Wormer

[Michele]

I called in at my vets this afternoon to buy some Panacur for the puppies. I went through the details of weights with the receptionist and we worked out how much I would need, which was 90ml. Then came the bill...........£31.26

I came home and had a look on the Vet Medic site and a 100ml bottle of Panacur 10% is £12.99 + £2 p+p  

I rang my vets to question the price, and after comfirming there had been no mistake, I asked if I could bring it back for a refund.

After she checked with one of the vets, (whose comment was  "you can't always be sure that what you are buying on the net is what it says on the packet")
the receptionist came back to say no, as it had dispensed it into an 'open bottle', and although they respected that it probably hadn't been tampered with, as it was not a sealed container there was nothing they could do.

I expected some sort of mark up, for the convenience of walking in off the street, but to make over 100% profit on just a wormer   , it wasn't as though I'd even had a consultation!

I know where I shall be buying it from in future.

[Pipers Mummy]

That is outrageous  

I realise that vet practises have overheads and have to figure that into their price mark ups but surely they have to realise that they must be realistic?

More and more people are going to be buying from the internet - have to admit I already buy wormer and flea treatment from the internet as it's a lot cheaper - although mark ups at my vets are no where near what yours are.

Louise

[*Jay*]

Blimey, thats extortionate  

[Jane S]

That's shocking Michele Even worse is that they tried to say that if you bought the same product from a canine pharmacy, then it might be dodgy! We always get our puppy worming stuff from either Canine Chemist or Vet Medic - I tend to stock up at Crufts as they generally have a buy one, get one half price offer (not that I'm mean or anything )

Jane

[Lindaphills]

My Goodness Michelle, that is really expensive

Funnily enough I've not long ordered a 100ml bottle of panacur 10% myself, got it from the canine chemist.

I wonder how many of you order frontline from canine chemist as when I asked my vet about writing me a prescription, he said it would cost me £6.50 for him to do that and when I worked it out plus the postage, it was about the same price to buy a 6 pack medium frontline off my vet.

Are vets allowed to charge you for the prescription?  Does anyone else order prescription only meds from online doggy pharmacies and if so does your vet charge for issuing the script?

Sorry to hijack thread Michelle  

[Pammy]

because there's no NHS for vets - they can do whatever they like. It's no different to having a private consultation or prescription from your own doctor - it's the licence to print money

Roll on the time when it's like it is on France. You can walk into a human pharmacy in France and buy the full range of everday veterinary prep's over the counter.  

[Magic Star]

More and more people are going to be buying from the internet - have to admit I already buy wormer and flea treatment from the internet as it's a lot cheaper - although mark ups at my vets are no where near what yours are.

Louise

Hmm I may consider doing this myself, I just wondered how you go about ordering the correct qty for the weight?  Does it tell you on the site?

[shonajoy]

In defence of vets, I have to say our practice doesn't charge a huge mark up like this. Also, we don't need a prescription fro wormer or frontline, unless you aren't a client of ours.

I don't think it's fair to say all vets consider it a licence to print money - the ethoe at our practice is really far removed from that, and our own vets even do our out of hours calls which is virtually unheard of in Glasgow.

We also help if people can't afford to pay all at once, we have a lot of customers on payment plans.

[Sue H]

We normally use Drontal for our puppies (Panacur for feeding mothers).  If you get your dog wormed at the vet it costs £*  and if the Panacur is like Drontal, you need around 1ml per 5kg of bodyweight, so you must have 7-8 pups, depending on their ages. Between them, that is not much more or less than £5 each for their worming (although it is probably only roundworms at their age).  We can all complain about effective drugs being de-regulated, but what your potential owners need to know is whether their little ones have been properly treated - at the Blue Cross we have had sooo many litters of puppies brought in, whose 'owners' tell us they have been wormed - we tell Everyone and Anyone that your Bob Martins or generic wormers from the suoermarket are no better than feeding a Smartie.  Likewise the de'fleaing preparations that are commonly sold - they are hopeless and people think that they do the same job only cheaper !!

I think it should be like human meds in some cases - look at the effectiveness of Nurofen etc - a few years ago, these products weren't available without a prescription !!

Vet's aren't Chemists and I don't think they should be - they do much longer training in order to be able to treat the multitude of animals that they are presented with, but I really think that many of the  medicines that they use should be available at cost price.  I do not think that it should devolve into a 'diagnose your own symptom' range though - I simply think that you should be able to buy the equivalent of 'BP' things through your own Vet.

Any other comments??!!!

[kookie]

we can buy drontal and panacur from our chemist. They have a set of charts to work out dosages.

[Louie]

Hi Michelle, £31.26 thats crazy money! We ordered some Panacur 10% and some Panacur 2.5% both 100ml bottles and an infa red heat bulb from Canine Chemists yesturday. They all arrived this morning and the total bill including vat was £32.43.  

[betastorm]

I think I'll have a look at that website, sounds like I may be adding that one to my favorites   Wonder if it's only dogs  

[betastorm]

Sorry to recheck, is it caninechemist.com?  

[Cob-Web]

I found it here:

I admit to being a bit confused about this.....can I buy Molo's wormer/deflea treatment online without a prescription?

[Jane S]

I admit to being a bit confused about this.....can I buy Molo's wormer/deflea treatment online without a prescription?

You can buy wormers like Drontal & Panacur online without a prescription but Frontline & other flea treatments are still prescription only.

Jane