Shock The Price of Lyrica

[Sabby]

Just has a shock of a lifetime. The online pharmacy vetmedsdirect just phoned me as I enquired about Zitac and Lyrica yesterday. Zitac was a good price at 35 pence a tablet, my vet charges £1.30 a tablet. Lyrica with vetmedsdirect is £2.75 a tablet. The lady told me that they pay £2 a tablet and they make 75 pence profit. Well I made a little deal with my vet yesterday to get the medication from him and he claims it direct from my insurance, but I think I have to rethink that because god knows what the vet is going to charge me a tablet. He had to order it and it takes about 8 days so he couldn’t tell me the price yesterday. If I buy Harleys medication from m the vet it would nearly cost me £5000 a year.

I know there are a few people on this forum with dogs that take Lyrica. Could you please tell me where you get it from and how much you pay? You can PM me if you don’t want to talk about it on here.

[Sandrac]

Sabine - I get Minnie's Lyrica from Tesco's £139.14 for 84 tablets. Zitac I pay 0.22p each from www.Viovet.co.uk

Its hard keeping the costs down, as although I've got her insured for up to £6,000 per year I have to pay a 15% excess on every claim.

[Charlifarley]

I agree, the price of Lyrica is truly shocking, and I totally feel your pain. But to cheer you up- it could be worse - it costs me €275 in Ireland for 84x25mg tablets, which in sterling works out at approx £240 , Bosco is taking 4 a day at the moment, so every 3 weeks I have to pay this out.
Because there is no other company manufacturing Lyrica, there is no competition, so they can charge this high price.
I have checked out the price in the pharmacy and there is no difference.
It seems that the price is the same no matter what size of tablet you need, I was talking to my vet today about changing Bosco from 4x25mg a day to 2x50mg, which would cut down the cost considerably, but I don't know how this would affect Bosco's symptoms.
I am covered by my insurance at the moment, but I'm always worried that my monthly claims for Lyrica will use up most of my annual allowance, so if anything else needs to be claimed I will have used up my cover. Also, when Bosco reaches 7, the insurance cover will only be for 65% of each claim.

[Brian M]

Hi Sabby

I am the same as Sandra I ordered 30 mins ago 135 no 100mg zitac at 22p each from VioVet .which
will last Daisy 3 months and my Vet charged £12.00 for the prescription.

[Sandrac]

At Discover Dogs I was talking to a lady who has a Cavalier with SM and she works for Pfizer (manufacturers of Lyrica) . I asked her if she knew whether or not it was coming off licence anytime soon, she said unfortunately not for quite some time. I cheekily asked her if she got staff discount and she said No regretably she didnt. So folks its of no use trying to get a job with them.

[Margaret C]

It seems that the price is the same no matter what size of tablet you need, I was talking to my vet today about changing Bosco from 4x25mg a day to 2x50mg, which would cut down the cost considerably, but I don't know how this would affect Bosco's symptoms.

I wonder why your vet thinks Lyrica should be given four times daily?

Clare Rusbridge prescribed 75mg twice daily for Tommy who is a big cavalier at 11.8kg.
Tommy is not insured and as the capsules of Lyrica are near enough the same price whatever the strength, I asked my vet to prescribe half a 150mg capsule twice a day.

I pay approximately £I.65 per tablet at Tesco. A total of just over £46 for 28 days supply.
For quite some time I had to explain to anxious young pharmacists that I knew I could actually get Lyrica in 75mg capsules, I knew that splitting capsules was not recommended, but as my dog was not insured I needed to reduce the cost of this long term illness as much as possible.
I think they may now have put a note on their files as they have stopped voicing their concerns.

The private prescription has recently gone up to about £12 but for the first time the last prescription allowed for six repeats. ( My local vet saw me on the CavalierMatters stand at Discover Dogs, we had a long talk about SM, & I think that may have stood me in good stead )

I pinch and score the capsule between my fingernails, where the join of the capsule runs round the middle and I very slowly cut along the scored middle, while carefully twisting the capsule, until both halves separate( this seems to stop the very fine powder from suddenly spurting out )

Both halves are placed in small amounts of cream cheese that are already waiting in two small dishes and I use more cream cheese to seal over the halves.

The DIY division of powder seems to have worked okay so far and Lyrica has made such a difference. Tommy seldom paws at my legs for attention and comfort now, the myclonic jerking has all but gone, and he is much less restless now.

[BrooklynMom]

Oh yes....I myself was on Lyrica for 2 year, absolutely shocking! It is so expensive, but it works. Sorry you have to be going through all of this hug to you.

[Reptigirl]

I hate the price of Lyrica. Here in the USA we pay almost $90 month for Lyrica for Flash. He is on a low dose (0.8ml of a liquid compound 3X a day. Each ml contains 25mg.). We did a LOT of shopping around to find the best price. I had a few places quote me $140 - $160 for a months supply. Our best price was $75 from the vet school but our insurance stopped covering the additional $20 overnight shipping. Our 2nd best price was a local human compounding pharmacy. I have yet to find anything cheaper.

[Sabby]

Sabine - I get Minnie's Lyrica from Tesco's £139.14 for 84 tablets. Zitac I pay 0.22p each from www.Viovet.co.uk

Its hard keeping the costs down, as although I've got her insured for up to £6,000 per year I have to pay a 15% excess on every claim.

Does the insurance except a normal receipt from Tescos?

[Karen and Ruby]

Hi Sabine

As I said on facebook Boots and tesco are definately the cheapest.

As for insurance I photocopy the prescription once it has been stamped with the dispense (well the pharmacist photocopies it for me actually!) and staple the receipts to it (I send off a form every 2 dispenses so every 8 weeks) and that is fine for Petplan!