisone to make the ear feel better is a good remedy.
Milbemite otic is approved for cats and will usually eliminate an ear mite infestation with a single treatment which is good news for your little critter.
Revolution is another remedy and is a heartworm preventive that is applied topically. It absorbs into the skin and circulates in the bloodstream overnight. It is excreted not in the body wastes, but in the skin oils, including ear wax. It kills fleas, flea eggs, scabies mites and ear mites. I find it is a great preventive for those outside cats who keep getting re-infested from their playmates who may or may not have as good as owner as you. It may not be very effective as a solo treatment for a really bad case of ear mites.
Some ear infections simply cannot be controlled with the above steps. These cases have transcended medical management and must proceed to surgical management.
Note the proliferation of tissue in the ear canal. Bacteria and discharge can hide in all the nooks and crannies. The vertical canal has been opened so as to facilitate cleaning. Depending on the severity of the problem, the vertical canal may need to be opened surgically. This enables debris to be removed more effectively. This is done to prevent severe scarring after prolonged specific medical therapy has been ineffective.
If the canal becomes so scarred that it is practically closed, "ablation" may be the final option. In this surgical procedure the entire ear canal is removed and healthy tissue is allowed to grow in. These procedures are "last resorts" after severe infection has made effective medical treatment impossible. A specialist is called in for these cases and, although surgery is expensive, dogs with chronic severe otitis usually require no further ear treatment for the rest of their lives.
Topical Treatments: Over the Counter
There are numerous products available for ear mite eradication. Most older and over-the-counter products contain insecticides that do not kill incubating mite eggs. Because of this limitation, such products must be used for at least the duration of the 21-day life cycle of the mite. Some specialists recommend a 30-day treatment course with such products. While these products do work and are readily available at most pet supply stores, three weeks of use is relatively inconvenient and the pet may not always be cooperative.
Single Use Products
There are currently several prescription products available that reliably eradicate an ear mite infection with one single use, although a thorough ear cleaning is still needed to remove the wax and debris from the ear.
A veterinarians favorite is Advantage Multi (called Advocate® outside the U.S.), which uses moxidectin as an active ingredient. Both selamectin and moxidectin are ivermectin derivatives. With either product, a single application is used on the skin; the product is absorbed into the body where it kills numerous other parasites and then returns to the skin to be concentrated. When these products are used as regular flea control, they have the added benefit of on-going ear mite prevention. Revolution® is primarily a flea control product but is approved for both dogs and cats for the treatment of ear mite infection. Advantage Multi® only has approval against ear mites in cats. Both products are available by prescription only. In some cases a final ear cleaning is needed a month or so after the product has been applied to remove any dried or old ear wax still left in the ear.
What if I can’t get rid of the ear mites?
First of all make sure your pet actually has ear mites. This is a good place to start. In this situation it would be recommended that you take your pet to see a vet. Hey that rhymes, “take your pet to see a vet”…ok so I’m sorry, I’ll stop now. I just know that reading medical information can sometimes be boring. My goal is to keep you awake.
Other considerations include:
1. Has the continuing mite infection been confirmed after therapy? Sometimes a bacterial infection remains even though the mites are long gone. Obviously treating for ear mites when none are present will not achieve results.
2. Were all the pets in the family treated? If all pets were not treated, begin again, this time including every pet because if not they will simply re-infect each other.
Consider using one of the new products. If you are trying to use one of the daily products, it is easy to skip a day here and there. Your pet should have his ears cleaned really well and THEN the medicine put in. After the prescribed time for the medication, the ears should be cleaned again. Give him a day or two to recoup. If the ear mites are still there (you'll see indications after just a day or two), then clean his ears again and do another round of medicine.
BUT without cleaning the ears, the dead mites and their droppings will remain in his ears which will actually make it look like he still has active ear mites when he really doesn't AND will also cause him to constantly shake his head because of the irritation.
Also, look at your pet’s environment. If he’s going outside a lot he may be getting re-infected which means you actually did get rid of the ear mites but they came back again.
If left untreated what type of complications can ear mites cause?
Regardless of the cause they are painful and if untreated can cause serious complications. First of all ear mites are uncomfortable. The scratching and itching also makes for open abrasions on the skin that can also become infected. If left untreated ear mites can cause sinus damage.
Very few ear infections get better without medical assistance. Left untreated the infection might cause the eardrum to rupture causing a middle ear infection and loss of your pet's balance. This condition is very hard to cure and will probably result in loss of hearing. Continual shaking of the head may cause a blood blister to develop in the ear flap which will need to be surgically corrected. Rarely the infection might travel up the acoustic nerve and cause a fatal brain infection. Even if none of these complications take place, an untreated ear infection continually causes your pet pain. Would you like to be treated this way?
In addition to the development of skin infections, ear mites can cause blood vessels inside a cat’s ear to rupture from intense scratching and head shaking. This is known as an aural hematoma, and often requires surgery to correct.
Ear mites are inflammatory and they can generate very irritating ear infections. Skin disease can also result from infection by the ear mite.
Ear Mite Life Cycle
The mite lives on the surface of the ear canal skin, although it sometimes migrates out onto the face and head of its host. Eggs are laid after 4 days of incubation they hatch. The larva hatches from the egg, feeds on ear wax and skin oils for about a week, and then molts into a protonymph, which in turn molts into a deutonymph. The deutonymph mates with the adult male. What seems especially bizarre to us mammals is the deutonymph has not yet developed a gender at the time it mates with the adult male.
After mating, the deutonymph molts into either an adult male or an adult female. If the deutonymph becomes a female, she will be gravid with eggs as a result of the mating. If the deutonymph develops into a male, there are no consequences to the mating and he is ready to mate with deutonymphs of his own choosing. The adult mite lives for approximately two months, happily eating ear wax and skin oils. The life cycle (the time it takes for an egg to develop into an adult mite ready for parenthood) requires three weeks.
Most ear mite cases are found in cats. Dogs can be infected as well but, since dogs more commonly get ear infections of other types, ear infections in dogs rarely involve mites.
