Mometamax and hearing loss

I have a 6 year old male lab. He developed the beginning of bacterial “hot spot” (moist dermatitis) seemingly after scratching his ears, or from an abrasion from a collar. During the summer, we live on a Minnesota lake, and as you would suspect, he’s in the water a lot. Early July last summer, a “hot spot” erupted requiring shaving his back and neck and antibiotics. We made it to August this year by keeping him dried off whenever he was out of the water. However, I notices a few small “pimples” and crusty discharge on his head. I immediately took him to the vet. The dog’s ears also had developed a “yeasty” smell. The vet thought the hot spot might have originated from scratching his ears and prescribed Mometamax. No antibiotic was prescribed for the "hot spot", and by simply keeping him out of the water for a week or so, his skin healed nicely.


I used the Mometamax as directed for 5 days, until I discovered my dog was rapidly loosing his hearing. I regret not doing some research before administering this drug as there are many similar stories in various forums. This was 3 weeks ago, in early August. Though not totally deaf, he is has lost a large amount of his hearing. For example, I have to drive into the driveway and honk the horn to get his attention. He used to hear the car coming a mile down the road. The hearing loss was rather sudden, developing over a day or two after beginning Mometamax 2X per day.


What are my options? Obviously at 6 years old, he’s in the prime of his life.

I've used Mometamax quite a few times over the years, and never had any of my dogs lose their hearing. My understanding is that this is a concern if the ear drum is ruptured, did the vet look in the ear with an otoscope prior to prescribing the Mometamax?

I'm sorry for your situation, I'm not sure if there is anything that can help restore his hearing, but deaf dogs usually do adapt quite well and lead normal lives. And it sounds like he does have partial hearing?

I'm not familiar with the rapidity of hearing loss when using something like Mometamax and while an aminoglycoside in people can cause hearing loss, it is usually in an iv formulation. We used it for a long time as our pup had serious allergy issues and stopped using it when it was realized she really needed oral antibiotics. I'm just wondering if there was a significant infection that had been going on for awhile or a closed canal etc.? I would certainly recommend that a vet look at the ears, take a culture and see what's going on and it there is damage unrelated to the drug but possibly due to a long term infection, which was frequently what we dealt with, particularly when they improved but were never really 'cured'.