Medication help needed

Hello

I have a couple of questions I'd like some help with, if that's ok ...

Lucy has been taking meds now for some time and as her insurance is beginning to run out we've looked into buying the meds online.

We can get 4 of the 5 drugs online, but we've hit a snag with Spironolactone, which she gets 25mg of, twice a day. I can only get it on a human site and although Lucy has been on it now for about 18 months (the human version, prescribed by the vet), the vet advises me that I should only get the animal version, which is Prilactone or Aldactone.

Prilactone comes in 10/40/80mg tablets, so she'd need either 2 and a half 10mg tablets twice a day, or half of a 40, and half of a 10, twice a day. It's much more expensive than the Spironolactone that she was getting from the vet. I can't find the Aldactone anywhere.

We're saving about 60% going online for her drugs, so it's very definitely worthwhile.

So ... here are the questions ... do we buy Spironolactone (which comes in 25mg tablets) for humans, which we can get? Does it really make any difference? (I'm kind of sceptical because she's had the human version via the vet all this time and it's been fine). Or do we suck up the extra cost (and inconvenience of having to make up a 25mg dose from 10mg and 40mg tablets) and buy Prilactone?

Oh one final question... the cheapest seemed to be www.petdrugsonline.co.uk, any thoughts or experiences?

The best thing to do , is find the cheapest online and then go to Petmeds, who will knock an extra 5% off, if it's lower than theirs. However this is only if the cheaper price is inclusive of postage and if it includes an actual postage charge they will only reduce the drug price by 5%.

I wonder whether you'd be able to get a drug for humans from a veterinary website, so would the vet provide just the problem drug and give a rescription for the rest ?

I've just looked up the actual generic drug, which is a diuretic. Is there any special reason why your dog gets this, instead of Frusemide, which cost a mere 2p on some websites up to 6p for Frusecare ), which most are prescribed for water retention due to mvd ?

There can definitely (but not always) be differences between the form created for animals and for humans. If you have a question contact the manufacturer or a pharmacist and make absolutely sure you get the form you need to have. Some medications are the same but some are a different compound. I had one rescue dog on a human heart med rather than the vet version and this had made him seriously weak and ill! So be sure you get what you need.

Not all vet medications are available online. Vet medication websites tend to only have the more common medications, in my experience. Also make absolutely sure the online site is registered and reputable. The majority of online sites are not and could be sending you anything at all in the pills; also a lot of such sites sell counterfeit medications. So deal only with reputable sites.

Frusemide and Spironoilactone work completely differently so are not interchangable even though they are both diuretics.

I may be a bit ornery but I think I'd want to know why the vet has been giving you a human form all along and now since you are going online to get it he wants you to change to the animal form. That doesn't make a lot of sense to me!!

Thanks for the replies. I should perhaps have explained things better, but it was getting longer and longer! Anyway, here goes ...

Background - Lucy is on 5 meds: Vetmedin; Frusemide; Spironolactone; Fortekor; Digoxin.


Barbara - thanks for the tip about the petmeds site, I didn't realise that. Lucy is on Frusemide as well as Spironolactone, shame really, because as you say, the Frusemide is much cheaper!!

Karlin - That was something we were concerned about. I've spoken to them by phone and email and they seemed knowledgeable. We asked questions about certain drugs and strengths and they were accurate on their responses. As for the compounds, the drugs we've ordered should be the brands we buy at the vet - but if they aren't, we won't use them again. All we can do is give it a try. As for the human meds, we're pretty religious about these things and only give her things on verterinary/cardiologist advice (the Spironolactone has worked a treat - she's been on it for about 18 months, hence my desperate efforts to source it!). Ideally we'd have stayed with the vet, but her insurance is running out and the meds cost a third of the price that the vet charges so we felt obliged to at least try.


Niki - Yep, that's how I understood it too

Crittercall - it was explained to me like this ... because there is an animal alternative, the vet is now required by law to prescribe it before the human equivalent (if I'm not explaining it properly I apologise, my head's spinning at the mo). However, he could give me it from his stock in his surgery because he's not writing a script.




Update...

Anyway, we saw the vet yesterday, and she (a new vet and a different one than we'd spoken to on the phone) happily prescribed everything we asked for, including the Spironolactone. Because Lucy has been on it for so long, I don't want to change to another drug anyway, even if it is the dog version!! So we were very happy about that. We ordered a stock of it from the vet, just incase, and a 2 month supply of the other 4 drugs from the website. Will let you know how that goes.

When we were there, Lucy had bloodtests. They were checking her Digoxin level as well as her electrolytes. Both were in the normal range, which was brilliant news.

I'll post again once we receive the meds.

Thanks again everyone x

Just a quick update ... drugs ordered online late on Wed. afternoon, emailed a scanned version of the prescription to them for verification. Drugs posted on Thursday, arrived via recorded delivery on Friday.

They arrived in their blister packs and original packaging so we're delighted. Will definitely use them again and would recommend that if you're buying meds from the vet that you at least look at this as a possibility, we've saved approximately £200 with a 2 month prescription so that means our insurance will last that bit longer