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.
Your Cat’s Prescription Medications
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.
Other Places to Check for Discounts
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.
What to Watch Out For
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 Get the Correct Prescription
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.
Splitting Pills
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.
Double-Check Doses
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
My human used to get Sparkle’s cyproheptadine from the Target or CVS pharmacy. They were both pretty savvy about it – they knew without my human telling them that the meds were for a cat.
You make some really great points. We get Lita’s Paxil from our grocery store for $4! The vet always puts “feline” on the prescription so the pharmacist knows it’s for a cat, not a human. We always check her pills anyway though.
For things that don’t have to be prescribed, it’s a good idea to shop around, too. Like for Cosequin or Epakitin. Our vet didn’t tell me that Epakitin didn’t need a prescription. I just happened to look it up on Amazon and found it was MUCH cheaper than buying it through the vet. Of course, I confulted the vet about the dose and everything, but it did help save money for Jewel’s care.
Great post. We normally shop around and get our meds from CVS. We saw a specialist last week and overpaid for a new med.
Fantastic, informative post!
Tara’s insulin came from our local grocery store. Her other meds had to be compounded though. Thank Cod for compounding pharmacies too!!!
Great post. We get all 3 cats’ thyroid meds and Spooky’s high bp med from Walmart. My niece works at a vet office and always warns me about this because there have been many errors from people pharmacies not trained to deal with pet meds- especially with insulin so you do need to be careful.
Lots of good tips here. I noticed at my Walmart pharmacy a couple of weeks ago that they had a sign saying they now have meds for pets.
we’ve filled foster kitten prescriptions at a human pharmacy and the funniest thing was when the guy was checking the name….he looked at the mom funny and she had to explain it was for a kitten 🙂
Thankfully we don’t have any medications that get taken on a regular basis – only if someone is sick. This is good to know for the future though!! Thank you for sharing this info.
There was one time I had to go to a human pharmacy for medicine for my rabbit.. it was a unique experience. (also a sad one because my rabbit died while I was filling the script)
I recently went to fill a prescription for prednisolone for my cat and most pharmacies didn’t have it. Walmart said they did. I purposefully said, now this is prednisoLONE not prednisone right? and they said yes. Well, they gave me prednisone. Fortunately, I checked before I paid for the script or I would have been out the money.
You are very right, checking and double checking is VERY important, and never take anything from a pharmacist that isn’t exactly what your vet prescribed without checking with your vet.
Great info! Dang those little pills can sure be expensive!
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Really great post on a very important topic.
Excellent. My Vet for a long time refused to write a prescription. If you continued to insist as is your right, he dropped you.
Great advice! Many human pharmacies can now accomodate pet medications. But there are still some that just don’t seem to work out. Like prozac. Zoey takes it and while we can get the prescription filled at a human pharmacy, they don’t carry a dosage small enough. Which requires pill splitting and mixing, etc. It just didn’t work out. So now the mom gets her medication from a pet pharmacy that can make the exact dosage.
This is great information. When I was taking a lot of medications for my cold a long time ago, Mommy got them from the vet because she didn’t know she could go to the drug store. She’ll have to remember this information.
Thank goodness I don’t take no drug right now. The last 2 times I went they’ve given me pills for my asthma cut into quarters but to only take them when I need them. I still have most of them. It’s great info to know and I’m sharing.
Ruby has several prescriptions, but fortunately the cats aren’t on any. Great tips!
Thank you so much, Julie, for this very informative post. With Fiona’s CKD, she is going to be on medication long-term, and I had already begun investigating less expensive alternatives to getting them at the vet. I now have all your excellent research and info to guide me. XOCK, Janet, Lily Olivia, Mauricio, Misty May, Giulietta, Fiona, Astrid, Lisbeth and Calista Jo
Excellent points! I haven’t gotten any pet prescriptions filled at the human pharmacy, but I definitely would if my cats had a prescription.That option wasn’t available here when my Obi-Wan was alive and having his troubles. I love that human pharmacies are open to that these days.