Affordable drugs… Asthma edition

[erinmeri]

So, I just dropped an obscene amount of money on Fluticasone (Flovent) for a horse, but I heard from a friend that she was able to get it for “pennies on the dollar” by getting a human doctor to prescribe FOR HER. My cat vet let me take prescriptions to human pharmacies, who were happy to fill them, so it has me wondering if I could get meds for my new Flexineb (and generally, any meds!) cheaper if I go to human pharmacies instead… without the added hurdle of finding a doc willing to prescribe you a med you don’t need.

One obstacle I see with the Flexineb is that if I understand correctly, human med counterparts aren’t in vials, they are in inhalers. I need to follow up with that friend to see how that worked, but does anyone have experience?

Has anyone gone this route for Flexineb meds?

And any other “cheaper to go human” meds I should be aware of, in general?

ETA: any source for Aleira that isn’t $$$$$?

[Viranh]

I get vials of albuterol for my (human) nebulizer, and several other asthma medications also come in that form. It’s pretty cheap—after my insurance a whole box runs me about $5, while most of my inhalers are ~$50. I would assume the retail for generic albuterol or a steroid isn’t too high.

[Simkie]

A human doctor prescribing a med with the human as a patient when the actual patient is a horse is fraud. Like…medical license losing fraud. Is that really what your friend said is going on? Because that’s Bad. With a capital B.

But sure, I’ve taken scripts that my vet has written to the human pharmacy to be filled. I’ve used good rx on pet meds. I even had a horse with her own Walgreens rx savings card. It’s definitely worth checking. Sometimes the pharmaceutical company also offers a savings card, too.

A quick search for flovent on good rx shows this price:

[Simkie]

There’s also this, which may be more useful for you, since it’s not in an inhaler:

[erinmeri]

Thanks, @Viranh - that is precisely what I wanted to know. I have no experience with inhalers. Appreciate it!

And @Simkie - Thank you!!! I had totally forgotten about GoodRx, which I used when I had a CKD kitty.

@Simkie

A human doctor prescribing a med with the human as a patient when the actual patient is a horse is fraud. Like…medical license losing fraud. Is that really what your friend said is going on? Because that’s Bad. With a capital B.

I honestly may have misunderstood, as it was said in passing and I didn’t ask for specifics. Something like “I had a friend prescribe it for me so I could get it at my local pharmacy for pennies on the dollar.” So maybe it was a script for a horse and the wording sounded like it was a script for a human.

Frankly, the real crime to me is marking up prices many times over because of the species of the patient. I experienced this with my kidney Kitty and for some reason GoodRx and Costco and my old go-tos didn’t even occur to me for the horse until she said that, so I wasn’t focused on what she was saying she did, because I was kicking myself for not thinking to shop around for better (non-vet pharmacy) prices.

And even if I didn’t misunderstand, there are countless docs in this country nefariously prescribing class A drugs to addicts who should be at the top of the list for losing licenses over fraudulent prescriptions… so a hypothetical well-intentioned doc willing to put themselves at risk to help a sick animal isn’t something I am going to lose sleep over.

[SolarFlare]

I’m in Ontario so might be a bit different, but I was at the pharmacy buying multiple bottles of Nexium to do an ulcer meds test on my horse, and the pharmacist said it would be cheaper if my vet wrote a prescription. Nexium isn’t a prescription med up here but the pharmacist said they fill vet prescriptions at a cheaper price (and he knew it was for a horse, not me).

Also, you can use inhalers with the Flexineb. A friend has been doing it for months with her horse diagnosed with asthma.

[erinmeri]

@SolarFlare

I’m in Ontario so might be a bit different, but I was at the pharmacy buying multiple bottles of Nexium to do an ulcer meds test on my horse, and the pharmacist said it would be cheaper if my vet wrote a prescription. Nexium isn’t a prescription med up here but the pharmacist said they fill vet prescriptions at a cheaper price (and he knew it was for a horse, not me).

Also, you can use inhalers with the Flexineb. A friend has been doing it for months with her horse diagnosed with asthma.

Thanks! Good to know!! I won’t worry too much on vial vs inhaler then.

[IPEsq]

Flovent is expensive no matter where you buy it (my vet wanted to put one of my cats on it when Pred quit working as well, but turns out she also had lung cancer). Unfortunately you can’t use your human insurance just because you buy it from a human pharmacy, if the patient is an animal.

One of my friends got some sort of compounded fluticasone to put in her Flexibeb. They’d also tried that other inhaler for horses (forget the name…has a cup that goes over a nostril), which was even more pricey than Flovent, horse did not tolerate the administration well. I don’t know if a compounded steroid would work as well as puffing the inhaler Flovent into the nebulizer, but it would be cheaper.

[erinmeri]

Thanks, @IPEsq! We did the Aservo single use inhaler a few times and it’s more expensive than Flovent in the long run for sure!

Am pretty sure the fluticasone I got is compounded, but it’s still super pricey. Am hoping we won’t need to use it frequently. We had a good long run between flares until late winter/spring this year when something was making all the horses cough and hit mine quite hard and we haven’t seemed to fully get past it.

[erinmeri]

Just wanted to follow up again and say that we got our Flexineb and my mare has adapted to it like a champ immediately with minimal drama (just saline so far). It has clear instructions on how to use a metered dose inhaler, so if that’s cheaper then I can always go that route. Only minor complaint I have so far is that previous COTH threads seem to indicate that you get antimicrobial wipes in the kit, and I didn’t. I got all kinds of other goodies and extras, though!

[IPEsq]

No wipes. They recommend cleaning with a little bit of dish soap. But wipes are a good idea in between because mine definitely gets funky having to store it in a tack locker in the box (less than optimal drying). Especially if you horse has a good sneeze in it like mine does.

[erinmeri]

Thank you! I just found approved disinfectants on their site… see below. And today, my mare managed to not only get snot in it, but pieces of hay that she was apparently saving for later.

[sascha]

Thank you for this! I spent time looking for appropriate wipes when I got mine last year. If I had been smart enough to find that list, I could have saved myself some trouble as I’ve almost always got Virkon on hand.

Btw, my horse always manages ar least one snort so mine gets rinsed under the hose and wiped with a small towel then left in the open case to completely dry while I do other things. Every. Damn. Day.

As long as I remember to keep my small stack of clean towels (terry towel dish cloths or micro fiber cloths) in the case, that amount of drying with a cloth + the open case time means it’s always fully dry by the time I’m ready to leave the barn.

[erinmeri]

Good tips! Thanks!

[IPEsq]

This is my daily routine too…I definitely don’t disinfect every day. But my mask is getting old enough that dust has settled in certain harder to reach crevices (even with dish soap), so it probably needs a good soak.

Just be sure you only use distilled water on the medicine cups!

[sascha]

Yup, medicine cup comes off and gets its special treatment and the mask gets the hose treatment sans cup and battery.

[erinmeri]

@IPEsq and @sascha - I am boarding with limited space. Do you decant into smaller 1L bottles or just go with the big gallon bottles of distilled water, etc?

[IPEsq]

I go with the small bottle.

[sascha]

I decant and leave the big bottle on a high shelf out of everyone’s way. If I had to I’d leave the big bottle at home and take the small one back and forth for refills.

[erinmeri]

How do you clean out/dry the aerosol chamber? That is one part I am struggling with. Can’t reach all of it with a wipe or paper towel.