Blooming Vets!!! I'm livid! (prescribed too high dosage of medications)

Well, I took Georgie to the vets yesterday as he was itching like mad, as he was a month ago and the month before that, he suffers with wet ecezma, but he was bright as a button nothing else wrong with him. My usual vet was off, and I saw this fresh out of college young spanish girl, who said she wasn't going to give him the usual steroid jab that my vet would always give him (er why?) instead she gave me 10 days supply of Ceporex, but instead of 1 twice a day,(for usually 5 days only) she told me to give 2 twice a day for 10 days? She also gave me 125 (yes 125!!) Prednisolone steroid tablets and told me to give him 5 twice a day for a week, and then 3 twice a day for a further week and then 2 a day for the final week. I thought this was rather a lot, as I remembered my usual vet telling me once that he could go on these at the dose of 1 tablet every other day so alarm bells started to ring. I searched the internet and some friends who's dogs had been on these, and lo and behold they were on a much, much lower dose. I rang and spoke to my usual vet this morning and told him about the tabs, to which he replied "no, no, no, start him off with 5 a day for 3 days only, then 2 for 3 days, then 1 every other day" What??? I had started the anitibiotics this morning with his breakfast which he promptly threw up! I just gave him some lunch thinking the tablets had made him throw up this morning, and lo and behold he threw his lunch up too, without any tablets! You can imagine what's coming next! I rang and spoke to her and told her I was not happy! I take in a perfectly healthy happy dog who is scratching, and I now have a very unhappy sick dog who is still scratching and am £80 lighter in my pocket! I told her about my phone call this morning too, and she came out with the Royal Veterinary College advice is to give blah blah blah, on the defensive! She said I was not to give him any food or tablets and take him in tonight to have a steroid jab and a long term anti-biotics jab - NO WAY!! I will nurse him back to his normal healthy self and take him in over the week-end to see my normal vet who will give him his usual steroid jab. This Ceporex dosage is obviously too high for him and I have checked back through my previous invoices and he usually has 1 twice a day, not 2 twice a day. The steroid tabs, yes, I might start him on those at the rate of 1 every other day as advised by my other vet when he gets itchy again.

Honestly, this happened to me with Cassie when she went for her jab back in July. She had never been happier or healthier, came home and she was throwing up the next day! I think their hygeine standards are not as high as they should be somehow don't you!?

I might add, she also tried to sell me the entire contents of the medicine cupboard too whilst I was in there yesterday! I.E. the new flea treatment pipette, the latest shampoo, and a big jumbo bag of hypoallergenic food! I told her I shop on the internet, so if she would care to write it down I would investigate it. The last time I saw a fresh out of college vet there, she did the same and I came out with a bill for £140 for an antibiotic jab and some tabets! So I've been there! I am not happy!

The words vet and change spring to mind I think!

Thats terrible!!!! i hate the way they try to take advantage of caring owners!!

Helena that's terrible

I know what you mean about incompetent vets We have finally found a fantastic vets which, although a bit expensive, cater for all our needs, really take their time over the dogs and all the vets are also trained in homeopathy should you want to go down a more natural route.

If I were you I would find a new vet, I would definitely not risk taking my dogs to someone who made such a hge mistake

Crikey Helena Good for you lass...she picked the wrong person to piddle about with there didn't she! Good for you questioning her...I sometimes think people just assume because they are vets they are unquestionable, which is wrong. Its our money and our animals and I think we should ask questions more often, and not just accept it all and pay up meekly.
i am fortunate with my vets that they don't do this pushing of products...but I do think the prices are shocking even up here.
Hope Georgie is feeling better soon

This is dreadful Helena - can you vote with your feet? I know I would. Best of luck and wish Georgie better xx

Hope Georgie is better soon,what a cheek that vet had.

well done for standing your ground at least you knew the dosage of the tablets was too much,i wonder how many people she has given that dose of tablets to?and i wonder how many are none the wiser and administering a huge dose of steroids i think if you like seeing the one vet at the practice then when you ring for an appointment tell them you will only see him we do that after seeing 2 vets on numerous occassions and being very let down we now only see the one guy,he is fantastic understands my animals,knows their history and their characters.he also answers any questions i have and understands that i prefer to try a natural remedy especially if the animals require a long term medication he also appreciates that my 2 dogs and cat are the most important things in my life.when i ring the receptionists know my voice(o.k i pretty much live there)and they know that no matter what conor will see my animals the same day,even if it means he has to stay late,they have learnt i will not allow any other vet to touch my animals unless conor is on holiday and they are in danger of dying or have a severe injury
i really hope you never have to see that women again
another good thing with my vet is last night we had the cat in to see him and he needed some painkillers and the vet actually pointed out to us it was the same as my dogs and so just to use some of hers he saved me about £15

is there any info on the net produced by the royal vet etc to check up on the doses?
if its making him ill i wouldn't give it to him,mine never push stuff thank god but they rub their hands when we go because of the size to dose ratio.
tob suffered from the same wet ecezma when he was younger all we did was keep it clean and use the frusmide cream as and when it was needed other than that just antiseptic powders to help it to dry/scab over.
luckly he seems to have grown out of it.
the only other thing is the shampoo we use a ph balanced vet shampoo on him incase he has sensitive skin which triggers of the condition, so far hes been clear.
i hope you can get him better soon its not nice him being so ichy its a nasty circle the more they do the worse it gets.

Glad you rang them Helen - stupid bloody woman That price was very high too wasn't it. Our vet charges £0.96 for 14 5mg Prednisolone tablets. Consultation is £9.45 and injections about £2.00 at the most. We usually get charged about £20 - £25 but he usually has his anal glands done as well which is £4.75 and antibiotics are usually a couple of pounds so why she charged £80 for the same treatment I don't know. Obviously Georgie will need more than Benji but the drugs don't cost that much if 14 is only £0.96.

If it wasn't for one of these stupid vets fresh out of college we could have insured Benji. He started scratching about a week after we lost Sabre and I couldn't go back to the vets where Sabre was put to sleep because it was too upsetting so we went to a different vets. His scratching could have been fleas or anything but she said that she thought it could be a skin allergy and as she had diagnosed it (on the first visit ) then we weren't allowed to get insurance for him - he was only 1 week out of his kennel insurance as well Yet the same vets told the woman who owns the dog groomers where Benji goes to go home - insure her dog (which was an adult GSD) so that he could prescribe Atopica which would cost £160 a month - its the usually story - its if the face fits - but then again the dog groomer does carry adverts for the vet in her shop

Hope Georgie is feeling a bit better now Helen - poor lad- and give him a big kiss and cuddle from his cyber aunty.

Thanks everyone for not only your concern for poor little Gergie (all 46kgs of him!) but also the fact that you think I was right to question her dosage. I have also ignored her request for me to starve him for 24 hours now, coz the 2nd time he was sick he didn't bring it all up, and he was following me around at 4.00 waiting for his tea and he actually looked better and was hungry. So he had some boiled chicken breast and rice which I had cooked this morning, and luckily it has stayed down this time, but NO pills!

I think you're right tuti, I've been thinking about changing after seeing a previous newbie who gave him a long acting anti-biotic and a week's antibiotics and a pain killing injection for a damaged shoulder!! I kept telling her he had twisted himself, but she said "just in case"! That cost me £140 and needless to say I was right, he had pulled a shoulder muscle!

Thanks Het, when she was trying to flog me all and sundry and I objected, she said she didn't care coz she didn't own the practice! Maybe she's on commission hey? She didn't like being confronted on the phone, and considering she had come out of the operating theatre to phone me back I think she might have been a bit sheepish about that dosage, and she kept relating milligrams to weight ratio, but when I threw at her about Gerrie saying he could have 1 every other day, and I had seen on the internet that even an ADULT person only has 10mgs per day I could not see how a dog could have 50 mgs. per day - that shut her up!

Thanks Vicki, yes I will be doing that when I see my usual Vet!

Thanks Zanta for your kind wishes for Georgie

Thanks griff, she kept emphasizing to me that the dosage is 5mg per kg of bodyweight per day according to the Royal Veterinary College and that was HER dosage and she also said other vets might not agree with her??? What about ME and what about poor Georgie though! The trouble was my normal vet who I would normally ONLY see for either of my dogs now was away for 3 days and I couldn't stand to let him scratch any longer, and considering he has had the same treatment for 6 years, wouldn't you have thought she would have done the same and just given him the blooming jab! Luckily he has only been a few times in the year that I've had him, but his previous owner was there on a weekly basis having steroid jabs, etc. etc. for his skin, he was half bald when I got him and red raw, but I have managed to control it by various means which I won't go into now, but this last 2 months he has had to have a jab for some reason or other. Why, oh why, did she think she knew better than my vet who has been treating this dog since birth, and not just given him his usual jab.

Hi Leo, I was searching and searching last night about these tabs, but the steroids I haven't actually given him ANY, after seeing what I saw on there until I spoke to Gerrie this morning, and even then he has still had none of them and probably won't be . I think I might go the Atopica route instead so will read up all about that next. This sickness was due to the fact that she had doubled the dose of the Ceporex, as looking back thru my invoices, he was on only 1 tablet morning and night, and not the 2 that she prescribed him to take. This is obviously too much for him, or his body has taken a dislike to them which of course it can do with anti-biotics, I know that myself having had anaphalactic shock with an Amoxycillin! Not nice! Again, she stressed mgs. to body weight ratio, but in the past, he would only have been presdribed one at a time as a dose.

Hiya Foxy, the Ceporex antibiotics were £45!!! The steroids were only £12, but as yet he has had none of them as she now says don't give him any pills, which I won't, but I think what I'm going to do now is take all these pills back, get a refund and ask for the normal jab he has. I then wantto try those Atopica tablets instead of steroids, coz I met a woman today who has a westie withterrible skin probs and she tried everything and says the Atopica, although very expensive, actually works! I have found a brilliant animal chemist on the net, so I will look up the price on there for them, and get him to sign a prescription to buy them. There's a big new sign gone up in the waiting room now about this internet buying, they are charging for all prescriptions!! Well, that had to happen didn't it! We just can't win can we! Same as you with Benji, I can't claim on insurance coz he's worn out the policy in his previous life, so there was no chance of getting cover for his skin problems. I really don't care how much I pay, we will always find the money for our dogs, as long as the prescribed drugs are safe and prescribed correctly! I don't see why I have to keep looking everything up on the internet every time I get back from the doctors or vets do you!!? The World has gone insane mate!