Since I appear to be the only person on the entire board who’s never had an “Ask the…” thread (and because I have three days off and am bored) I’m starting one.
So, if anybody has any questions about what goes on in the back rooms at the vet’s office, or what goes on in a veterinary emergency room, let’s hear them. And feel free to hit me up for unofficial, free advice about your pet’s care. God knows everyone else does.
A friend recently showed me a prescription for his dog: Chlorpheniramine 4 mg, for the dog’s congestion which may be allergy related. The Vet charged him around $25 for the medicine alone, 14 pills cut in quarters. Having had allergies of my own, I remembered that medicine because I once used Chlortrimeton, which has the same ingredient (chlorpheniramine). I double checked at a pharmacy and found a very cheap container of the product containing 24 tablets. Cheap meaning one dollar. Can you comment on the price differential? Also, I imagine one could just give the dog the same product given to humans (cut down, of course). Thanks!
Drugs can vary widely in pricing from the distributor (generic vs. name-brand, discounts for buying in bulk, different dosages, etc.) and sometimes it costs a lot more for vets to get a product in their door than what the store down the street sells it for. That’s why our clinic stopped carrying Iams food when grocery stores and Walmart started selling it. With the bulk discounts they were getting, they could make a profit selling it for below our cost.
Vets also have a dispensing fee they put on all prescriptions. This covers the cost of the vial and label, the time a technician spent filling the script and updating the record and doing client education, time spent reordering medications, etc. This varies from clinic to clinic and region to region, but it’s generally in the $5-$10 range.
Another possibillity is that your vet charges more for medications so they don’t have to charge as much for exams, vaccines, shots, and surgeries. It has to do with how clients tend to perceive value, and it tends to lead not only to increased client satisfaction, but greater company profits.
It sounds crazy, but Veterinary Economics (or maybe it was another journal) did an interesting article about it, showing that people were more willing to pay $20 per vaccine (3 vaccines in an annual check-up) than to pay $30 for an exam and $10/vaccine. The total is still $60, but in the first scenario, they’re getting a free exam! Your friend’s vet may have that sort of pricing system in place.
Human and veterinary drugs are indeed often the exact same thing (my old boss used to let us fill our own antibiotic prescriptions at work). However, the dosage is often very different, and that’s something you have to check very, very carefully. You also have to watch for other active ingredients. Also, some tablets are not supposed to be split or crushed, so you might not be able to safely cut down the human pills. (Veterinary drugs are often non-coated for just this reason.) If this is something the dog will be on long-term, it’s worth asking the vet about next visit.
I have a black tortoise-shell cat. On one of her back feet the pad is swollen.I noticed it about a year ago but for all I know it’s always been that way. It does not cause her any problems, she doesn’t limp or pick at it, when I touch it she yanks her foot back but she does that if I touch any of her paws. What’s the deal with her foot?
One of my sisters used to work for a vet, she said it’s just something some cats have but a second opinion never hurts.
I seem to have a pair of Jack Sprat cats - one’s verrry skinny, and the other has an amazing belly on her. This is about the skinny one (although if you have any suggestions as to how to keep the fat one from being so fat, I’d like to hear them).
This might be a bit beyond your knowlegde, but - will cats not eat if they’re upset/lonely? Because it seems that she’s lost a bit more weight since I left home for college. What can my parents do to make her happier? And part B of the question, is that sometimes she’ll start wheezing - like she’s got something up her nose or something. She’s done this for years, and I’ve noticed that sometimes she’ll start to purr, stop to wheeze, and then resume purring and loving. Could this be allergies? Feline asthma? The vet we take her to thinks it’s hairballs or something, but he’s never heard it. Any thoughts?
Am I a total moron for taking my dog to the vet?
Maguire is 9 months old. I thought he had lost all of his puppy teeth. The other night, he was bleeding from the mouth, and it looked like he broke a tooth. Took him in, turned out it was another puppy tooth. Vet removed it and presented it to me - voila!
All of his teeth look like the big permanent ones, and I have quite a few of his puppy teeth saved…
So, did the vet and techs laugh at me after I left?
Do you have any secret vet tech tricks for preventing corophragia (poo eating)? Is it a problem for the dog, or should I just ignore it, since it apparently only grosses me out? (I’ve tried Adolph’s meat tenderizer, cottage cheese, a product called Deter – so far nothing works. He LOVES poo. I think he’s related to Mr. Hanky.)
How 'bout gas? Anything I can give Mr. Stinky for that? (Preferably something OTC, or found in pet store.)
I’ve often thought about getting into Veterinary Medicine, with a Feline Specialty (preferably). But the one thing that’s always stopped me dead in my tracks is that I just don’t think I could deal with having to euthanize an animal, even if it was ultimately for the best.
My question is just how often does this situation occur? Or do you find yourself mainly doing checkups, shots, etc?
I asked my vet if I can have my cats cremated through them when they die—they said yes, they deal with a crematory, and if I want a “private cremation,” they can arrange that, for more money, and I’ll get my cats’ ashes back. Hmmmm. Would I really get my cats’ ashes back, or half of a poodle and a cigarette butt? Not that I’m suspicious . . .
We have 4 cats (and 1 sad, dejected dog who can’t understand why the cats don’t like her)
I noticed, after taking the youngest in for her first round of shots last year, that she had a lump where the injection was. I assumed it would go away but it hasn’t. Also the other cats have similar lumps on their hind flanks. Is this norma.?
I’ve always wondered about squeeze cages. I know what you do with them once you get the animal in there.
But how in the heck do you get the animal in the squeeze cage in the first place?
I keep picturing a baboon being really upset when you force him into the squeeze cage… less so when you knock him out with an injection.
I’d ask the vet techs at work… but well… They’re probably diseased
Dear CrazyCatLady
I’m worried about my cat vomitting. A friend of mine said it’s a way to get rid of excess hair in her stomach, but I’m sceptical. It’s not all the time, it’s once a week maybe. Is this normal?
I am not a vet, but I have a lot of vet tech friends. Also, I just had my cats at the vet last week.
I asked about their habitual vomiting (not just hairballs* but also undigested food). My vet who has been practicing for like 30 years said, in his experience, about 25% of his clients complain of habitual vomiting in their cats. Most often, the vomiting does not seem to have a cause that he can find. Sometimes a change of diet is helpful (my cats improved somewhat after switching to a “hairball control” formula). Mention it to your vet the next time they are in, but he may not find anything amiss.
*A hairball looks like a long clump of fur (usually about the color your cat is. ) If your cat is brown it might look like a poop.
Esme, my cat, is grey. And it doesn’t look like there’s a lot of hair in the vomit, which is why I’m a little worried. Otherwise, she’s a perfectly healthy cat.
For a number of years, we’ve had hamsters in the house. One of our earlier hamsters turned up ill one Saturday night. He was lying down in his cage, with labored breathing. Even though my wife and I are not vets, we had a fairly strong feeling that he wouldn’t last through the night.
Conisering that it was well past 11:00 in the evening (again, on a Saturday night), we were left in a quandry about what to do. We opened the phone book and called a place that looked like they were open 24 hours. They referred us to a vet hospital in Manhattan. We could have brought the hamster in and had him seen. Of course, there was guarantee for a recovery. Plus the fact that we would have been charged well over $200 to have him seen.
Part of the reason we do not have a dog is because at the time, we could not afford a dog. Even if we got the dog for free from a shelter, between vet visits, vaccinations, etc., the cost of caring for the pet would have exceeded what we could have afforded to spend on it. However, when we started with hamsters, we never even considered the possibility that we could spend over $200 on a vet visit. In the end (in a decision that I still feel very bad about to this day), we concluded that we did not have the money to spend on the hamster and we chose to simply make him as comfortable as possible in his cage. By morning he was gone.
I’m not telling this story over in order to gain sympathy, or to have people debate whether or not I was cold-hearted, cheap and selfish.
My question, very simply is, do people really bring $10 hamsters to the vets for emergency visits such as this (and as such, we should have brought him in), or have you never really heard of such a thing and I’ve been feeling guilty for all these years for nothing?
Zev Steinhardt
A friend of mine had a dog that got in a fight with a porcupine. The dog ended up with quills in its face. After removing them, the fur on his face where the quills were turned gray. He also started to become aggressive towards people when he had never been aggressive before, to the point where he bit their child and had to be put down. Have you ever seen anything like this from a porcupine sting before? Do you know if there is something in the quills that could have caused this (aggression or the gray fur), or do you think he became aggressive because he was frightened from the encounter?
Also, do you have any general tips for us pet owners about when to call a vet if there is a problem, and how to behave once we get there (I’m sure you have lots of stories about pet owners!)
Thanks!
Oh, my, I go to sleep for a few hours and look what happens. Okay, folks, no pushing and shoving. Just wait your turn, I promise I’ll get around to everyone.
Catnoe, she could have some sort of chronic inflammation, or it could be some sort of odd little genetic abberration. I’ve never seen that before, but I freely admit I tend to pay more attention to the sharp body parts, and those which are emitting bodily fluids. If it’s normal for her, though, I wouldn’t worry too much about it.
tele: Hell, yes, cats and dogs will stop eating when they’re lonely, upset, or anxious. It’s also possible that she has an underlying metabolic disorder like kidney disease, or maybe bad teeth. I’d have her looked at to rule out medical stuff first. As for the wheezing thing, I’d have to hear it before I could even venture a WAG. It also sounds like Fatty needs some diet cat food, and a strictly monitored amount of it. No snacks, no generous measurings, no “just a few kernels to hush him up.” Your vet can set you up.
mishaa: No, you’re not a moron. The staff might possibly have snickered a little, but I can guarantee that they like and respect you a hell of a lot more than if you’d just let your dog bleed for a while. Besides, we all recognize that it’s a lot easier to see what’s going on in a dog’s mouth when you have trained staff to restrain him and extra lighting to point down his throat.
if the vomiting is worrisome but the vet seems to think nothing is amiss, try doing some monitoring on your own. possible things to consider:
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i don’t want to upset you unnecessarily, but i also had a cat who had frequent episodes of vomiting. i also mentioned it constantly to the vet, but never got much reaction. the cat was small to begin with, and never what you’d call plump. what seemed more annoying, though, was the fact that she’d eat eat eat, get sick, then go back and try to eat again. i got around that by switching to feeding her a small portion every hour or so, but she wasn’t particularly thriving. finally, the poor little thing was starting to look much too scrawny. took her to the vet, they started heavy-duty testing and kept her for treatment. she went downhill very quickly. i declined to have her autopsied when it was over, but the general feeling was that she probably had some internal problems, possibly a tumor. (cancer seemed to run through her littermates. a half-sister lost half an ear to it before she died.) i’m always going to feel bad that earlier in the whole process i didn’t stand there and yell and scream until they REALLY checked it out, when perhaps something might still have been done to catch and treat whatever was bothering her. (even though there’s a possibility that absolutely nothing could have been done differently. the old “what ifs”…)
anyway, the long and short of it is: do your homework, gather concrete evidence, rule out possibilities, and if things still seem worrisome, then do whatever you need to in order to set your mind at rest.
lachesis
i still miss you, Canny
I asked the vet about it, and he said it was perfectly normal.
She tends to throw up right after eating, she’ll throw up, and head straight back to her food bowl.
She only gets dry food.
She is also a fairly thin cat, but the vet said she’s not under weight. She was 6.8 pounds at her last visit. She’s two years old.
Dogzilla: There was a thread about coprophagia just recently, and I gave most of the advice I had there. You might try different medications like ForBid, but I think your best bet is just limiting his acceess. The coprophagia may be related to his gas problems, as they can pick up all sorts of coliform bacteria and such. If he’s eating other dogs’ poop, he’s at risk for picking up worms or viruses they may have, most notably parvo and hookworms. Try slowly changing him over to another sort of food, and see if that helps either problem.
TeleTron, I’m going to skip you for a moment and give you your own special euthanasia post. It’s a big topic, and I don’t want to overtax the hamsters.
Eve: If your vet trusts this place enough to put his/her professional reputation on the line by using them, they’re on the level. Every pet crematorium I’ve ever dealt with has gone to extraordinary lengths to make sure that owners get only their own pet’s remains back. I would trust these folks at least as far as I would a human crematorium or funereal home, and probably a lot further.
DeVena: A little bit of inflammatory reaction in the injection site is pretty common, and it usually does go away. It’s probably no big deal, but I’d mention it to the vet next visit so that it can be monitored every time you go in. Some research has suggested a possible link between repeated injections in a certain area and some types of tumor, but I’m not sure I buy it.
CRorex: I’m not sure what a squeeze cage is. If you can explain the term, I might be able to answer your question.
Stephi: Your cat could have hairballs in the stomach that aren’t coming up, but instead continuing to irritate the stomach. She could also have some sort of virus or bacterial infection, or a physical abnormality of the digestive tract. I’d take her in and have her checked out.
Zev: Don’t beat yourself up over it. Almost no one springs for much in the way of vet care for hamsters. Either they can’t afford it, or they figure they could buy several new hamsters with that money, or whatever. It’s hard when money starts coming into the picture, but it’s a reality of life that you can’t ignore. If you ever find yourself in that sort of situation again, though, a lot of emergency clinics will do humane euthanasia for free or a minimal charge. They don’t do an exam or anything, just put the animal down so it doesn’t suffer needlessly.
Velma: I don’t know anything about porcupine attacks, so I’m not even venturing a WAG. A general rule of thumb, though, is that if you’d call your doctor for those symptoms in yourself, then for the love of God call the vet. (You just don’t want to know. You really don’t.)