over the counter medication?

[mr.spooky]

so wait, you guys are mad at this melissa person because she doesn't think that everyone should be able to keep exotic pets? not everyone should have kids either.

and i have had too many experience with greedy vets. Complain all you want about school bills, anyone who's gone to college has them...and everyone works to pay them off. It's not like vets don't make money. please. you also can't tell me that vets in one area, say...in L.A. Southern California, don't charge more than say, Eastern Oregon.
. thats because of geographic location, the true answer to this is to choose a cheaper place to live.
In my exact experience, this is true.

You guys are being pretty defensive of my opinion of vets and their charges. i really doubt any of you have seen the prices down here in southern cali.

Also, why on earth would it be okay to give your own shots to your dog, and treat most worms or parasites, but then you frown on someone who says you don't need to go to a vet for that? Contradiction.
how are you going to know what your treating until you take any animal to the vet? after taking to the vet, if you decide to administer treatment,, well, thats up to you.
Agreed, as someone bleated, there are no magic pills to cure all parasites...but there ARE pills that are sold over the counter, and they ARE the same ingredients as the vet sells you. If you are knowledgeable about giving them to your animals, as someone else suggested you should be to do it....then there is not a problem, and you do not need a $58 dollar vet fee to figure that out.
so now your saying that your as knowledgeable as a chemest or a pharmacist? most people know just enough to be dangerous.

As for someone else saying "spend years learning about it yourself, or get another vet" yeah, buddy, that's my point. I do read about it, and i do what i can myself, and i have not had the same vet twice (except when i lived in eastern Oregon, actually).

So I will admit my post had a frustrated tone. yeah, i'm frustrated.

If you say the vet's office is a business...and they want my money for medcine, and they want to pay off their expensive and amazing educations, then why wouldn't they match prices for the internet, or at least offer a more realistic cost to someone who points out their price is high? It's just easier to not sell it at all? That's really stupid business. I mean, after all, some money is some money, and better than none...especially when their school is SO expensive and just regular work cannot cut it to cover bills!
LOL their in the medical field,,, .. if you want to argue matching prices, go to a car lot, or the flea market.

I'm sorry...actually no, i'm not. Probably 90% of you are responding as a knee-jerk reaction. I don't think the vet treating about 1,000 chihuahuas and driving corvet needs my money. That is actually how it is in my area.
I chose the wrong vet when she said she treated reptiles *shrug* that was my point. You guys can get as snarky as you want, but you're just being annoying.

I mean, where do you guys have the gall to, on one hand, fuss at me for trying to do what I can for my pets and rescues at a reasonable price, and doing and learning on my own to treat them when i can...and then on the other hand get high and mighty and make fun of internet posts by someone who has gone to way more "expensive" schooling than you and say it's all wrong? Have YOU Studied as much as this melissa person or are you just mad that she doesn't think everyone should own exotics? lol
im sorry, corect me if im wrong,, but i dont remember seeing any DVM titles, PHD's or anything like that behind her name?? like i said i might be wrong... if not, then shees just another person with an opinion.

Jeez. The first link you put up is just another forum complaining about that chick. I don't know anything about monitors so i have no idea if the second one is right or wrong...but neither do you...do you? I mean you just automatically bring your pets straight to the vet, so why would you even pay attention to anything on the internet??

on the internet, you can also find people that think a portal is going to open in 2012 and if they dont jump through it in just the right time, the world will perish. we should be careful what we believe.
in the end, yes, i would rub some benadryl on a rash on my dog. thats about it.

spooky

[Annarose15]

To the OP - As spooky pointed out in his first response, it will really all depend on the animal and what problems they end up having - anything from "bugs" under the skin to intestinal worms to ticks to respiratory infections from the stress of transport.

Although a vet visit doesn't always have to be the answer, in this case it should be. I applaud you for asking the question before getting an animal and finding that the potential expense is more than you're likely willing to spend.

[Skiploder]

As the old quote by Thomas Henry Huxley roughly states, if you left a hundred monkeys in front of a hundred typewriters for a hundred years eventually you’d manage to get a Shakespearean sonnet.

Well, ladies and gentlemen of BP.net, I am happy to report that while no Shakespearean sonnets have been written, it appears that one of those apes has taken time from smearing turds on the wall and picking insects of his neighbors to repsond to my post.

so wait, you guys are mad at this melissa person because she doesn't think that everyone should be able to keep exotic pets? not everyone should have kids either.

and i have had too many experience with greedy vets. Complain all you want about school bills, anyone who's gone to college has them...and everyone works to pay them off. It's not like vets don't make money. please. you also can't tell me that vets in one area, say...in L.A. Southern California, don't charge more than say, Eastern Oregon.

In my exact experience, this is true.

You guys are being pretty defensive of my opinion of vets and their charges. i really doubt any of you have seen the prices down here in southern cali.

Also, why on earth would it be okay to give your own shots to your dog, and treat most worms or parasites, but then you frown on someone who says you don't need to go to a vet for that? Contradiction.

Agreed, as someone bleated, there are no magic pills to cure all parasites...but there ARE pills that are sold over the counter, and they ARE the same ingredients as the vet sells you. If you are knowledgeable about giving them to your animals, as someone else suggested you should be to do it....then there is not a problem, and you do not need a $58 dollar vet fee to figure that out.

As for someone else saying "spend years learning about it yourself, or get another vet" yeah, buddy, that's my point. I do read about it, and i do what i can myself, and i have not had the same vet twice (except when i lived in eastern Oregon, actually).

So I will admit my post had a frustrated tone. yeah, i'm frustrated.

If you say the vet's office is a business...and they want my money for medcine, and they want to pay off their expensive and amazing educations, then why wouldn't they match prices for the internet, or at least offer a more realistic cost to someone who points out their price is high? It's just easier to not sell it at all? That's really stupid business. I mean, after all, some money is some money, and better than none...especially when their school is SO expensive and just regular work cannot cut it to cover bills!

I'm sorry...actually no, i'm not. Probably 90% of you are responding as a knee-jerk reaction. I don't think the vet treating about 1,000 chihuahuas and driving corvet needs my money. That is actually how it is in my area.
I chose the wrong vet when she said she treated reptiles *shrug* that was my point. You guys can get as snarky as you want, but you're just being annoying.

I mean, where do you guys have the gall to, on one hand, fuss at me for trying to do what I can for my pets and rescues at a reasonable price, and doing and learning on my own to treat them when i can...and then on the other hand get high and mighty and make fun of internet posts by someone who has gone to way more "expensive" schooling than you and say it's all wrong? Have YOU Studied as much as this melissa person or are you just mad that she doesn't think everyone should own exotics? lol

Jeez. The first link you put up is just another forum complaining about that chick. I don't know anything about monitors so i have no idea if the second one is right or wrong...but neither do you...do you? I mean you just automatically bring your pets straight to the vet, so why would you even pay attention to anything on the internet??

Let's take things, er, point by point:

so wait, you guys are mad at this melissa person because she doesn't think that everyone should be able to keep exotic pets? not everyone should have kids either

While mastering a typewriter and logging into an internet forum are admirable feats, understanding a post before you respond to it is considered de rigueur on the interwebs.

Here, I'll help you a bit - no one is mad at Melissa Kraplan. We all are just tired of her pro HSUS stance and the oodles and oodles of bad information she pollutes the web with.

As for your comparison with her advocating a ban on exotic pets and people not having kids - again, you seem to not be able to discern the difference between an orange globe of fruit and a red globe of fruit. Learn that difference and your life outside of the typewriter lab will be oh so much easier.

Also, why on earth would it be okay to give your own shots to your dog, and treat most worms or parasites, but then you frown on someone who says you don't need to go to a vet for that? Contradiction.

Agreed, as someone bleated, there are no magic pills to cure all parasites...but there ARE pills that are sold over the counter, and they ARE the same ingredients as the vet sells you. If you are knowledgeable about giving them to your animals, as someone else suggested you should be to do it....then there is not a problem, and you do not need a $58 dollar vet fee to figure that out.

This part of your post left me wondering if some Kaopectate might actually work on diarrhea spewing from the mouth. This is not Beagle.net or Labradoodle.net, it's Ball-Pythons.net. No one is arguing about treating that puppy they stuck in the lab with you and your troop to see if you would adopt it or eat it, we are discussing treating a colubrid for internal parasites.

You can buy dog and cat tape, round and hook worm medication over the counter and without a prescription. The vast majority of doggy and kitty intestinal parasites comprise these main types of worms and are treating by one or two medications that are easy to dose and carry no side effects.

With reptiles, there are many, many, many more types of intestinal parasites they can be afflicted by, and many of the medications require a prescription to obtain. These meds can also kill your reptile if you dose them wrong. So (bear with me here), you need a vet - not Melissa Kraplan - to diagnose your snakes poo (yes diagnose, not smear on walls or fling said poo) to determine the one , or in some cases two or three naughty bugs afflicting your reptile. Then that vet needs to give you a prescription so that you can make your snake all better. Is that clear enough? Or are you going to start confusing your fruits again?

Jeez. The first link you put up is just another forum complaining about that chick. I don't know anything about monitors so i have no idea if the second one is right or wrong...but neither do you...do you? I mean you just automatically bring your pets straight to the vet, so why would you even pay attention to anything on the internet??

The first link I put up is a discussion where people outlined the errors in Anapsid and the duplicity of the author.

As you yourself stated, you know diddly over crap about monitors, so you should have kept your banana hole shut and not typed any more of your stream of un-medicated consciousness.

I, on the other hand, do. That sheet I linked to is a prescription for a sick or dead monitor. It has nothing to do with vets. Monitors like dirt, they like it hot and savannah monitors need an invertebrate diet. It's that simple. On almost every point she was wrong. Get it - wrong?

Once more with feeling - WRONG. Your grand finish, which was an apparent attempt to throw the forum's stance on vets back in our collective faces is pathetic.

That disgusting care sheet on savannah monitors has nothing to do with the forum's advocacy of seeking a qualified reptile vet to deal with internal parasites and administer prescription drugs. Are you that thick that you cannot grasp the simple concept of a rotten care sheet? Or are you intent on turning this thread into a rant against all the vets that you feel are ripping you off?

Back to the typewriter with you for another 100 years. You are nowhere close to even being able to cogently respond to an internet post - let alone write that Shakespearean sonnet you have been tasked with.

Toodles!

Skip

[Skiploder]

Oh. I missed a lot.

No sweat.

[zeion97]

ummm.... wow.. I do want to say something, ABS don't rip me apart. Some vets are in it for the money, an some.in it for the love. The Vet I am going to.on the 31st IA cocky.. but he loves animals, the vet I am currently with has charges me almost 1,500 for 4 visits, refuses to do a cultural, lied to me, given dosages that were not only under, but none of them were the same..

Yes, some vets Love there animals and don't charge you 100 just to hear there heart beat and see if they have gas.... ;/

It's sad really, but this is our world. Everyone has there opinion, and everyone lives in different parts of it. Am I saying I should were a careaheet on BP's? Of course not I'm still learning myself. But what I don't get IA why this escalated to such a fight. I know my vet brags that she paid off almost 150,000 in school loans in just three years being at her clinic.

I also have this point.. this vet charges nearly $400 to fix your cat.... $400!?! I can stay in my town and pay $65 to get my cat fized, get his rabies shot, and flea medication.

Also to school loans.. I owe nearly 75,000 for two years of culinary school. That's counting what I have to pay in private loans for rent to be able to go to school.

Yes life's hard, I'm not going to say it's not. But some arguments people make nowadays are sad.

My point to all this? Some vets will want your soul to treat your animals. Other just get enough to make it through the year.

Try not to tear me apart now.

[Kittycatpenut]

I'm a noob ( got all my herps this year) so I don't know much of what happened before I joined this forum. Oh well, I guess that means I have a lot of 10+ page threads to read

[Annarose15]

My point to all this? Some vets will want your soul to treat your animals. Other just get enough to make it through the year.

Agree wholeheartedly. However, this is the case when dealing with any human being with a service or product to offer, so it's the resposibility of the client (owner) to ask questions and choose the right supplier, which can be easier said than done. Personally, I'd laugh in anyone's face that tried to charge me $400 for a neuter, but as I said before, I drive three times the distance needed to a vet I know is skilled and reasonable.

[zeion97]

Agree wholeheartedly. However, this is the case when dealing with any human being with a service or product to offer, so it's the resposibility of the client (owner) to ask questions and choose the right supplier, which can be easier said than done. Personally, I'd laugh in anyone's face that tried to charge me $400 for a neuter, but as I said before, I drive three times the distance needed to a vet I know is skilled and reasonable.

I'd Love to do that, but the truth is I can't. I only knew two exotic vets around here until about a week ago. Maybe a week And a half. The next nearest exotic vet is a 2 to 2 1/2 drive. I personally can't do that. I'm hoping with my new vet though I wont have to worry any more. I heard from the Guy who I got my Burmese from he's skilled in herps And knows what he us doing.

Don't get me wrong, there is a lot of good vets out there, just nob close to where I live. But I'm also in the middle of nowhere.

[satomi325]

so wait, you guys are mad at this melissa person because she doesn't think that everyone should be able to keep exotic pets? not everyone should have kids either.

and i have had too many experience with greedy vets. Complain all you want about school bills, anyone who's gone to college has them...and everyone works to pay them off. It's not like vets don't make money. please. you also can't tell me that vets in one area, say...in L.A. Southern California, don't charge more than say, Eastern Oregon.
In my exact experience, this is true.

You guys are being pretty defensive of my opinion of vets and their charges. i really doubt any of you have seen the prices down here in southern cali.

Yes, many people have loans to pay off. But many people out of college start working with no worries of starting a new practice. An engineer can work at an established company and not worry about start up costs. Many vets start up their own practices from the ground up on top of the loans... And like somebody else stated, at the end of the day, some are probably making half or less of what they're billing people.

I live in California. Personally, I find that a lot of things in California are more expensive than other states. California has the highest state tax in the country... And take housing or building rent for example. A 1 story house can go for a million dollars easily in California. You can buy a newer house 3 times the size out of state for $200,000. Some apartments are as expensive as full sized houses elsewhere.... It's a matter of location that determines stuff like this. Office rent and tax is more, thus they probably charge more for services. Though don't quote me on that.

Also, why on earth would it be okay to give your own shots to your dog, and treat most worms or parasites, but then you frown on someone who says you don't need to go to a vet for that? Contradiction.

You don't need to go to a vet to give your dog its own shots. Many people who own livestock and horses do their own deworming treatment. Vets aren't around to only give shots. They have other purposes too, you know? But giving a reptile a parasite treatment is a little different than a companion animal as their bodies are totally different from mammals.....So it's safer for the animal to see a vet.

If you say the vet's office is a business...and they want my money for medcine, and they want to pay off their expensive and amazing educations, then why wouldn't they match prices for the internet, or at least offer a more realistic cost to someone who points out their price is high? It's just easier to not sell it at all?

Well, it sounds unreasonable for your vet to refuse to match prices on the same product since you could just go w/ the online order...

But there are a lot of other things only a vet can do and an owner cannot.
And many meds are prescription only. And I don't mean general dewormer or topical flea solution....Some also have to special order from the pharmaceutical manufacturer.

(I'm more comfortable with ferret medicine, so I like using them in examples.) So for example, ferret adrenal disease implants(almost like a giant microchip that releases drugs/hormone into the body) can only be ordered from Australia and are going for ~$150-200 for one implant that will last a year. Adrenal disease is the most commonly diagnosed clinical conditions among domestic ferrets in the US. Almost all ferrets will get adrenal in their life. The implants 'cure' and prevent clinical signs. So many ferrets get an implant yearly... So you see, not all things can be done on your own w/o a vet.

[wolfy-hound]

So much to respond to, so I quoted, and BOLDED my responses to clarify.

so wait, you guys are mad at this melissa person because she doesn't think that everyone should be able to keep exotic pets? not everyone should have kids either.
People are "mad" at this irresponsible idiot for putting up caresheets and sounding professional while giving advice that will lead to the DEATH of the animal in the caresheet. She advocates feeding crickets to snakes for instance. All stuff you'd know if you read the link instead of assuming you know everything.

and i have had too many experience with greedy vets. Complain all you want about school bills, anyone who's gone to college has them...and everyone works to pay them off. It's not like vets don't make money. please. you also can't tell me that vets in one area, say...in L.A. Southern California, don't charge more than say, Eastern Oregon.
No one said that all vets charge the same thing. Are you really trying to say that the rent, electric and other costs are EXACTLY the same in L.A. as in rural Oregon?

In my exact experience, this is true.

You guys are being pretty defensive of my opinion of vets and their charges. i really doubt any of you have seen the prices down here in southern cali.

Also, why on earth would it be okay to give your own shots to your dog, and treat most worms or parasites, but then you frown on someone who says you don't need to go to a vet for that? Contradiction.
No contradiction at all. I don't remember anyone saying that you have to take a DOG to a vet for SHOTS. Most folks were pointing out that exotic reptiles have various needs and can have issues with many medications. Once you kill a few of your pets using advice from idiots like Kaplan, perhaps you'll understand. I'm not holding my breath, since you don't seem to understand even the simplest concept.

Agreed, as someone bleated, there are no magic pills to cure all parasites...but there ARE pills that are sold over the counter, and they ARE the same ingredients as the vet sells you. If you are knowledgeable about giving them to your animals, as someone else suggested you should be to do it....then there is not a problem, and you do not need a $58 dollar vet fee to figure that out.
When you quote an idiot like Kaplan as your "knowledge", then yes you need a vet who knows what they're doing. When you DO have knowledge, then yes, you can dose your own animals. The OP admitted to NOT having the knowledge, and thus was advised to trust a herp vet, NOT some random moron on the internet who can't get even basic caresheets right.

As for someone else saying "spend years learning about it yourself, or get another vet" yeah, buddy, that's my point. I do read about it, and i do what i can myself, and i have not had the same vet twice (except when i lived in eastern Oregon, actually).
So you've never built a relationship with a good vet, you prefer to bounce from place to place, because you know so much. Got it.

So I will admit my post had a frustrated tone. yeah, i'm frustrated.

If you say the vet's office is a business...and they want my money for medcine, and they want to pay off their expensive and amazing educations, then why wouldn't they match prices for the internet, or at least offer a more realistic cost to someone who points out their price is high? It's just easier to not sell it at all? That's really stupid business. I mean, after all, some money is some money, and better than none...especially when their school is SO expensive and just regular work cannot cut it to cover bills!
Again, the INTERNET shop doesn't have to pay BILLS!!! A internet store doesn't pay rent, electric, employees, school bills. Maybe you live in never-never land where you just poop money. The rest of us have to work to get money to pay bills. So does your vet. Some are cheaper, some are more expensive, some are lousy, some are knowledgable. But they all have to pay their BILLS.

I'm sorry...actually no, i'm not. Probably 90% of you are responding as a knee-jerk reaction. I don't think the vet treating about 1,000 chihuahuas and driving corvet needs my money. That is actually how it is in my area.
I chose the wrong vet when she said she treated reptiles *shrug* that was my point. You guys can get as snarky as you want, but you're just being annoying.
Sorry our imparting information to assist someone posting with questions annoys you. Actually, I'm not sorry. You admit you chose the wrong vet but decide to present all vets as "greedy" and think no one should actually make a living off their business.

I mean, where do you guys have the gall to, on one hand, fuss at me for trying to do what I can for my pets and rescues at a reasonable price, and doing and learning on my own to treat them when i can...and then on the other hand get high and mighty and make fun of internet posts by someone who has gone to way more "expensive" schooling than you and say it's all wrong? Have YOU Studied as much as this melissa person or are you just mad that she doesn't think everyone should own exotics? lol
Kaplan has NO SCHOOLING. She actually has nearly NO EXPERIANCE and instead has copy/pasted(aka plagerized) other articles, adding her own errors and also doesn't think ANYONE should own exotics, not just "everyone". Again, Kaplan is NOT A VET OR ANY EXCUSE FOR A VET! Which you would understand if you actually read anything instead of knowing it all already.

Jeez. The first link you put up is just another forum complaining about that chick. I don't know anything about monitors so i have no idea if the second one is right or wrong...but neither do you...do you? I mean you just automatically bring your pets straight to the vet, so why would you even pay attention to anything on the internet??

Several people with a great deal of experiance with monitors do KNOW and not one person advocating "automatically bringing your pets to the vet" but again, if you READ, you'd UNDERSTAND, but it's very difficult when you already know it all.

Basically, you've presented yourself as knowing everything about every animal, are you sure you're not actually Kaplan under a new alias? You told a new person that they should just randomly treat exotic imported reptiles with whatever over-the-counter meds they saw pasted on a website... were you going to pay when the animals died because he didn't know that antibiotic gel with pain relief can kill many reptiles? Were you going to suck it up and hold their hand when they get upset over the pet dying of liver failure? Somehow I think not.

BP.net isn't here to annoy you. It's here to impart information to people with questions and to share experiance and the love of reptiles. If you ever take the chip off your shoulder and hop off your pedestal, come around and meet some of us sometime.

And you have my full permission to be annoyed at my post as well. It won't bug me much. I'm just happy the OP seems like a great potential pet owner well on his way to a happy reptile experiance. Especially since he didn't meet you before BP.net.