UK Cost of insulin

[Milly]

Little Milly is now on 34 units per day so we do have to buy a lot of insulin.We use a vetpen and the phials (88 units)are costing us £16 each from the vet.
I have seen they can be bought for a third of this price on the internet.
Does anyone else in the UK pay so much for their pet's insulin?
The insulin alone is costing £200 per month then we have the Vetoryl for her cushings which costs £40 a month then her liver tablets are also £40 per month.On top of this are the vet's fees for tests and visits etc.
Our little Milly is worth every penny but we do wish medication wasn't so expensive.

[tonyr]

Re: UK Cost of insulin

The only people who pay that price are the uninformed or the rich.
This is where I buy mine :- https://www.petdrugsonline.co.uk/pre...idges-(40iu-ml).

The costs are £48.05 for a box of 10 cartridges for the vetpen.

The actual units per cart = 2.7ml x 40iu = 108 units.
Also you can buy the BD Micro Fine pen needles 31g x 8mm as cheap as chips on ebay uk, ie :-
BD micro-fine (pack of 100) 0,25mm x 8mm

• £10.00
• Free Postage

You should start testing yourself immediately, it's easy, and again costs a fraction of what your vet is charging.
Unless your aims are to make your vet even richer than he already is.
I hope he has not got you buying prescription food from him also ?, again seek out advice on here as to alternatives.

[Eddie]

Re: UK Cost of insulin

We use plain syringes - BD ones that cost about £10 for 100 on Amazon.

We get a prescription for the insulin from our vet (£14) then order it from Animed at about £17 for a 10ml bottle which lasts about 14 days at say 28 units a day = about 392 units. So the insulin and syringes for our 30kg dog for a month cost around £40. A single 10ml bottle from our vet would be about £46!!

But I think the vetpen system is much more expensive..... Have you tried just injecting with a basic syringe?

Antonia

PS I would agree with what Tony says about home testing if you are able to do that.

[tonyr]

Re: UK Cost of insulin

You can also ask your vet to write you up for 6 months worth on a prescription each time, saving even more money.

[Milly]

Re: UK Cost of insulin

Thank you, that makes me feel better. The vet is so expensive. Milly is insured but only for £6000 per annum for all illnesses. She has exhausted that as her cruciate ligament operation was nearly £3000. We did weigh up the bottles of insulin but the needles worked out very expensive(at the vets) so overall it wasn't any cheaper. The only problem now with the vetpen is that we have to inject Milly twice to give her seventeen units as the maximum the pen can give her is sixteen units.

[tonyr]

Re: UK Cost of insulin

Do not worry about using the needle more than once, I use mine
for both morning and evening shot.
The other downside of the large pen is you cannot do half units, but for convenience and ease you cannot beat it.
Once your dogs other problems settle down so will his amount of insulin needed.
But you must test yourself so you know when this is happening.

With only having whole units to work with you just have to tweek his diet to suit the insulin, you will learn all this over time.
It sounds like your vet is milking this insurance as much as he can.