anyone have a vet hookup?

[infamous]

i have two cats, both of which are healthy and happy usually. watched a neighbors cat for a week, and now that he's gone i am noticing my cats are scratching their ears a lot. i have tried to call a couple of vets trying only to get the cure for ear mites. every one that i have called tells me i need to bring my cats in and have them checked out before they will give me the medicine. i know my cats and they don't need to go to the vet. anyone know of someone who works at a vet who might be able to help me out? thanks in advance!

[UndrgroundRider]

You can buy Revolution online. I don't know of any vet that will sell you veterinary drugs without being an existing client. And they legally can't prescribe you anything without having an active relationship with your pet. I have two dogs with chronic conditions and we're forced to pony up for annual exams just so we can continue receiving their prescriptions.

[CanmoreOrLess]

In my experience no vet will cut you meds without seeing the animal in person. Legally they can lose their licence to practice for obvious reasons. Bundle the vet appointment with a general check up, that's what I do and often take in two animals, one for the immediate concern and the other for a check up. My vet bills in 15 minute blocks, your time to use as you wish. Often my vet openly advises the use of human meds from a local drugstore, far cheaper than her drugs.

[infamous]

well, seems like a huge cash grab to me. but either way, thanks for pointing me in the direction of revolution, i just placed an order.

[UndrgroundRider]

Originally posted by infamous
well, seems like a huge cash grab to me.

You don't know the half of it. I'm not very impressed with the vet industry, but I guess they gotta make their money somehow. It's the extortionary practices that really get to me.

One of my dogs has a life long chronic condition. It has been well controlled for years. He takes a couple pills every day with his food and he leads a completely normal life. At some point when we went to get a prescription refill, our vet informed us that their "policy" had changed, and we now needed yearly blood tests or else they wouldn't prescribe the medication. The tests work out to $400-$600 a year. This is on top of the exam fee. Again, for a dog that had a well controlled condition with the existing drug regimen. We ultimately switched vets, but they're kind of like cell phone companies, they're all guilty of the same thing.

[CanmoreOrLess]

Originally posted by UndrgroundRider


You don't know the half of it. I'm not very impressed with the vet industry, but I guess they gotta make their money somehow. It's the extortionary practices that really get to me.

One of my dogs has a life long chronic condition. It has been well controlled for years. He takes a couple pills every day with his food and he leads a completely normal life. At some point when we went to get a prescription refill, our vet informed us that their "policy" had changed, and we now needed yearly blood tests or else they wouldn't prescribe the medication. The tests work out to $400-$600 a year. This is on top of the exam fee. Again, for a dog that had a well controlled condition with the existing drug regimen. We ultimately switched vets, but they're kind of like cell phone companies, they're all guilty of the same thing.

Perhaps the yearly blood tests are to monitor the health and impact the drugs are having on the animal? I know my dog has been on short term meds for over a year and a known possible side effect of the drug is kidney damage. So the yearly test is needed to monitor the condition of this organ. If you can think of another way of concluding the condition of your animal beyond a blood test, an entire industry awaits the answer. Us humans are covered 100% on health insurance, we are the lucky ones.

[UndrgroundRider]

Originally posted by CanmoreOrLess


Perhaps the yearly blood tests are to monitor the health and impact the drugs are having on the animal? I know my dog has been on short term meds for over a year and a known possible side effect of the drug is kidney damage. So the yearly test is needed to monitor the condition of this organ. If you can think of another way of concluding the condition of your animal beyond a blood test, an entire industry awaits the answer. Us humans are covered 100% on health insurance, we are the lucky ones.

Sorry, I didn't mention it in my post. The blood tests are used to help establish the correct dosage. Once you've established the dosage it doesn't usually change unless there are major changes in the dog. He had been on this regimen for years and was doing fine, in fact he had reached his life expectancy at the time this all went down.

In conversations with the vet they had let slip that they were doing this for all of their chronically ill patients, which kind of rules out an honest medical concern. Obviously the recommended treatment for dozens of different diseases didn't all change overnight. It was obviously a thinly veiled attempt to grab more cash. And we didn't come to that conclusion on our own, we checked with other vets and friends of ours who are vet technicians.

If you ask 10 vets you'll probably get 10 answers as to the necessity of the tests. Ultimately it should be the pet owner's choice, and the prescriptions shouldn't be withheld as a bargaining chip to force the owner's hand into expensive tests.

We made the choice that it didn't make financial sense for us to spend that kind of money on an elderly dog, especially when there was no reason to believe there was anything wrong. In addition to that, this particular condition manifests with many physical symptoms when the hormone levels are out of whack. So it's not like the dog would drop dead, even if by some strange occurrence his dosage needed to be changed after the better part of a decade.

[bignerd]

Ear mites are usually easy to see, lots of dark gunk in pets ears. Do they have this?

There are some topical natural remedies you can buy online, some work, some don't.

[speedog]

Late to the thread but most retail pet supply shops should carry some sort of ear mite treatment - one brand would be Bio-Groom's ear mite treatment.

[TimG]

http://www.cbc.ca/marketplace/episod...14/barking-mad

marketplace special on vets.

[speedog]

Originally posted by TimG
http://www.cbc.ca/marketplace/episod...14/barking-mad

marketplace special on vets.

So TimG - what is your opinion on vets on general or even specifically?