Is That a Zucchini on Your Head, or…?

Is That a Zucchini on Your Head, or…?

If you’ve never seen an ear hematoma, you’re missing out. Missing out on a lot of hassle and frustration, that is. Cat owners, you’re not off the hook, because—although this condition is much more common in the dog—cats can get them too.

The ear hematoma is not difficult to diagnose, unless you’re more than 20 feet away from the patient. It’s a swelling in the flap of the ear that feels and looks like a tiny pillow. It’s basically skin-colored with overtones of purple. A hematoma is a three-dimensional bruise, or a pocket filled with blood. You can get them anywhere on—or in—your body if a blood vessel is torn or other physical damage is done. This particular variety of hematoma generally results from an itchy ear infection. One way that animals react to uncomfortably itchy ears is to frantically shake and twist the head. The ear flaps fly out madly away from the skull and smash violently against it, over and over. During one of those high speed collisions, a vessel breaks. It leaks rapidly, because the ear flap has lots and lots of big blood vessels. Now, you never actually see blood during the creation of an ear hematoma because the leakage is trapped between the front and back skin layers of the ear. Let’s all take a moment to be thankful for that, because a bleeding wound to the ear flap creates carnage that you would never want to behold. Think… paint gun, manned by a toddler.

So there’s generally no mess at home and no danger of the pet bleeding to death, but these things do tend to expand gradually, becoming increasingly uncomfortable. Yes, it can eventually take on the appearance of a pickle or zucchini sticking out the side of the head. You’ve got to take this to the doctor. Here’s where it really gets interesting, because ten different vets will usually have twelve different opinions on how best to repair these things. Some use medicine only, but most use surgical drainage of the blood followed by compression of the ear flap. There are several different kinds of operations and various types of hardware used to flatten the hematoma until it has a chance to heal. Devices with snaps, buttons, and brads have been invented for hematoma management, alongside many different upcycled contraptions that employ needlepoint canvas, x-ray film, urinary catheters, and other “household” materials. Not one of these myriad methods seems to outshine all the others, not enough to convince us all to do it the same exact way, and all of them are more tedious and expensive than anyone would wish.

So if you detect something sprouting from the flap of your dog or cat’s ear, don’t wait around for it to go away on its own (they virtually never do), and don’t massage or manipulate it in any way! Make an appointment with your doctor to get this thing addressed before it grows into a blue-ribbon specimen.

Dr. M.S. Regan