Feeling very ripped off - Vet Rant !

Gingerwitch

Gingerwitch

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I am currently staying at a friends yard (we were having a bit of an adult camp lol) and one of the horses had a gunky eye when it arrived.... (great but not my yard!) so be the end of yesterday one horse had two extreamly swollen, yellow discharging eyes and my lad had a tiny bit of a discharge in his right eye.

I immediatley bathed my horse with cooled, boiled salted water and contacted my normal vets whom said treat for 24 hours like this or with cold black tea and if no improvement to get them out.......!

Fast forwad an hour or two - my friends horse has virtually closed eyes (but he had been being treated with golden eye ointment so a bit difficult to say if this had had an effect) and the emergency vet was being delivered to my stable (i am registered with these from my old yard but had a huge fall out due to the way they "blow" everthing out of all proportion and milk you blind !) - they asked to look at my horse as he had had nothing in his eye accept the infection and started to take swobs.... then proceeded to take his temp and vitals and then injected him with antibiotics and pain killer and perscribed some topical eye drops (basically salt water with a bit on antibiotic in them)...... felt a bit "miffed but hey ho, not my yard and the other horse did look pretty awful), i did agree to a re-visit today that i almost cancelled as his eye was virtually chrystal clear this am after bathing with salt water and applying drops, but vet was due anyway and it was worth the 30quid or so to have him checked......

Guess what - he had more stain put in both eyes, was given another HUGE antibiotic and pain killer injection, he has been perscirbed a 5 day course of antibitotics and bute and is to be re-visted in 5 days .... I challenged all of this and was advised that whilst it may appear to be "belt and braces" it was the best course of action,..... and he would understand if i called the office to cancel the follow up !!!! - he must have been feeling a bit "guilty by now"

So glad i left this HUGE practice but i am so very very angry that i have been mugged - today and yesterday will have cost nigh on £400 quid and in my own opinion 24 hour treatment of bathing and a fly mask would have surficed.

When will the vets realise we cant be milked like this day in and day out ?
 
You could have refused them doing the treatment, no vet would force treatment ! I understand vets bills are expensive, but they are a necessary part of owning a horse, and they did spend many a year in vet school which IMHO entitles them to charge for a service they are very well qualified to do, and we as horse owners are not !
 
I'm sorry I don't understand why you allowed this vet to treat your horse. I can quite see why you were nice enough to allow them to take a swab from your horse's 'unadulterated' eye but if I had been in your position I would have then said, "my vet is aware and I am following his advice" and sent them on their way.
It is very unfortunate that this practice has managed to 'milk' you yet again.
I hope al the horses involved make a speedy recovery.
 
TBF, I was always told that any change in the eye needs to be seen asap. Maybe the advice has changed? When you consider how rapidly your friends horses eye condition deteriorated - closing of eyes indicates pain - if he hadn't been treated, by the next day his eye infection could have been a lot worse. Also regarding the antibiotic treatment, sometimes a course is necessary to kill any remaining bacteria even though the infection looks to be gone. Bloody bad luck though & a £400 bill is gutting:(
 
You dont mess with eyes or feet. Suck it up, I'm afraid! I dont think what he did was unreasonable, and if he HADNT and your horse had got a really nasty eye infection, you'd have been on here complaining that the vet hadnt gone for the belt and braces approach!

I really think that this wasnt unreasonable and you COULD have refused treatment. x
 
I have no issue in paying for treatment that is in my opinion necessary but when a simple case of conjunctivitus has this amount of armery thrown at it- what on earth will the vets do if my lad gets something a bit more serious? He has, infact, had more antibiotics and pain killers than when he was running a temp of 38.1 degrees for an unkown strain of flu that the vets tried to tell me was strangles - and was "isolated" this time last year. Treatment today was overkill in my opinion but as a animal lover i felt completeley blackmail by the vets.

The first horse imo, deteriated so rapidly becuase someone chose to put golden eye ointment (intended for the whitening of human eyes and with a small beneift to help general eye infections) into an eye, which subsequently blocked the horses tear ducts.

I wish i had turned round and said no to swobs - which are now on my bill! - that really annoys me, but you have a gut feeling yourself when you know your animal, and my lad was fine - i just wish i had refused the 2nd visit today as you have pointed out.

My horses eye was clear this morning, and only had a tiny bit of green in his eye which was from the stain put in yesterday - i allowed the 2nd visit as i naievley expected the "bath for 5 days and use the drops" route, not this "belt and braces" approach.

TBH i can have sympathy with folks who dont get the vets out, especially when myself, a horse owner for over 30 years, has been left with a very bad taste and a feeling of being robbed - i half expected the sheet the vets left to be signed for by a Mr Dick Turpin.
 
They gave you ABs for an eye infection? Wow. That is absurd. Please consider resistance vets. We are all goin to die of MRSA. Well not quite but it isn't great is it? You wouldn't do it in a person. Just the eye drops for your kid but obviously your horse needs oral antibiotics and painkillers. Yer right! I have this problem with a couple of the vets at my practise. Drives me bonkers. Others are fine and practise is fab in general though!
 
I know what you mean regarding staining etc. If it helps, our vets are fab, and they still do the whole hog for eyes. For a simple bang we had: vet had a look - couldn't see any damage. Stained (with great argument with pony) - couldn't see any damage. Put that pupil stuff in that makes the pupil huge and you have to keep them in darkness for 24hrs 'just in case' and gave antibiotic eye drops 'just in case'. Came back next day, repeated whole malarkey and left us with pony who now fought when you tried to get anything near her head. I asked what she would have done if there had been some damage - she said the same antibiotic eye drops would fix it. So now, when pony bangs her eye, I pop to the chemists for some Brolene, apply for the same number of days vets said with the stuff from the original bang, and there we are, sorted. Obviously if it was horrendous, would still call them out, but this has sufficed on many occasions now.

Ditto with infections - brolene + fly mask. BUT I do make sure she gets it 4x day on the rare occasions we need it (as instructions recommend) and do put an extra drop in (bigger eye). If didn't see improvement in day or two would call vet - but has always cleared up fine so far, as we always have some and use it on the day the first signs are seen.
 
Sounds a a bit like overkill to me - usually vet will check eye for physical damage, possibly using fluorescein dye and then prescribe one of two antibiotics - chloramphenicol or fusidic acid cream.

The only thing I can think of is that the vet knows what the infection is and is treating accordingly. It does sound like a rather nasty infection to cause the reaction it has. I'm surprised they didn't say - this horse has suspected xyz and we need to follow this course of action.

I'm no vet, but any conjunctivitis ought to be dealt with promptly and usually involves a vet visit, prior to prescribing an effective antibiotic cream. Bathing runny eyes with cooled boiled water as a soothing and cleaning exercise is reasonable 'first aid' but any eye problems where the horse actively keeps the eye shut, and/or where quantities of pus or tears are being produced is an emergency.

Over the counter stuff isn't effective against full-blown conjunctivitis and may allow the problem to worsen considerably.
 
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Understand both sides - but when I take my dogs to my small animal vet, my bill is always such a pleasant surprise! and when my dog suddenly had a swollen and red eye, he had injections and was told to come back 2 days later - did duly, they checked and didn't charge me..ditto with sending x rays off to a specialist vet when they weren't 100% sure of the response - no charge. Luckily for us, our YO is excpetionally good on vet stuff (and translating vet speak) and saves us a fortune on unecesarry call outs. Don't get me wrong, vet is called pronto when needed...
 
Untreated conjunctivitis is a recognised precursor for superficial keratitis. My horse came to me with 2 chronically gungy eyes (conjunctivitis) and before I had a chance to clear them up (I'd had him 3 weeks and local vet had already advised on treatment) one eye flipped over to superficial keratitis, a very nasty auto immune disease. After a 6-month battle, Sunny had to have the eye removed. Sometimes vets can't win whatever they do. Go the whole hog and the accusation is that the treatment was OTT. Not go far enough and the accusation is negligence. Eyes are very precious and very difficult to heal because the cornea doesn't have a blood supply.
 
Totally agree, they do seem to try and milk you dry. The phrase "is he insured" makes me cringe, you know if he is, your insurance company is doomed :P

I have recently been charge for changing bandages, which slipped before I could even get horse back in stable, then charged MORE than original bandage change for someone to come and pull it up and stick more vetwrap on. I don't see why I should pay for someone's poor bandaging *grumble grumble grumble*

Hope both ned's eyes are on the mend though :D
 
brighteyes said:
Sounds a a bit like overkill to me - usually vet will check eye for physical damage, possibly using fluorescein dye and then prescribe one of two antibiotics - chloramphenicol or fusidic acid cream.



Over the counter stuff isn't effective against full-blown conjunctivitis and may allow the problem to worsen considerably.
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But chloamphenicol is in Optrex, an over the counter treatment. I have it in my hand right now! My horse has gunky eyes and this is what I'm using on her.

How can it possibly be a medical emergency which always requires the vet when I am told to pee off by my doctor and go to the pharmacist when I have it? My eyes are just as sensitive as a horses I'm sure.

Whilst I totally agree that it is not something you want to leave for any amount of time I think giving it a few days to clear up is acceptable. If no better in a couple of days then call.
 
jesstickle said:
But chloamphenicol is in Optrex, an over the counter treatment. I have it in my hand right now! My horse has gunky eyes and this is what I'm using on her.

How can it possibly be a medical emergency which always requires the vet when I am told to pee off by my doctor and go to the pharmacist when I have it? My eyes are just as sensitive as a horses I'm sure.

Whilst I totally agree that it is not something you want to leave for any amount of time I think giving it a few days to clear up is acceptable. If no better in a couple of days then call.
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I stand corrected - Google informs me that chloramphenicol is now available from a pharmacy and is off prescription! Hmm. Perhaps the OP's vet suspected a more systemic problem which eye meds wouldn't cure on their own? I always ask, as tactfully as possible, about the treatment schedule.
 
jesstickle said:
But chloamphenicol is in Optrex, an over the counter treatment. I have it in my hand right now! My horse has gunky eyes and this is what I'm using on her.

How can it possibly be a medical emergency which always requires the vet when I am told to pee off by my doctor and go to the pharmacist when I have it? My eyes are just as sensitive as a horses I'm sure.

Whilst I totally agree that it is not something you want to leave for any amount of time I think giving it a few days to clear up is acceptable. If no better in a couple of days then call.
Click to expand...

Totally agree!!

It seems to me that there a lot of folk on here that(or so they say) will reach for the phone and their vet far to quickly nowadays and woe betide any one of us who don't!?
 
brighteyes said:
I stand corrected - Google informs me that chloramphenicol is now available from a pharmacy and is off prescription! Hmm. Perhaps the OP's vet suspected a more systemic problem which eye meds wouldn't cure on their own? I always ask, as tactfully as possible, about the treatment schedule.
Click to expand...

Obviously it isn't over the counter for horses though so I had to lie through my teeth to get it :) Bad me.

And it does sound like this was a particularly nasty infection. Mine has just had snotty eyes for a couple of days. Never so swollen they were shut! Even miserable, animal neglector me would have had the vet for that!

And elsbells I know what you mean. Sometimes I post about what I think is pretty minor and a few people always manage to put the wind up me by telling me my horse is going to die. I should learn to stop asking as it just scares me!
 
Have you ever come across a poor vet??? If you were to suddenly object to paying their extortionate bills how would they pay for their yacht's moored down at poole in Dorset? How would they pay darling Jemima's school fees?? (name changed for obvious reasons). I have had my fingers badly burnt by certainly one particular vet, however had my faith restored by a lovely vet who arrived within 20 mins of my phone call ( a 20 mile car trip) when my 28 year old pony had a severe colic attack getting down in her stable and whilst rolling broke her leg on the wall. The vet obviously put her down but was quiet , professional and sympathetic in her manner. It was an emergency call out in out of hours time. My bill was £125. I have now transferred to this practice. Silva house vets in midsomer norton get my vote every time.:)
 
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