Welcome to the Auralsplint™ Aural Hematoma Treatment for Canine. You may have already been affected with the causes leading you to this site. An aural hematoma is an affliction of the animal’s ear where a blood vessel(s) break and begin to expand a blood pool within the ear tissue layers of skin and cartilage.
First choice for many owners is to directly go see your veterinarian for diagnosis and treatment. Diagnosis is fairly straight forward. Your dog is in discomfort due many reasons. The added weight makes the ear hang down unnaturally. Also, and most important to know, is the skin and cartilage are being ripped apart. The tissues which hold together the layers already have torn to the edges of the blood pool and are continuing to tear as long as the hematoma is continuing to expand. This will continue until an aspiration by hypodermic needle. With the pressure now gone, the animal has some relief, for a short while, until the hematoma refills again and expands to the point of full, and begins to tear more tissues. Tough choices lay ahead.
· Can you afford surgery?
· Do you want to have surgery?
· What is general anesthesia?
· Is doing nothing an option?
· What else can you do?
Let’s answer these questions:
(1) The cost of surgery varies depending upon your economic location and your veterinary surgeon. Seeing as you have already spent money having the hypodermic needle aspiration performed, the surgery will be added costs, including the use of the operating room, the anesthetics used, the antibiotics needed, the aftercare visits, the bandaging, medications, just to name a few. Typical range of clinical surgical costs $500 - $1500.
(2) Surgery may not be for everyone. Consideration for surgery should depend on your expectations. Be aware of the extent of wounding which occurs during surgery, and the amount of time and effort in recovering. Also, the surgeon has made you aware and signed a release as to the outcome being either favorable or less than perfect. Granted, there is only so much the skilled surgeon can do. He is doing what he is trained to do, but Mother Nature can be fickly no matter the efforts. Even with surgical option, the ear flap has a tendency to shrivel, begging the question of why perform surgery in the first place?
(3)General anesthesia is the term for medicating your animal into inactive state to be able to operate. Some animals perform better than others, and you will need to ask your vet if your breed recovers without obstacles.
(4) Doing nothing can be an option because the affliction is not mortal. If left untreated, the area will fill to a point where, without accidental puncture, the blood will clot and slowly be reabsorbed, slowly shrinking the bulb and ear flap into a crinkled mess. Unsightly? Sure. Hard to clean? Yes. Susceptible for ear infections? Most likely. This might sound like abuse, but again, nature has her ways of solving things.
(5) A third option may be multiple aspirations, until at some point the hematoma begins to heal the bleeding and forms a smaller clot in the ear, with re-absorption and shriveling occurring. Your veterinarian may want to introduce pain and or swelling injections to assist during this process. Unfortunately, the aspirations will have to continue until this point of healing, meaning multiple visits to the vet, and multiple expenses, and unsure expectations for results. Be aware, the more you aspirate, the greater the chance of infection. Also, the more anxious your animal will get.
By now, you can begin to see these options above seem limited to all or nothing. It was at this point I made my decision to create a treatment without having multiple aspirations, and to heal the hematoma without surgery. The Auralsplint™ is this treatment. Early diagnosis and initial hypodermic needle aspiration is crucial to success. Any longer than 6-7 days from onset of the hematoma increases the chance of coagulation of the blood pool, leaving no options other than surgical to remove the clot, or to leave the clot and heal without treatment. Once an initial hypodermic needle aspiration is performed, then you have four days until you will need to perform another hypodermic needle aspiration, otherwise the blood will clot. Multiple aspirations are not advised, but sometimes needed until the Auralsplint™ treatment can be installed. For this reason, I look to have the treatment in the hands of the veterinarians, as an option to choose from your first visit.
However, until such time, I intend to offer the treatment directly to the public, for the dog owners to be able to install the treatment at their own homes, and/or take the treatment to their veterinarian to have the vet or vet tech install the treatment. I intend to first target the Holistic veterinarians due to their alignment with opposition to surgery for the affliction. Once established, the general veterinarians will be pursued.
The path I have chosen to ensure the success of the Auralsplint™ has not been easy. I self-funded a field study for five years, with voluntary participation of animal owners all looking (like me) to find an alternative to the treatments available. I found many did not want surgery, could not afford surgery, or could not have surgery due to the general anesthetic complications. 190 participants with 49 returned surveys comprised the study. The resulting manuscript Auralsplint™ Descriptive Report access is published on the website under veterinary portal. It is with great honor to present this to the public, and to the scientific world, although the study is considered biased due to the nature of its undertaking by the author. I left the reporting to the participants, and compiled their returns into the manuscript, as best as I could, all while trying to be as openly investigative as possible. I will let the Report stand on its own merits, and you can decide. The FDA through voluntary Pre-Market Approval has concluded the Auralsplint is a medical class 1 device safe as prescribed under supervision of licensed veterinarians included in a complete clinical examination. Auralsplint Inc. PBC will be pursuing Licensed Veterinarians for clinical trials.
So, from this day forward, the public will have a cost effective, non-surgical, corrective alternative option for treating an aural hematoma in dog, the Auralsplint™.
Auralsplint.org
Auralsplint Inc. PBC
18011 Bruno Rd.
Justin, TX 76247
Auralsplint™
