I had to treat my kitties (all four of the ones I had at the time, all but one have gone over the rainbow bridge now though) for ear mites once. None of them were quite that bad about it, but it was definitely tricky. :-)

She's a very tolerant kitty. No fussing about nail trimming, no problem pilling and while she's not crazy about wet Q-tips in her ears, she'll put up with it with just a little squirming.

This, Oy! She sounded like she was in pain or scared half to death. I don't see how it could have hurt, but she was a very upset cat.

Probably didn't hurt but liquid in the ears is very distressing (and scary) because it feels like drowning, I think. At least, that's the impression I got from mine. It helps if it goes in slowly.

I have to clip all four sets of cat claws this weekend...oy. Thanks for reminding me!

Sounds like you're probably best off with the Q-tips with her.

I'll give the gauze pads a try - if they don't work well - its back to the Q-tips. I'm not going to make her miserable over some ear wax.

Edit to add: 4 sets of claws - you are brave! Teddy let me cut one nail last night and then hissed at me. I have better luck on the weekends when I can wait for the mid-afternoon sleepies to help.

Hey, I just saw this and your last post now. I have a LOT of experience with this issue. I have a cat who, despite not being homeless at any point, acted exactly like a feral cat for a while (I have her mom too who is the exact opposite of her, their old owners had a kid though so I think he may have completely traumatized her as a kitten). So this cat had chronic ear infections for so long, it was lots of that waxy goop. What I did for cleaning her ears would be (after chasing her around for a good 10-20 mins until I could finally throw a towel over her) is wrap her up like a burrito, bring her to the couch and there I had a little bowl of warm-not hot-water, kleenex, and a bottle of ear cleaner stuff. I would dampen a kleenex with the warm water and clean her ears with that first, to loosen up that gunk, and then I would douse another kleenex with the ear cleaning solution and clean them with that. Afterwards I would dry her ears with a dry kleenex. The ear cleaning solution says to put it directly into their ears, but I really don't think that's necessary and is really unpleasant for them. It's still going to do the same thing on a kleenex. She would sometimes get ear drops from the vet that I would put in afterwards.

I saw in your last post about all the conflicting advice you saw online, I personally would not use q-tips. When you're putting stuff in their ear sometimes they will just flap/shake their head as a reflex. I also think making sure the ear is dry is important, dampness/moisture in there will probably not help the situation.

Also, this was happening with her for a while and we kept going to the same vet who kept treating it the same way. After a bad experience with one of my other two cats there we went to a new vet and the first thing they did was look at the ear gunk under the microscope. It was a fungal infection and the old vet had kept prescribing antibiotic shots and drops...which made it look better for a little bit but didn't actually do anything. This particular type of fungus is often a sign of an underlying allergy. Got some anti-fungal drops from the vet, switched to a grain free food and her ears have been fine ever since. So next time you're at the vet, ask them to take a swab of her ear. It's super quick for them to test it and it's good to know if that ear gunk is just gunk or something else.

Thank you for your reply. You've given me a lot of good info! When we go in to the vet next time I am going to ask him to test the ear gunk. My vet actually does think its some sort of allergic reaction but he's never run any tests. (He's also not given her any shots or drops without testing so that's a plus). She is on grain free food, so I don't know if its something else other than food. But if it is a fungal infection or a (bacterial infection), it sounds like we can address the problem with actual medication as well as cleaning.

I like the warm water/solution two step idea - and I think I'll combine that with the advice of using gauze pads - they are a more durable than tissue.

I'm giving Ida a week off from ear cleaning. So sometime this week, we'll give it a go and I'll let you know how we're doing. I really appreciate you taking the time to explain all of this. It's not a live threatening situation, but I know her ears get itchy and I want to do everything I can to be a good Meowmy.

Seconding iwilldeny's suggestions, the "burrito wrap" may be useful, if you absolutely have to get into the ears. I'd be a bit leary of using Q-Tips, as well.

For nail-trimming, I use clippers for humans - the ones that are heavy and about three inches long. That has been far more easily accepted by all of my cats than any I've bought from the pet store. Of course, you have to be careful not to get too close to the quick, but I've only misjudged that once (I think that was more traumatic for me than my cat!) Even on my most fussy cats, I can usually get at least one paw done, and most of the time can get all of them done in one sitting.