What do you spend on pet meds?

[rodeosweetheart]

Just got back from vet where purchased a year supply of flea meds for 2 dogs.
Total was $504.

Does this seem high/low/similar to what you spend?

Heartworm seems to run about same, and Revolution for cat.

Cat thyroid pills are cheapest of all of them, around 25 dollars amonth, I think.

But anyone have any good ideas for lowering costs for the flea stuff and Heartworm stuff?

[kally]

way too much. About $16 a month for flea meds and $20 every couple of months for steroids. And that is with no one being sick.

[rodeosweetheart]

Hm. Do you buy them from your vet or do you get a prescription?

[iris lilies]

I don't know how much I spend on regular medications.

I buy general meds such as Heartguard and flea meds (when needed) from my veterinarians because saving a few bucks isn't important to me, I want to give them the business.

I buy specialized medications from the best source.

Until recently, I had a bulldog or Frenchie on eye medication and this is not something my general vet carried, so I used the Bulldog Rescue account (negotiated for low price) to place a mail order. That required a prescription from my vet, and she was fine with that.

I buy Apoquel from the dermatologist. It is not widely available to all veterinarians.

Other than for standard Heartguard and flea meds, I don't know that there enough general medications to compare notes. I actually think most veterinary meds such as antibiotics and steroids are pretty cheap

[sweetana3]

here is the pricing for our local low cost spay/neuter clinic. We have two clinics in Indy. http://facespayneuter.org/clinic/hea...tick-products/

[Teacher Terry]

I use petmeds.com because 3 of our 4 dogs are on daily meds besides the heartworm, etc. One dog gets 2 meds/3xs/day, one 2 meds/2x's/day and i dog a am med only. It really adds up.

[pinkytoe]

Zero - don't use them but vet price sounds high.

[mschrisgo2]

That is about what I would spend if I used them, which I don't.
I have 2 dogs, we do twice a year heartworm/erlichia/lyme tests, $15 ea. and no Heartguard, which would cost $480. We don't have very many mosquitoes at all, living in an urban area, and these are house dogs.

I use Capstar if we pick up fleas somewhere, it works out to $10/pill but we only use 4 or 6 a year. So I spend about $120. a year, instead of $30/dog/month= $720, saving $600, not including the wear and tear on the dogs' immune systems to process all that stuff.

Instead, I use that to pay for wellness plans and insurance for both dogs; medications are deeply discounted with both of them.

I have found that the price of animal medicines has kept right up with the skyrocketing costs of human meds, at least here in California.

[cdttmm]

I was curious so I checked 1800petmeds.com and this is what I found. For 2 dogs (55 pounds each), a year's supply of Heartgard and Frontline would be $650 with the first-time customer 10% discount.

We have 3 dogs and we spend ~$750 per year for Heartgard and whatever flea and tick stuff we get from our vet. But we don't do flea and tick during the truly cold winter months here in the Northeast.

So to answer your question, yep, we spend (proportionally) what you're spending, rodeosweetheart.

[rodeosweetheart]

Thank you for the information! One of my dogs has horrible flea allergies, which is why we've gone to the year round.