Having a dog that has been diagnosed with Addison’s disease means a lifetime of medication twice a day. The main medication required every day is Florinef which at the vet costs $60 for 100 tablets which lasts you 25 days. There is an injectable medicine that does the same job as Florinef which only needs to be administered once a month which costs a whopping $160. The other medication which may be required is Prednisolone which is significantly cheaper but some dogs can manage fine without it.

Over a life time these costs can build up so as a rational consumer it was my duty to find a way to reduce these costs. I asked the vet for various options. One of them was to buy multiple bottles of Florinef so I only pay once for the dispensing fee. The dispensing fee is around $10 so I’d pay $110 for two bottles of Florinef. Florinef has an expiry and has to be kept refridgerated so there’s a limit to that option. The other option mentioned was to give Prednisolone only but it’s not as effective as Florinef and may end up causing problems due to that.

The best solution is to ask your vet to write you a prescription for Florinef and take it to a regular human chemist. At Chemist Warehouse I paid $19.40 for 100 tablets of Florinef. It’s the exact same medicine that humans take. There are online pet pharmacies but still not as competitive at around $28 for the same item.

When I got the prescription from the vet, I did get asked if I was buying online. This confirmed that the vet knew of that option yet didn’t tell me and even suggested the Prednisolone only option. Maybe the vet isn’t allowed to as a condition of working at the clinic, or only as a last resort where a customer decides to terminate their pet stating medication cost as a reason.

It wasn’t obvious to me in the beginning that some medications for dogs are exactly the same as for humans and that they can be obtained from regular chemists. I did find it a bit unexpected when the chemist was calling out my dog’s name to pick up the prescription. You may be able to apply this knowledge to other medications after doing your own research.