Laugh. Learn. Love cats.
Newton: Whyyyy are you staring at me? You’ve never seen a cat with his foot hanging out of his bed before? Maybe I need a bigger bed!
Silly humans. I’m going to need to do this, and I want to be prepared so I don’t have to unfold my legs out from under me first.
Ohhhh, a good scratch like that feels great.
Kitties, what do you do to be prepared?
I’m always surprised when people say they don’t know that they can save money on their cat’s prescriptions by filling them at a pharmacy other than their veterinarian. I have used human pharmacies for some cat medications for over ten years. It’s not without its gotchas, though.
A lot of the medications that your cat takes aren’t species-specific. They may be the same drugs that your neighbor’s dog takes. Or the same drug that your grandmother takes. Of course, your cat and your grandma don’t take the same dose of the medication. Their metabolism is different, and your cat can encounter entirely different drug interactions than your grandmother, too.
This means that those prescription medications are available outside your veterinarian’s office, and they may be less expensive there. The first thing to consider when looking at cost is that they may not be less expensive elsewhere. Don’t forget that your veterinarian is your partner in your cat’s health, and your vet may offer to match the price you get elsewhere. My vet price matches prescriptions from other sources whenever he can, so don’t forget to your vet if they can, too.
Talia needed methimazole on an ongoing basis for her hyperthyroidism
Many years ago, when Talia was prescribed methimazole for Talia’s hyperthyroidism, I learned that methizamole was a generic drug commonly used in humans. Thanks to Christie Keith at the previous incarnation of the PetConnection site, I had heard about pharmacy discount cards discounting pet medications, so I did a little research. Sure enough, the medication that was going to cost $360 a year from my vet’s office cost $80 a year through the Walgreens pharmacy club. My vet admitted he couldn’t match that price, so I paid $20 to sign her up. Talia got a discount card with her name on it, and I saved $260 a year, which I could put toward her vet visits.
Your local pharmacy isn’t the only place you might be able to get discounted prescription drugs for your cat. Big box store and grocery chain pharmacies also have low priced and even free drugs for certain, common pharmaceuticals. These things are good to know not only for your cat, but for you, too!
At the time I started getting Talia’s methimazole through her very own prescription club card, getting medication for your cats at the human pharmacy was still fairly new. I’m lucky that it was not as unusual where I live than it was other places since there is a nearby zoological park that used the same pharmacy I did. The first time I took advantage of one of the $4 antibiotics from my local grocery store, the pharmacist thought it was really funny he was filling a prescription for a cat. These days, it’s not so unusual, and pharmacists don’t treat it like a novelty.
Whether you’re getting your cat’s prescription filled at your local drug store or local grocery’s pharmacy, there are a few things to watch out for.
Make sure you know what the prescription is that you are asking to have filled so you can double-check you got the correct one when you pick it up. If your memory is as inaccurate as mine, you can take a photo with your smartphone of the prescription before you hand it over to the pharmacist so that you can refer to it later.
There have been reported issues with well-intended pharmacists changing pet prescriptions without checking with the veterinarian. A pharmacist, not familiar with the difference between your cat’s metabolism and your own, could think that a dosage is a typographical error. Your pharmacist might also not know that certain medications that may be interchangeable for humans aren’t interchangeable for your cat.
Pharmacy schools are starting to recognize this is a problem, and some of them are partnering with veterinary schools to offer a class for pharmacists about veterinary drugs. There are many pharmacists who already graduated and couldn’t take advantage of these classes, so it’s best to double-check that the dispensed drugs match what was prescribed.
A human pharmacy probably won’t carry the small-dose pills that your vet does. This means you could have to cut pills in order to create the correct dosage. Ask your veterinarian to be sure sure the pills prescribed are safe to cut. Some coated pills are intended never to be cut and may not release their dosage properly if they are split.
You can use a pill splitter to cut pills, although oddly-shaped pills don’t always work well in them. I have a miniature cleaver that I used to keep extra-sharp and use exclusively for splitting pills. When I had a geriatric cat taking several split pills at a time, I bought empty gelatin capsules and put the partial pills inside so that I only had to administer one pill in a sitting. The gelatin capsules are also useful for administering medication when one half of the pill shatters when you split it. You can even get chicken flavored gelatin capsules for cats, but I didn’t find them any more palatable for cats than my the plain ones.
Not only can the pharmacist possibly dispense the wrong dose, but one of the things I discovered the hard way was that having to split pills could lead to mistakes on my part. At one point, after a dosage change, I miscalculated the fraction of a methimazole pill Talia needed and had her on far too high a dose for about a month. I took her in for a vet visit because she wasn’t doing well, and we realized she had been suffering from low thyroid because my math was bad. I felt terrible! She didn’t suffer any long-term ill effects from my messing up her dose, but it was a big warning to me to triple-check any fractional pills for dose accuracy.
With a little extra care, you can save money on your cat’s prescriptions with the help of human pharmacies.
Photos from flickr creative commons courtesy Mike Mozart, Raymond Johnston, Derek Gavey
Newton has a problem. He doesn’t think it’s a problem. He thinks it’s a human problem, but either way, he won’t take medicine. He is also too strong to wrap in a towel to make a “kitty burrito.” He escapes, and hurts me in his panic to get free.
Thankfully, he doesn’t need medication for anything ongoing, but the last time he needed to take pills and refused to take them hidden in pill pockets, the attempt to put him into a towel burrito took two people and ultimately failed. He’s stronger than a cat several times his size!
So instead of something like this:
The result was more like this:
I have been looking for another solution to this for years. Sooner or later, he will need medication again, and I worry about not being able to administer it.
When I heard about the Kruuse Buster vet examination bag, I was pretty excited. A strong nylon bag with wide velcro fasteners that holds itself shut, unlike a towel, seemed like an answer to my worries. Since it’s a veterinary product, it even has openings for injections and zippers for accessing any of the four paws while a kitty is safely inside. I couldn’t wait to try it.
Newton wasn’t quite as enthusiastic as I was about the whole idea.
I don’t have any photos of my first, overconfident attempt to get him into the bag because it was just me, and I still didn’t have enough hands to both get him inside the bag and secure the velcro before he slipped out. He is so strong that I couldn’t hold him still.
The second attempt, Newton wasn’t feeling any more cooperative, but I had a second pair of hands to help me keep Newton in the bag until I got him fastened in. Unlike the towel burrito, once he was in the bag, he was well contained. He tried hard to get back out, but the velcro held him safely and securely, must to his disgust.
I now know that if I need to give Newton medication, I have a plan to get it into him. He won’t be able to put his paw between my hand with the pill and his mouth.
Of course I don’t want the cat equivalent of the straitjacket to be necessary to medicate him. I hope it won’t be. But I can sleep a lot better knowing that I have a plan in case medication becomes necessary again.
FTC Disclosure: We received our Buster Exam Bag feeder at no charge from Buster in exchange for our honest review. Receiving free product did not influence anything we say. All opinions expressed on this site are always our own.
Photo credit: depositphotos, Kalcutta
