Hi Matt. A few of things come to mind. Firstly, you need to be certain that any infection is completely resolved so I hope your dog is allowing good deep inspection of the ear. If not, I would schedule a general anaesthetic to have a closer look, and perhaps apply a deep treatment. Secondly, after dogs have had severe or prolonged infections, the wax transport mechanism does seem to be easily disrupted, and so those ears can then continue to have wax accumulation, even when there is no infection. For these ears, the only option is to step up your cleaning and keep on top of it manually. Thirdly, even though it’s only happening with one ear, there will still be underlying factors as I mentioned in my articles that can be controlled, such as allergic skin disease.

Hi Renee. It’s possible that the eardrum was already ruptured prior to the treatment being applied. If you look in the article you’ll see I’ve discussed this possibility under 3 Reasons Cleaning Can Make An Ear Worse.

Hi Kiri. I wouldn’t be too worried about shampoos causing middle ear damage, as it seems quite rare. The main problem seems to be with ear cleaners. I would assume that your dog’s vestibular disease was the typical idiopathic geriatric form. If you are worried putting a plug of cotton wool in the ears before bathing does reduce the amount that gets in, but it’s vital that you remember to remove it afterwards!