I took my three dogs to the vet for yearly vaccines/bloodwork. It turns out two of the three have Lyme and Anasplasmosis. Since Doxycycline is not available, the vet called in a prescription to a compounding pharmacy for a liquid treatment. Dogs in question weigh 80 lbs & 110 lbs. The cost of one month’s treatment was $270!! I about fell over when they told me… A 500qty bottle of Doxy runs about $50 when available. What the heck?
You can ask the vet about using minocycline instead. currently cheaper then doxy (still expensive but cheaper!). Recently found minocycline at walmart for 30 days for a 80 lb dog I think was around $100
Ongoing drug shortages have caused the price of many generics to shoot through the roof.
I just spoke with a lady that has just gone through this with two of her dogs. She said the same thing - the drugs are very expensive now. Her dogs were also big.
are they symptomatic? I’m guessing not, since you didn’t take them to the vet for symptoms? practically every dog around here tests “positive” for lyme disease but never exhibits symptoms. In the lab, the only way they can get dogs to develop lyme disease is to first immunosuppress them and then put hundreds of infected ticks on them, and even then, very few dogs ever exhibit any symptoms.
So unless the dog is exhibiting symptoms perhaps you could skip the “treatment”?
If they are symptomatic (i.e. exhibiting wandering lameness) you can substitute pretty much any antibiotic for doxy.
Both my dogs test positive for “lyme” but have never shown any symptoms so I don’t bother to treat- the test just indicates they have created antibodies to fight off the disease, apparently quite successfully.
Well…I didn’t suspect anything before…but since I’ve gotten the results, I do suspect some things. One dog has been crabbier than normal, and the other one has had trouble climbing in/out of the truck, but he’s an 8 year old GSD…so I was just attributing it to age. I had thought about what you’re saying Wendy, and I felt the same way, but then I thought…other than the $$$$, I guess it’s better to be safe then sorry. The reading I did online said that even if the dogs were asymptomatic, if Lyme and Anaplasmosis were indicated, it was better to treat. I picked up the meds yesterday, I was just completely shocked at the cost of them.
Like humans, dogs with co-infections (in this case, Lyme and anaplasmosis) are more likely to end up with symptoms.
Wow! I can’t believe prices have gone so high! I used to live in “Deer Tick Alley.” In 2005 my corgi started limping and my then-vet said it was a lot cheaper and more effective to treat with $6 worth of antibiotics than it was to ante up for a vaccine that may or may not work. he didn’t even do a test. Said if a critter comes in with lameness that can’t be explained, he just automatically treats for Lyme.
I hope things work out for you! Jingles from Tennessee!
Just went to the local people clinic myself today after having found a tick latched on yesterday morning. Nurse practitioner there was just telling me about the big increase in doxycycline, due to certain pharmaceutical company “decisions”. :mad:
