Just got this question. Thought we could discuss it here.
Hi Dr. Jones,
Can you give me some help? My 18 year-old cat got beat up the other day by "meany cat" of the neighborhood, and I just discovered that he seems to have a strange thing inside his ear that smells awful and has green around it -- an abscess, perhaps? Could you tell me a good herbal formula for making a poultice for inside his ear. I've looked through all my notes from you, and I see that a lobelia leaf poultice should work on an abscess, and calendula is anti-microbial. He doesn't feel feverish, oddly, but I notice that he was shaking his head a lot and I could tell his ear was bothering him and so I looked inside it -- eek!
Thanks
Kisi
My response was:
I don't know that a poultice is going to stay on very well on a cat ear. You'd probably do better with a wash made from a tea.
I would try making a tea with calendula, garlic and echinacea and cleaning it out with a cotton ball several times a day. Goldenseal or barberry would be good choices as well.
If he will eat a 1/8 of a teaspoon of echinacea several times a day with some canned food that would be good too.
Cats are tough because they are very resistant to eating the herbs.
Patrick