Vet help

[littleme]

Pheobe-cat has a urine infection, she's let us know quite vocally tonight, after 8pm when the vets are closed. We have 3 cats & this happens quite a bit, so we usually keep a stash of 'Metacam' for such situations.

Annoyingly we only have 2 doses left, which is enough to last till we can get her to the vets tomorrow, but we usually have much more. Does anyone know of any Metacam substitution that's available to buy online without a prescription? The vet is always unwilling to prescribe more than is needed for current illness, but I would like something handy for if any of them are in pain, she's howling the place down as we've put her in the dog crate to stop her trying to pee on everything, untill tomorrow's vet visit.

Any suggestions would be gratefully received, we already have cystease for our other elderly cat, but any suggestion s of painkillers similar to metacam?

 

[Glam]

Poor Phoebe-Cat. Have you been up to Pets at Home? I'm sure they will be able suggest something for you.

 

[staffordjas]

Oh No , hope poor Phoebe Cat gets sorted soon.

 

[Raven]

Would this help & be available ?
https://katzenworld.co.uk/2020/04/30/cbd-oil-for-cats-is-it-safe/

 

[littleme]

Thanks for the replys, she has an appointment at 9.30am. It's annoying that there seem to be no painkillers that can be bought and kept for just in case.

 

[littleme]

Would this help & be available ?
https://katzenworld.co.uk/2020/04/30/cbd-oil-for-cats-is-it-safe/

It sounds a bit like the Cystease we use on our other cat, where it generally keps her calm and reduces anxiety.

 

[littleme]

Not very happy with the vets. Can they refuse to give treatment that you ask for?

We have 3 cats, each manage to get a urine infection about once a year, they usually have a antibiotic injection, a metacam injection (a bit like ibuprofen), then a course of metacam, which always clears up the infection within a few days.

Today, Pheobe-cat was refused the metacam injection - which I understand as we had given her metacam syrup last night, but the vet also point blank refused to give her the antibiotic injection... she said we had to see how the metacam syrup went, and if needed then to go back for the antibiotic injection, after she has has urine tests.... We explained that we are not in a position to keep paying for consultations and extra tests on top of extra medical treatment, when it could all be done in one visit, but they refused to even consider the antibiotic injection... Anyone else ever been refused the 'usual' treatment?

It just seems a way to get us back there multiple times, with multiple payments for different tests that's she's never had to have previously, and a cat left in pain throughout , for treatment that's all been done in one visit on other occasions.

 

[Thehooperman]

Not very happy with the vets. Can they refuse to give treatment that you ask for?

We have 3 cats, each manage to get a urine infection about once a year, they usually have a antibiotic injection, a metacam injection (a bit like ibuprofen), then a course of metacam, which always clears up the infection within a few days.

Today, Pheobe-cat was refused the metacam injection - which I understand as we had given her metacam syrup last night, but the vet also point blank refused to give her the antibiotic injection... she said we had to see how the metacam syrup went, and if needed then to go back for the antibiotic injection, after she has has urine tests.... We explained that we are not in a position to keep paying for consultations and extra tests on top of extra medical treatment, when it could all be done in one visit, but they refused to even consider the antibiotic injection... Anyone else ever been refused the 'usual' treatment?

It just seems a way to get us back there multiple times, with multiple payments for different tests that's she's never had to have previously, and a cat left in pain throughout , for treatment that's all been done in one visit on other occasions.

Not refused as such but Bee has been on an oral dog version of metacam (no idea why it is different for different animals??) from when she was diagnosed with canine degenerative myelopathy in November. When I asked about how her condition could develop and if the metacam could be increased if she was in pain I was quite sternly told that it couldn't as she was on the maximum dose.

I googled any side effects and they don't appear to be that serious but it seems vets have concerns about Metacam.

In addition I have to take Bee back every three months for any repeat prescriptions she is on and pay for the privalege of a 5 minute "examination" to confirm she is ok to have the same medicine for another 3 months.

Hope Pheobe-cat is better soon.

 

[littleme]

Not refused as such but Bee has been on an oral dog version of metacam (no idea why it is different for different animals??) from when she was diagnosed with canine degenerative myelopathy in November. When I asked about how her condition could develop and if the metacam could be increased if she was in pain I was quite sternly told that it couldn't as she was on the maximum dose.

I googled any side effects and they don't appear to be that serious but it seems vets have concerns about Metacam.

In addition I have to take Bee back every three months for any repeat prescriptions she is on and pay for the privalege of a 5 minute "examination" to confirm she is ok to have the same medicine for another 3 months.

Hope Pheobe-cat is better soon.

It seems a licience to print money at the moment, not about looking after & providing the best treatment for pets. Poor Bee, hope she isn't in too much pain, you feel so hopeless when they are.

Incedentally, our Dr's seem to do the same, minime recently needed antibiotics, they gave her 4 days worth, which didn't work, so she needed another 10 days on top. Crazy.

 

[Thehooperman]

It seems a licience to print money at the moment, not about looking after & providing the best treatment for pets. Poor Bee, hope she isn't in too much pain, you feel so hopeless when they are.

Incedentally, our Dr's seem to do the same, minime recently needed antibiotics, they gave her 4 days worth, which didn't work, so she needed another 10 days on top. Crazy.

Thanks, she doesn't seem to be in too much pain but she's a Staffie so she doesn't always show it when she is suffering.

The myelopathy is affecting some of the discs in her back meaning she doesn't know where her back legs are and she's walking a bit like Bambi at times.

I've bought her a harness to help lift her back legs a little and she still wants to go for walkies. She also lets me know when she doesn't want to walk any further so I'm just making the most of it whilst I can.

 

[staffordjas]

@littleme Poor Phoebe . Hope she gets better soon. So annoying that if they'd have given the antibiotics today she could have been well on the way to getting over the infection , rather than them letting it get any worse.

@Thehooperman . Sorry to hear about Bee's problems as well. Big to her too. Glad she is still able to get around a bit. Our Piskie only had 3 legs , so when she got arthritis in later years she struggled to go long distances . So we got sons old pushchair back out of the loft. She quite happily jumped in. Let us know when she wanted to get out of it for a bit of a walk and then again when she'd had enough and wanted to get back in. That way she still got her long walks on holidays. Spent many an hour going around the garden holding her up for a wee towards the end, but the vet said that she wasn't in pain and quite happy.


We spent so much time in the vets getting repeat medication, they would only give us a couple of months at a time despite her going to need it for the rest of her life. So had to keep paying for the consultations every time as well. Spent so much money and time in the vets during all those visits that they recognised me years later when I took a stray cat in for an operation before we got him rehomed.

 

[Cue]

Sorry to hear Bloo has a daily Cystease mixed in with some Lick-e-lix every night because he’s a very anxious cat and without it can get blood in his wee. Been there done that with Metacam too.

It’s probably worth mentioning what kind of vet this is, is it a small one where you’re dealing with the owner? Or a larger one with lots of salaried staff?

Unless they’re the owner they are not going to give two hoots about bringing her back for more and will aim to do what’s best, vets don’t exactly struggle for business. This is why we use Vets4Pets, the employees are so removed from the profit that they aren’t going to give a damn how many times that pet is brought back in terms of £££, they’ve got a constant stream coming in anyway. It also provides us some accountability if things go wrong, it’s a lot easier to go after a larger org that will just settle if there was gross misconduct and they killed our cat or something like that.

At the end of the day, nobody becomes a vet for the money... no money is worth having to put down someone’s pet. Unless they’re a sociopath.

For what it’s worth, Cystease is a herbal anti-inflammatory kind of thing but probably not strong enough for a UTI. Metacam you can’t really store as it has a shelf life of a few days once open unfortunately.

(the minime antibiotic issue is probably because doctors have been overprescribing antibiotics in the past so are now discouraged from giving out too many as it ends up producing antibiotic resistant strains of things)

 

[littleme]

It's vets4pets that we use.

 

[Tilly]

My ex neighbour in England eats meat and has a pet dog but thinks people who eat dogs are disgusting but doesn't see how ridiculous he seems because he used to live next door to a vegetarian pig farmer who's children kept rabbits but they loved chicken dinners which consists in the main of grain

 

[Withnail]