Wow I thought $57/tube from one practice in my area was bad! Most vets I know don’t want to deal with much inventory themselves and are happy to write / call in prescriptions. I expect some upcharge if I buy off the truck, but there is a convenience factor there especially for one-off or occasional purchases. Not so much for long term treatments/disease management. The vet school usually tells me not to buy from them for almost everything because their cost of meds is ridiculous.
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In my “ultra scientific” anecdote of 1, the compounded prednisolone from Wedgewood did NOT have the same efficacy as the pill form. Notable differences switching back and forth between pills freshly ground and then syringed, and the compounded liquid.
So, be careful. If you aren’t seeing the results you’d expect, consider going a more traditional route (prascend)
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Honestly, I’d stop trying to be the vet here.
You don’t know that the horse will suffer from a Pergolide “veil” and a horse that stops drinking is very much the exception - in fact, in the 10 years of owning a Cushings horse, I’ve never heard of this (and I read COTH daily, as well as researched other aspects of Cushings when my pony arrived).
You’re now a year plus 4 months behind on the correct meds your horse should be getting - I would be less worried about Pergolide veil as all the other Cushings symptoms it is experiencing. I’d start upping the dosage now to give him the treatment he needs.
And…I’ve never heard of anyone having a better response with compounded Pergolide than Prascend.
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Neither of mine have experienced the “veil”. Both started on 100mg tabs/day of Prascend, and one of them moved up to 150 mg/day of Prascend. We test twice per year, unless symptoms seem to be getting ahead of us, and then we test again. We tried compounded pergolide, and ACTH levels rebounded immediately, so that was a short-lived experiment.
My vet doesn’t “upcharge” anything, I’m a retired tech so it’s not hard for me to find out. However, he and his clinic have to maintain inventory, and pay for the lease, and salaries, and O’T, and emergency coverage, etc., etc., etc. I think that what I’m charged is more than fair, given what’s provided to me, and frankly, I’m more than grateful.
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My pony did have a veil - he didn’t like his ration balancer but always gobbled down his hay. Never stopped drinking water. I switched from Triple Crown to Grow and Win and he quit turning his nose up at his feed. Oh - I let him eat out of the feed bucket I used to dole out his feed instead of his feed bucket. Apparently that made it taste better when he thought he was getting into something he wasn’t supposed to eat. Even if he refused his half a cup of RB he wouldn’t have starved.
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Same here.
I love Wedgewood pharmacy. I had a 1 pound kitten that needed erythromycin suspension. Went to get it at CVS. $458! Their excuse was it was FDA approved suspension to which I replied FDA approval does not mean safety or efficacy. My vet called it into Wedgewood. $56 including overnight shipping. We ordered many compounds from them for our elderly kitty.
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OP, was Wedgwood directly mailing to you? To me, you should have been able to pay WW directly, not thru your vet. I would ask for a script and get it myself. Sorry but that is just poor practice. The vet has enough of your money, they didn’t need to keep sticking it to you.
Why not? Easy enough to do, especially just for a couple of days if you’re starting off slowly. I did while finding the right dose for a mare who unfortunately did go off her feed while starting on Prascend.
Your vet gave you their professional opinion on avoiding the compounded option, you wanted the specialty option and it was more costly.
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Pill cutters are easy to find, and cheap.
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Just chiming in - just got a compounded horse med (only way I can get it at the moment) from WW. Vet called it in, WW reached out to me and I paid them directly. No markup on it. So that is definitely not something I would be too happy about. I am happy to pay my vets what they are worth (and they are priceless to me!!) but I would not be okay with that much of a markup, especially buying it directly from the pharmacy.
I, too, would use the Prascend. I had a horse with cushings and we did the slow ramp up, he was fine with it. Another horse on the property got compounded pergolide because it was so much cheaper but the horse never improved on it.
I know that’s not the point of your post but having seen both in action, I think the brand name one works better.
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As someone that uses compounded Pergolide I would also be frustrated with the upcharge.
But I would just ask for the written script for next time.
There are definitely reasons to go compounded or not. For my chronic choker who has had multiple rounds of aspiration pneumonia, I’m grateful to not have another thing she can choke on and to have the option of having a liquid that she slurps up in her daily soup bowl.
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I would try Visa and then get a script from the vet and fill it without going through the vet clinic itself. Is that possible?
The OP got the product.
How does one file a dispute that is basically - I ordered something, did not ask the price of it, once I got it (and I assume used it at this point) I did not like the price and I now do not want to pay for it?
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She knew the price of the product but was gouged by her vet who did not disclose the handling fee or notify her of the charges before sending in the script and having her card charged ( without her approval of cost).
How is that different than your card being fraudulently used? She can send the item back and reorder at a more agreeable price if it hasn’t been used. It is never right to charge someone without them knowing the cost first.
She did not know the price of the product.
She admits to calling all over trying to figure out what the price was, afterward.
Read the original post.
Your world is very different than mine.
If I ask someone to order me something, but I do not ask the price, that is not the fault of the person who ordered it. That is on me. When it comes and it costs more than I expected, I still need to pay for it.
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Probably not. If she were to stiff her vet for the cost of the meds, they would have every right to fire her as a client.
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I don’t think a vet requires a reason to fire someone as a client. Though you are very right that doing that would most certainly end up with the OP fired as a client.
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This. My vet cautioned that it may not be quite as effective as Prascend, but was fully on board with helping me save a little money since my horse was likely going to need increased dosage. She sent the prescription in and Wedgewood contacted me directly for payment. It ships directly to me, though I doubt my vet would up-charge if it were shipped to the clinic.
I have done both Prascend and compounded pergolide and neither yielded better results than the other. But compounding allows me to save a few bucks while her dosage is ever increasing. We just bumped the dosage again and FINALLY got the horse to shed, albeit a bit late to avoid having to clip for summer, but hey any improvement in symptoms is a win in my book.
OP I’m not sure what the vet situation is like in your area but the amount of time taken to diagnose is concerning. Not sure if you have other options. Might be worth a conversation about having it shipped directly to you. Is the vet really that hard up that they need to more than double your cost for a product that they don’t even need to handle? I’m surprised as many people here are ok with the up-charge when it doesn’t even need to ship to the vet. They never even need to put their hands on it.
Get your own script from the vet, and find another source to buy Pergolide from. I thought it was called Precend now anyway. Buy it yourself on line.
