Should
You Use Online Pet Pharmacies?
Save Money On Pet Medications
One
of the recent online shopping trends is the use of internet
pharmacies. Internet pharmacies provide cost savings for many
prescription drugs. This development has also moved
into the pet world as we are now seeing online pharmacies for pet
medications. So should you use an online pet pharmacy?
Like many dog owners, I live in a region that is considered heartworm
territory where all dogs are highly recommended to go on heartworm
preventative medication during the season, which lasts from June to
November (at least up here in southern Ontario).
(For Pet Owners In
United States)
My dogs were prescribed the Sentinel brand of heartworm medication and
although I don’t personally endorse any specific brand, I chose to stay
with Sentinel each season for now. My dogs must take one
tablet at the beginning of each month for six months starting each
June. Each box of Sentinel containing six tablets cost me $82
at the vet clinic and since I have two dogs, the total cost for
heartworm medication was therefore $164. Not knowing any
better, I paid this amount for the first year that my dogs were on
Sentinel.
For the following year, I started to investigate the online pet
pharmacies. I found a few and compared their
prices. I found one that I have used for two years now and my
total cost each season is now down to about $132, which includes
shipping. This is about $66 per pack of six tablets of the
same Sentinel I got from the vet. So even with the shipping
cost, I’m saving about 20% by using an online pet pharmacy instead of
letting my vet dispense the heartworm medication.
Purchasing prescription medications from online pet pharmacies do
require a written prescription from a vet. At first, I wasn’t
sure if my vet would refuse to give me a written prescription since
this would result in some lost business for the clinic. But
both the vet clinics I used in Montreal and Toronto didn’t have any
problems giving me written prescriptions. I think they are
aware of the online pharmacies and that if pet owners can save
significantly by using them, especially during times of recession, then
they should be obligated to help out this way. My position is
that if a vet refused to supply me with a written prescription for this
purpose and insisted that I obtain medications strictly through the
clinic, I would seriously consider changing vets.
(For Pet Owners In
United States)
Of course, for medications that are required immediately after a visit
to the vet like for an infection, I would still take the treatments
from the clinic knowing that I am probably paying a premium.
In these cases, I won’t go through the online route to wait for
shipping if my dog needs the medication right away. But for
something like heartworm or flea control medications that can be
planned well ahead with no urgent time factor involved, the online pet
pharmacies such as Total Pet Supply or Pet Care Choice are the
way to go.
Different countries have different regulations regarding the
importation of prescription medicines. Currently, Canadian
residents cannot purchase from an online pharmacy outside of
Canada. Many online pharmacies ship only to certain countries
for certain products, especially prescription drugs. So
because of such restrictions, I would suggest clicking on the graphics
for online pet pharmacies on this webpage for dog and pet owners in the
United States
only. For Canadians, I suggest and use Universal
Pet Meds.
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