002 Getting Medications into Pets

This episode is dedicated to all the different ways to get medications in dogs and cats in the veterinary clinic, and how to teach clients to get medications into their pets at home. 

Need some CE credits? Make sure to fill out the CE questions after the show notes and transcripts to get your CE certificate. 

Show Notes: 

In This Episode… 

Things you will learn 

• How to get medications into pets 

• What to look for when offering tips; prescription diets, food aversion, etc.  
• Client education 
  • ​Offer demos (Tech utilization is important) 
  • Videos
  • Handouts 
• Study medications
  • ​​Confirm dosing medications (Before/after/with food)  
  • Sucralfate, Denamarin, etc.
  • Is labwork being run? Which medications have been given, and what time? 
  • Check with lab on when blood samples should be obtained if monitoring therapeutic levels
  • Discuss medication side effects with clients 
  • Should that medication be split? 
• Use Plumb’s to learn more about medications you are dispensing 

• Follow medications with food or water to reduce the risk of esophagitis or esophageal stricture 
• Where to get medications
  • Compounding 
  • Local 
  • Vet office 
  • Online 
• Medication waste
  • ​ State regulation guidelines should be reviewed.  

Tip of the week 

• Butter to help meds pass in cats: A study done by Auburn University 
• Pet Piller- inform clients 

• Coupons for clients through GoodRx.com/pets 

Cautions  

• Esophageal strictures 

• What drugs can cause this: doxycycline can for sure 

• Aspiration pneumonia 

• Food aversion 

• Inform clients drugs should not be added to pet’s food 

• Bites 

• If injections can use e-collar, muzzle, large blankets, or distraction techniques 

• Pokes 

• Remember to teach clients how to safely cap needles and get rid of sharps properly. 

Resources We Mentioned in the Show 

• IMFPP Blog Posts About Medications: 
  • ​Where to Get Pet Medications: 
    • ​https://www.internalmedicineforpetparents.com/blog/where-to-get-pet-medications
  • Open Wide (How to get medications into pets): 
    • ​​https://www.internalmedicineforpetparents.com/blog/open-wide 

 

• IMFPP Blog Posts About Medications (cont): 
  • How to help tablets pass into a cats stomach and prevent esophagitis: 
    • ​​https://www.internalmedicineforpetparents.com/blog/how-to-help-tablets-pass-into-a-cats-stomach-and-prevent-esophagitis 
• List of recommended pharmacies:
  • ​https://www.internalmedicineforpetparents.com/pharmacies.html 
• Medication Coupons:
  • ​​www.Goodrx.com (There’s an app for that too!) 
• Plumbs Veterinary Drug Book:
  • ​https://www.plumbsveterinarydrugs.com/#!/home 
• Wedgewood Pet Pharmacy Instructional Video 
  • ​https://www.wedgewoodpetrx.com/learning-center/instructional-videos.html 

 
 
Thanks so much for tuning in. Join us again next week for another episode! 
 
Listening Options 

•  Direct Download from the website. 
•  Subscribe on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast player for free! 

•  If you enjoyed this episode, rate and leave us a review wherever you can! 

Contact Us! 

• Check out www.internalmedicineforvettechs.com  
• If you want to get involved, leave us a comment! 
• Visit us and give us a ‘like’ on our Facebook page! 
  https://www.facebook.com/internalmedicineforvettechs 

• Email us at podcast@internalmedicineforvettechs.com  

 
Thanks for listening! 
– Yvonne and Jordan 
 

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002 Getting Medications into Pets Internal Medicine For Pet Parents Podcast.mp3 transcript powered by Sonix—the best audio to text transcription service

002 Getting Medications into Pets Internal Medicine For Pet Parents Podcast.mp3 was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the latest audio-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors. Sonix is the best way to convert your audio to text in 2019.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
Welcome to the Internal Medicine For Vet Techs Podcast. If you haven't joined us before, we're passionate about all things internal medicine that affects our pets, we'll be discussing crazy internal medicine diseases, how to work closely with pet parents, and how to be the best tech we possibly can. Now let's start the show.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
Hey, guys. Welcome back. I'm so glad you are joining us again for the Internal Medicine for Vet Techs podcast. I am joined here by Jordan.

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
Hello again.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
Hey, girl. Hey. So we are now what is this, our second episode that we're actually recording, which is very exciting, by the way. I don't know if you feel that way. So we're gonna be we're gonna be launching this. And this week we decided we were gonna talk about medications, not the super sexiest of conversations, but it's one that as technicians, I don't know about you, Jordan. But I thought about it all the time with clients.

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
Yeah, I think it's key to kind of try to just get extra helpful tips on like how to discuss medications with clients. So it's more based on that versus actual like drugs and drug names and uses and stuff more just about client communication.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
Yeah. Yeah. I don't I don't want is high around drugs and uses. There's there's other stuff for that. But the common, you know, things that clients will talk to me about is, you know, how do I get the meds in. And where do I get medications? You know, are there options for medications? So I think that's really where today's discussion will be going. And we'll try to share some some tips as well as things to remember to consider and also things to remember to tell owners. I don't know about you, but I sometimes forget that things aren't super intuitive for owners and I have to get reminded occasionally.

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
Yeah, it's hard, err, it's easy to get lost in how simple it seems to be for us to go through the motions of just medicating an animal and how difficult that can be. My husband quickly, you know, points out that he does not catch on to that stuff as quickly as I am just spilling it out of my mouth.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
So, yeah, significant others are great for pointing out what you're an expert in and you're talking to someone who doesn't know what you're talking about. Yeah. Yeah. My husband does that too. It's really funny.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
But that leads us into our next subject.

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
How to get oral medications into pets. This is where we should start. Just, from the basics of people always want to hide it in food, and I don't know about you, but from an internal standpoint, that's not always the best option.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
No, my internists, they pretty much refused to do that unless, of course, it's something like, you know, FortiFlora or Tylosin. And I mean, it's a horrible idea because, you know, we don't want our pets to start associating the food with medications, especially because most times the pets that we see are our picky eaters anyway.

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
Yeah, they're already in for some sort of GI disease usually. So.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
Well, most times for us.

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
Yeah, definitely.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
If you're out there and you work in a general practice, sometimes you don't have as much. But I actually think even when I was in general practice, we had tons of animals that were coming in because they had a little gastric upset, real vomiting. Give some subq fluids, give an injection of an anti-nausea. They go home and have a great day. I guess GI stuff is common in general practice as well.

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
It's probably pretty relevant. It feels like it's been so long since I've been in general practice.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Excuse me as I say that I haven't been in general practice in over ten years, so.

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
Oh wow. Yeah. See at least mine's about five.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
Yeah. I'm a little further out from general practice whoops. Yeah. So by the way, people listening out there, techs that are listening out there, please let us know, there's going to be comments on her on our Web page. Please let us know if, you know, we forget that we're not in general practice and you want to explain something. We'd be happy to talk about that, too.

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
Yeah, definitely. It's something that we probably tend to usually do.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
But one big thing is I hear this almost, almost every week where somebody is like, "oh, yeah yeah, I just put that food in the medication. I crush up the pills and I put it put it in their food. And, you know, it's it's the most times he eats it". And I'm just like especially with things like antibiotics, like, I know that's a horrible idea because you don't know if they're getting their full dose and there are medications like especially Baytril or enrofloxacin and that are you know, you have to have that full dose at one time for it to be effective. So if you're putting, you know, I'm just using Baytril as an example. But if you're putting Baytril into food and let's say Fluffy, because everything is named Fluffy, right? Let's say Fluffy takes four hours to eat this. Right? Well, now, instead of getting that that pulse dose of bedroll at one time, we're giving it over four hours, which if you remember pharmacokinetics and dynamics and all that stuff, not that I really want to remember that, that changes it. I'll give the example of what I mean by this is like you're at the club and you just ordered five shots of tequila, right? Do you want to take the one shot of tequila, or are you taking all five of them at once? Or are you spreading all five of them over five hours? It's different. So it's in your bloodstream.

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
Very interesting example.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
Oh, well, I mean, most people understand alcohol.

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
Yeah, it makes complete sense.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
But I relate medications to alcohol, what?

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
We're all vet techs we can definitely relate to alcohol.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
Or we have our sloppy drunk friend that we hang out with.

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
Yeah, that too. That too.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
Yeah. But I don't know. But most technician's we go out and party.

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
It definitely can make it difficult giving those medications. Some of those pills are so big.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
Yeah. Yeah.

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
Especially Baytril, if we're gonna be on the topic of Baytril. Those tablets are huge and not tasty.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
Not tasty. I don't know what any animal that eats it. I don't.

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
Probably a black or a yellow lab. But that's about it, actually.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
What you don't put it in food is basically what we're saying and what cause what happens to it. Another thing that can happen is food aversion, especially cats. Please, for the love of God, do not put medications in their food because they're picky as it is. And so having them associate a food with with a medication, especially a bad tasting one, can make it so that they don't eat. And that's, especially with cats, that's a big deal.

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
I think putting it in some sort of like treat or like a separate food meal, I've had people put it in like yogurt or cottage cheese. And that seems to work fine as long as you discuss with your veterinarian who prescribed it that that's OK, obviously.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
And they don't have food allergies or sensitivities.

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
Yeah. Because that and that definitely needs to be with a prescription diet. If that were the case, like longstanding IBD, dogs and cats tend to have specific food diets that they need. So trying to just wrap up a piece of, or wrap up a pill on a piece of ham is probably not ideal. So you definitely need to get a thorough history when it comes to finding out how to best recommend getting medicine to your patient.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
Yeah. And some of those options, especially if they're on a prescription diet, is using the wet food. And I say create a little meatball with that wet food. And most of the times dogs are happy about it. Cat. Mm hmm, I don't know. Yeah, some some cats. Not many. Some cats eat food in pill pockets and things or pill wraps. Excuse me. Yeah. And using I don't know if you guys use the pill wrap's or the pill pocket?

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
Uh-huh.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
I usually make like one go for three tablets or pills or whatever because I think there's it's almost too much of the stuff but.

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
Yeah.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
Yeah. The cool thing about those is it helps it slide down the esophagus which is nice. And so a lot of times you can get things in with that. The other thing...

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
If I was gonna say gel capsules tend to work well for me to the ones that like you can just buy empty gel capsules on like Amazon or other like online holistic stores. Some pharmacies carry them. I know the pharmacy down the street from us carries like you assume just go buy a bag of one for a pretty cheap and you can stick small pills into to a gel capsule. And sometimes that's easier to give to a patient, especially you're going to try to pill them with it, doesn't seem to, it seems to go down a little bit easier.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
Yeah. The one thing about gel caps, too, just to remember is you want to follow it with either food or water. Because the gel caps can sometimes stick on the way down. And you don't want that to like stay in the esophagus and cause esophagitis or anything like that.

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
Yeah. Exactly. And then we do a lot of compounding. I know transdermal is or hit or miss on if they actually do work. So you definitely have to look into which medications are not recommended to be compounded into transdermal.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
I think there is the like the Pharmacy Association. They have their formularies and stuff like that. So a lot of times they know what can be compounded and what can't. And you want to make sure that if you're doing compounding. Well, not if "you're doing", but if you're sending in medications to be compounded, that it's a reputable pharmacy, at least stringent guidelines for that.

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
Yeah. Or any compounded medication, really just we compound a lot of liquids. We usually tend to ask our clients, like, do you prefer to try liquids or pills? Surprisingly, a lot people do prefer pills, which I 100% get because I feel like I would prefer pills with some of my pets.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
But oh yeah, for sure.

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
But I feel like I should always be liquid.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
I don't know. It's funny because I have my caps here and one of them I can pill is like I basically throw it at her and she swallows it. Whereas my other cat, I try to kill him and he acts like I'm killing him. Oh, I really think it depends on the cat.

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
Yeah.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
Yeah. The other thing too, which I thought was interesting is I had a rat. I don't know if you guys use Entice? We have a lot of feedback from our clients that the Entice is bitter and they know the pets don't like the taste of it.

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
Yeah, I've tasted it. It's it's like weirdly sweet.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
You did not taste it! Oh my God!

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
I had to, like, I can't. It's just.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
You realize you're putting this out in the public forum, that you just tried Entice?

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
Well, because the first time I gave it a dog like salivated like crazy after. And so I was like, why? And it's sticky and syrupy like. And so I tasted it. And it's like weirdly super sweet. But then, yeah, bitter at the same time. It's not very good. I don't know. It's a little disappointing.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
Well, so one of the cool things about it, well, not about it. But from my rep, he actually said that if you have a dose of it, you can put it in a gel cap and then just give it to the animal really quickly. So you just basically put it in, close it, get it into the animal. So it masks the taste, but they're still getting it. Obviously, you're not pre filling these capsules with liquid medications. But, you know, if you're having trouble that I thought that was really cool. Actually, I was like, oh, I can put liquid inside a capsule. Wow.

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
Yeah, that's really interesting, actually.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
The other thing is there are some medications that are dissolvable. I kind of found out with some of them which ones are just because we have like feeding tube pets. And I personally prefer to use the feeding tube if I'm going to have to give medications to an animal with a feeding tube.

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
Yeah, definitely.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
And so like things like Cerenia, the maropitant citrate and those dissolve really quickly in water. So that's an option, too. Like if you're having trouble getting about into like a cat, you know, for using it off label with cats, which we do all the time. Yeah. You can you know, if you're having trouble pulling them, you can dissolve it in water and get it into them. But again, just making sure with the taste of things.

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
Yeah, exactly. Because that's the well I mean because I'd rather have a cat taste Cerenia versus giving the injection but.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
What are the other things, too? I don't. Do you guys use Wedgewood Pharmacy?

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
Yes, I do like Wedgewood. Just because they are reputable and they bill and ship to the clients, it takes us out of the equation.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
Oh, yeah, I love that part of it. So they have a really funny video on their website. It's for clients and it shows how to give medications. I highly recommend you guys check it out because it makes me laugh. It's it's kind of this 50s housewife and she's like figuring out how to give medications. And then the host is talking. I died the first time I saw it. So if you like, really cheesy and funny, I definitely recommend it.

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
Yeah, I don't think I've ever seen. So we'll definitely have to take a look at that one. I know a couple of things that we try to do with some, some clients who have to kind of feel them out. But I am depending on the situation, we will teach clients to give injectable medications like dexamethasone subcu. For patients that really just cannot take anything early, like we have severe stomatitis kitty cats or just painful esophagus, just unusual reasonings behind it sometimes, or they're just bad and they prefer to give injectable. But that's always a go to choose to teach clients how to give injectable meds.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
We we've actually we had a dog with really bad PLE, so protein losing enteropathy, and her guts were so bad that she wasn't absorbing the pred that we were giving orally. So we ended up doing dexamethasone injections and she did remarkably better. So yeah, you know, that's obviously not our preferred method to give injections, but it's definitely something that we can do. And honestly, like knowing how to show clients how to do injections is huge.

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
Yeah. Because especially like in general practice, you can get a lot of diabetics. So that's, it should be kind of a common practice in general practice is to show clients how to give injectable medications, whether it be with a standard syringe or an insulin syringe, how to draw medications and then give subcu.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
I was gonna say not only that, but subcu fluids.

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
Yes, right.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
So we I think we're probably all fairly comfortable with it. Definitely. I don't know about you guys in because you're you're in Georgia, right?

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
Uh-huh.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
So in California, because California's strict about everything we have to our sharps disposal, we can't just throw sharps in the regular trash. So one of the things we have to do is, or we should do, I don't think everybody does this, is we should talk to them about proper sharps disposal. So I created a client handout for my clients that just talked about, you know, where do you get a sharps disposal bucket? What do you do with it? Once it's gone. So, you know, and making sure that they understand sharps handling. Right.

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
Yeah.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
I definitely don't want the poking themselves. So ideally, you know, they do the first injection in the hospital and or you have a stuffed animal that you're.

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
Yeah. And I find it helpful in giving those demonstrations. Try different positions. Try having showing the fight how to give an injection with someone else holding the pet. So then they're just giving the injection and then show them again how to do it on their own. So if for some reason they don't have someone there to help hold the cat or dog that day or that morning for that insulin injection show them multiple different methods. So that way it's not just a standard across the board. because no pet is standard.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
Right. Exactly.

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
I find it helpful to kind of go through a couple of different scenarios for that.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
So the next kind of important part of the equation is timing of medications. You would think that this is normal and easy, but one of my clients surprised me. I know because I wrote the prescription label. So it's not like the prescription label was written by someone else. But I literally put on the label, give one capsule orally every twelve hours. She was like, OK. So I gave it I give it once a day and I was like, but it's every twelve hours.

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
Oh honey.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
And she was like, well yeah I give it once a day in the morning and I was like but it's every twelve hours it's it's it's twice a day.

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
Yeah.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
Obviously that's an extreme. She was one of those housewives that I think may have been taking her kids vicodan but, err not vicodan. What's the other one?

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
Adderall.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
Ritalin? Adderall one of those. See, I don't even know. But I was like, oh okay, great. So it's really important to make sure your clients understand how frequently they're giving the medications. Also, if there's medications that are not allowed to be together.

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
Yeah, like sucralfate.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
Yeah, that's the big one. Hopefully everybody knows because I have to sometimes tell the clients, this right? Like sucralfate is a coating medication. So what it does is it coats the esophagus, if it's liquid. If it's not liquid, if it's tablets, once it starts dissolving, you know, it coats the stomach, the intestines. That's what it's there for. What happens is once it's coding, it's not going to let anything else absorb. And that includes food. That includes other medications. So it's really important to not give any other medications or food when you're giving sucralfate. I think my internist says an hour before or two hours after.

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
Yeah. That's what we do. And if that's confusing, sometimes I'll just say two hours before or after just to make it easier on people.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
Have you had any feedback from any of your clients with sucralfate where it actually comes out the other end whole?

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
Yes. So we started just giving all sucralfate already in a slurry, knowing that it's going to coat the esophagus as well. But we do find that it coats the stomach because we've actually done a scope before where the dog got a tablet of sucralfate probably twelve hours prior and it was still sitting in the stomach tablet form. So,

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
Really?

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
Yeah. Well, obviously, because it was still sitting in the stomach, the dog had some other GI issues, but it wasn't dissolving like it's should. So yeah, we did it now.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
Wow, that's crazy. We've had clients be like oh yeah, it just came out the other end and I was like no way. I thought they were crazy until we kind of I talked to my doctor and she's like, oh yeah, I've heard that from other clients too. So if you can dissolve it, great. If not the liquid. I'm not a giant fan of the liquid that we have in my hospital because it's such a large volume.

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
Yeah.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
And I think it's like cherry flavored. And I'm like, nobody wants cherry flavored chocolate.

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
Yeah. Plus, I feel like you have more control over like if you cut a tablet in half and then you just mix it with a little bit of water versus like you really have to shake the suspension really well just to be sure that it's like all the same consistency and dosing.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
Yeah, that's very true. Yeah. The other thing too is like meds that need to be on an empty stomach versus given with food. You know, those are issues. But the the big ones are like making sure they know which ones are going to interact with each other.

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
Yeah. One then making sure to have had a lot of clients come in and say, well, I couldn't get this, wwll you already kind of touched on it with the Baytril, but like about it being cut so they give it a quarter at a time and people do it with denamarin. Erin will there they'll give half a tablet before breakfast, then half tablet later in the evening. And denamarin can't be cut. Otherwise, it doesn't work.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
Because it's an antioxidant.

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
So I think being sure that you just communicate with your clients on, no these medications really can't be crushed up or cut or yes, this one can be this one should be given with food. It's a lot of client communication.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
Yeah. Hopefully everyone feels comfortable talking to their clients. But I always tell like my baby techs that I work with sometimes clients talk to us differently than they do the veterinarian's and we talk to them sometimes. Well, I definitely talk differently to my clients than my veterinarian does, because she's very smart, and she's uber smart. And I think, you know, she sometimes forgets to not use doctor words when talking to clients. Clients will hear things differently from us versus, you know, a doctor versus, you know, their friends, too. So we're a huge part of making sure that they understand.

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
Yeah, exactly. Frankly, I'd prefer people to ask me how to give something versus not being sure and Googling it. So,.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
Yes. Yes. So although, you know, we're going to be out there, but don't Google! But you can use reputable websites.

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
And some how to videos and all that good stuff.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
We're working on that at as of this recording, which is September 2019, which, you know, before it's actually live, we're working it, we're going to be working on videos for how to we just haven't done it yet. But hopefully, you know, keep an eye out on the Web site and we'll let you know as soon as that is available.

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
Yeah. And I found too, I mean even without the How-To videos I made some like how to sheets. So I made how to give insulin injection handouts with my own dog that I just gave water to, obviously sterile water. And I think just kind of taking initiative when you find that you're having the same conversation over and over and over again and you just want to break it down to make it simple, take it upon yourself to just make a how to sheet.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
And we also, we'll put some on the website, too. So Internal Medicine For Pet Parents. If you go to the website there, we have client handouts and so just check to see which ones we have. That'll work for you because, you know, sometimes you don't have to reinvent the wheel, just find a, you know, something that works for you and use it.

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
Yeah. And if you think of something that you want how to sheet on, but you don't really know how to go about it. Just email us. Reach out to us. And I'm sure that either Yvonne or I can make one.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
Oh, 100 percent.

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
Kind of one of my favorite things to do is to make how to sheets.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
Yeah. We do a lot of that right here. Yeah. And with you actually with how to. Speaking of remember medications that are timing specific. So diabetic patients, thyroid, Cushings pets make sure they're getting their medications at normal times, especially prior to an office visit. Ask the owner specifically One: Did they get their medications and what time did they get their medications? And two: did they eat that day? Because that can affect lab work. And so that's huge. So making sure to confirm with an owner if they've given that medication can make it so we either redo the appointment schedule for another day or we go, OK, we're good. We can still do the things that we need to do. So that's that's another big part of our intake, the prior.

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
The goal is to not waste client's money. So finding out that they didn't give their thyroid med or their Vetoryl prior to coming in for a recheck is pretty disappointing when you're like, why are these values all wacky? And then the doctor finds out and then they're upset.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
Or worse comes to worse, the doctor never finds out. And then there are adjusting dosages of things that are either too much or not enough because they didn't give medication. So it's it's really important that we we get that information when a when a pet's coming.

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
Yeah. I mean, that's our job. That's what we're there to do is to catch little things like that. And again, just really make it kind of seamless for a doctor and client.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
So, yeah, definitely. The other thing and we won't go into this in huge depth right now, but we will at some point is making sure that if there's medications that we follow it with food and water, make sure it gets out of the esophagus. There was actually a study there. It was. Yeah, a study that was published by ACVIM. It was done at Auburn University that actually looked at cats and they did fluoroscopy on these cats, which is really cool, actually. So they did fluoroscopy where they gave a tablet and then they took the image to see how long it took from getting into the mouth and into the stomach. And over half of these cats took over 10 minutes for the tablet to go from the mouth to the stomach, which is crazy.

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
Yeah. it's unreal.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
Yeah. And so what they did to see, they're like, OK, well, how do we how do we shorten that? Because there's plenty of medications that can cause the esophagus, cause strictures. Doxycycline's the big one. And I thought this is kind of cool is that they used a small, tiny amount of butter applied to the tablet and these tablets passed in less than a minute,.

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
Which is crazy because I don't know, it seems so simple. It seems like such a simple idea yet, like I don't think I've ever thought to use butter, but I get to work for an internist, so butter is like off the table.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
Butter is off the table in my place too. But I think I think it was just making it so the tablets were slick.

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
Yeah. It wasn't like a sufficient amount to cause any other issues.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
Yeah. And the other thing too is you're stimulating the cat to lick. Right? So even like I think they were talking about Nutrical as well. You could put it on the nose and that helped. So it's other things that encourages them to lick is huge.

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
Yeah. Yeah. Because you want to get the whole system moving, not just pop it down there and then hope that the esophagus is gonna do its job. The cat needs to swallow and, you know, really move that pill down into the stomach.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
Yeah. And if it's a sticky like especially, especially capsules. Right? That's going stick. I don't know if you guys have ever had a pill stick in the back, your throat and you're just like "it's stuck" and then you have to drink water and get it down. Is that just me?

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
I mean, I suppose it doesn't happen super often.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
Great. So I'm old and these things happen just, you know, things getting stuck. That's what you get to look forward to Jordan, it's cool. It's cool.

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
My husband thought he was dying once because like his vitamin got stuck.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
But I would feel the same way.

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
So where do we get these medications that we so frequently prescribe and want to kind of help the client? Obviously convenient would be from the clinic itself, but sometimes that's not always possible. We have a local compounding pharmacy that we use probably daily go out for those patients who really prefer liquid and the ones that we know can be liquid, we prescribe a lot of the same things. But yeah, so we use a local like small in town compounding pharmacy a lot, which is nice.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
That's cool. It's nice to keep it local too, because then, you know, most times you can call ahead of time and say, oh yeah, day or two. But if, if you need it really quickly. Like if you knew that stat for something, if you have that relationship, that's awesome.

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
Yeah, they're very, very nice. There's so many times I call in the morning and I'm like, I have a patient in the hospital who needs this aspirin now. And they're very good about it. Yeah. Getting it at the in the clinic is tends to be more convenient and cheaper.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
Yeah. It's funny. I don't know about you guys, but we use ondansetron a ton and that's much cheaper.Yeah. At my clinic and I work in a specialty clinic. But even at my clinic, you know I can get a month's supply for like, I don't know, 30 bucks or something through through my pharmacy. And that's included the typical, you know, the veterinary pharmacy markup. But I've had clients go to my local Safeway or Walgreens or whatever, and they're talking like hundreds of dollars for this medication.

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
Yeah. And we always have a caller like no generic. A lot of the pharmacies will be like, no, that is generic. It's $120 for the generic and $300 for a brand name, so.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
Right. Yeah. So for us, it's like we never prescribe that one out. We just take it out or get it here, it's way cheaper, which is crazy because it's usually not that way.

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
Because a lot of times like I know a lot of the pharmacies are almost like Wal-Mart tends to be cheaper. Costco, Sam's Club, those tend to be a lot of the cheaper ones to get some of those more expensive drugs. And a lot of those pharmacies are now doing veterinary drugs.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
Yeah, we've we had more pharmacies for a while around us that we're doing veterianry drugs, but it's kind of pulled back a little bit.

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
Yeah.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
But I don't know if you guys use it, but GoodRX.com, GoodRX.com/pets. That's huge. You can type in the medication and see about how much it would be at the different pharmacies. And if you have not used this Web site before. By the way, everyone out there. I highly recommend it because it's insane the difference between the different pharmacies and what they will charge for medications.

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
Yeah, I have the app on my phone so I can show clients when I go to a room and I'm like, we're prescribing this, here's where you can find it for these prices. We do have to be careful. Look at the bottom of some of those coupon codes because sometimes it'll say not for pet use. But I love the app. The app is great.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
But it also I mean, I don't actually don't have the app, so I may have to check it, but I use the Web site and even then it'll tell you like the price of the medication before their discount. So you kind of get an idea of which place is gonna be least expensive, too, and that's going to be for your local pharmacies.

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
Yeah, I think that's a nice thing that you can do. You can spend five seconds looking up a drug on GoodRX for clients and they seem to really like it. It gives them less running around to do to know that they can just go over to CVS and it's 50 cents cheaper.

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
So, yeah, yeah. One of the other things too. So you have Costco by you.

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
Yes.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
OK. I think it's I think it's nationwide. I don't know if Costco's out of the United States yet. I wouldn't be surprised because it's Costco. But one of the cool things and I tell this to my clients all the time. You can shop in the pharmacy and not have a membership, which is cool.

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
Oh, nice. Yeah. I don't think I did. I don't think I knew that. Yeah. A lot of people will go to look for stuff. But you have to have a membership there.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
Yeah. So and I don't. I mean hopefully that's not just a California thing, but I know in California specifically, you can go into the pharmacy. So basically, you go to the door and say, I'm just here for the pharmacy and you could go to the pharmacy, get the medication. You don't have to be a member. The price is a little bit more expensive for nonmembers. But it's not it's not a huge jump. I've never seen it be more than like a couple of bucks difference, but.

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
Yeah, yeah, that's definitely nice. I know we talked about Wedgewood/Diamondback earlier.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
So online compounding pharmacies.

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
Yeah, those are nice too. I like the wedge where just because I can do it online and I don't actually have the and speak to anybody but.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
Yeah. And for us we used more Diamondback pharmacies. But in, this is again September 2019. They're in the process of merging Wedgewood and Diamond back. And they're online portals I think are supposed to merge in October or November of this year. And so I don't know how easy it's going to be to use? So I don't know about you, but we use Diamondback because we had multiple doctors under there and we could order under whichever doctor versus Wedgwood. It looks like you have to have a doctor specific account, which is difficult because I literally have 20 doctors in my building. So that's a pain for me.

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
Yeah, I guess I haven't used Wedgewood in a minute, but I think all the ones that we've used recently I would just like refill requests. I can't think of a new one that I called in recently where the doctor would've been an issue. But I use Roadrunner sometimes and they're pretty good. But Wedgwood was always my go to. If I couldn't get it around the corner and our local compounding pharmacy usually.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
Yeah, we are local, it's not super local, but I mean if we need it same day we can usually get it. But we did a lot of like the online pharmacies.

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
Yeah.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
Oh the other thing so I don't know if you guys know about this, but specifically for a erythropoeitin, do you guys use erythropoeitin? You must use erythropoeitin for your...

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
Yes. And we've gotten darbepoetin and recently wait, there's a hospital around the corner that we can go buy it from.

Oh, sweet. Yeah. Darbepoetin. Erythropoeitin used to be the old name. So Darbe. If you have pets that are on Darbe, if you go to the Wal-Mart specialty pharmacy, so not the regular pharmacy. So Walmart specialty pharmacy online, they can get Darbepoetin for you and it's significantly less expensive compared to like places we can get it. I don't know about you. We can get individual bottles for I think through Wal-Mart was like two hundred and fifty dollars.

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
Oh yeah, that's much better. I want to say last time I bought it was like 400 and something.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
Oh yeah, definitely. Check out Wal-Mart Specialty Pharmacy. And the great thing is they ship it directly to the client. So.

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
Oh, nice.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
Yeah. Warning. Definitely warn your clients because my cat was on it and I didn't know this, but the first package arrived and it was in a giant box and it had the cause. It's cold. It needs to be refrigerated. So it had the giant styrofoam in the box plus a bunch of ice packs. And it's everybody knows how big it is. It's a 1 ml bottle.

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
Yeah.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
It was in this 2 foot by 3 foot box so. Well, maybe not that, but it's probably 2 feet by two feet. But either way it's a one ml bottle shaped box. So warn your clients. But it's way less expensive than any other places that we were able to find it at.

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
So yeah, that's some medication. A lot of techs are nervous to give because it's liquid gold. So you can't you can't miss like it's just a subQ injection, but like somehow about someone that always gets squirted out the other side.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
Yeah. And I don't know about you, but I always used an insulin syringe.

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
Yes.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
For dosing it because I didn't want the hub loss. So I used the one hundred insulin syringes and just...

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
Which 10 units equals 0.1 mls. So that was a helpful hint when I worked, well when I start working in internal medicine makes it easier for those like tiny little pets who get those medications like 0.5 mls.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
Yeah. Which is 5 units on a 100. I love using the one hundred syringes for small amounts of medications. I also use them for blood draws, but that's a whole other story.

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
Well that's when we are doing like just PCV platelets on an extremely anemic patient. So yes, we do that all the time.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
Well, we'll talk about on another episode in the future. I think we kind of talked about proper...

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
Yeah. I mean, it's just more back to the client communication fridge versus no fridge with food without food. Oh, immunosuppressant medications that need to be given with gloves. We give gloves to clients and then tell them where to go. Buy more gloves. So they can give medications.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
Yeah. And one thing that I started realizing is we have latex gloves in our our clinic. I think we're finally switching over to non Latex. But just remember, if you're sending them home to ask the client if they have a latex allergy or anybody who might be using it, because that would not be good if you're like, "Here's some gloves you're allergic to." Be careful on that one.

Did we mention Plumb's is a great resource for medication?

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
I don't think we talked about Plumbs, yet.

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
OK.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
So I know why someone wouldn't be familiar with Plumbs Veterinary, that works in our field. If you're not familiar with it, you must be new. Plumb's veterinary is the drug handbook. It's the drug bible. If you're not familiar with their Web site, they have an amazing Web site that hopefully your clinic or your doctor or if you really want to spring for it, can purchase the membership. I think it's a membership, but basically what it does is it gives you access to their handouts. They just recently this year because of California. Yay! Go, California. Because it is now required in the state of California for clients to have medication, education, including medication handouts. So they revamped all their handouts on the different drugs. So you can literally search their database for any of the medications on there, in their book and print out a client handout, which is awesome. It's such it's such a great resource, honestly.

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
Yeah. And it's just good to kind of go through and learn yourself, too, especially if you're new to the field or if you just you're kind of stagnant and where you're at and you want to kind of learn more. I just pick plums and try to figure out like, oh, we've been giving this medication semi-wrong or it's been given, you know, incorrectly in the past and you just want to try to get a better handle on that. Especialty if you're in charge of ordering medications, I find it a lot easier to understand the ordering process if you understand why you're giving a medication. So I feel like it's always good to just to a little bit of light reading on your lunch break, you know, things that we do.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
I love to just look at some drug resources.

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
Yeah, exactly. Everybody wants to do that, right?

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
I'm not going to lie. Drug drug handouts are not what I'm going to be reading on my lunch break.

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
You get a lunch break?

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
I mean, not. Yes. Wait. I'm in the state of California. Yes. I always have a lunch break and I get my 10 minute breaks scheduled every four hours.

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
Right. Yeah. Exactly. All right. Every other technician in the world.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
Yes. Nobody ever skips any breaks. And never do we ever work off the clock or past our scheduled time.

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
No. Exactly. So moving on. I'm a big fan of ordering when I do ordering more drugs and stuff. I like the stickers, like the shake well, or keep refrigerated or like protected stickers or my favorite just because people tend to not listen when they're frantic about their pet. And then when they get home, they're like, oh yeah, this is supposed to go in the fridge.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
Oh, my God. Seriously? Yeah. Stickers are great and we use them all the time at my clinic too.

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
Yeah. And then oh I also have 48 hour, Please call ahead 48 hours to refill. People really listen to us, but,

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
Ours is 24 hours and they never listen. They walk in and they're like, I need a refill of this. And I'm like, what? What, what?

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
Yeah. Right. It's like they need it right now. I'm going out of town in five minutes.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
Yeah. Or. Oh I used the last of my insulin this morning. Can you refill it. And I'm like what?

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
General practice gets like the brunt of all that. We're sorry.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
Thank you, people that work in general practice for dealing with a lot of this stuff before we have to deal with it. I really do appreciate it. Because I remember general practice was much worse about it.

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
Yeah. Yeah. That was constantly like especially like heartworm and flea prevention, that stuff that we don't sell anymore.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
I don't know about you, but I know none of the new products. So when clients ask me I'm like, "I don't know. You should talk to your primary veterinarian about that".

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
Just. Yes. Yes.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
I mean I could grab the Plumb's, but that's not happening.

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
Right. Light reading again. It's pretty simple. I think what this entire episode was supposed to kind of break down to. Just client education, know what to talk to your clients about, just to make your job easier and make it easier on the clients going home when they are frantic about their dog having diarrhea. So side effects to watch out for with some medications, obviously like those wonderful steroids that cause excessive eating and drinking and peeing and panting that people will always call and complain about. And then, of course, the handouts that we talked about that you can give to clients and then the cautions like an esophageal strictures food version was a big one. Aspiration pneumonia. We didn't really touch on. But it could be, especially if you're trying to get a non-compliant pet to take something in your squirting water in the mouth to try to get the medication to go down. Aspiration is something they have to look out for. And then, of course, biting and stuff pets don't like shoving their hands in their mouth.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
When we're talking about bites, it's it's a good idea to warn clients about that. I've had pets that are diabetic that just really were averse to the injections. And so clients had to buy an E collar or they used a muzzle or they did the large blanket, some sort of distraction technique. Maybe they're eating, and we give the injection or, you know, those those animals that are just really adverse to medications coming at them, you know, behavioral training can help with that. But, you know, we do the best that we can. We make sure our clients stay safe and hopefully they know what to look for and and not get bit.

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
And I think that goes back to like just give multiple different scenario demonstrations. If you're demoing how to give something, do it with another person, holding with your self, holding with a towel, with a muzzle, distraction techniques. Just try to kind of cover all grounds for every situation because pets act different in the hospital than they do at home. It's definitely helpful to kind of cover all those bases.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
We also kind of touched on the fact that we need to make sure that owners know how to safely cap needles, get rid of the sharps properly. So making sure they don't get injured client education again.

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
Yes.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
And techs are really good about that. And and I think another thing, too, is just remind clients that if they're having trouble, they can give you a call and talk to you or they can come back into the clinic and get another demo. Right? So just make sure that they feel comfortable with being able to do that is huge, too.

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
Yeah. And utilize your technician appointments, you know, that's what they're there for. I know not every veterinary technician is keen on like the quiet communication aspect of it, but it is a big part of our jobs.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
Oh, a hundred percent agree.

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
Tip of the week, though, that I learned was the butter to help pass medications.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
Yeah, I think that is crazy. And I think it's amazing that they did a study. So butter or some other substance like Nutrical that.

Yeah. So it was pretty good one. And then of course you have your pill pocket, pet pillar's, and then of course the GoodRX download, the app is super helpful.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
Yeah. That's awesome. I'm definitely checking that out. That's really cool.

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
Yeah. It's like coupons at your fingertips. It's great.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
And then we're going to we're gonna put resources on the website as well as our show notes. So you'll have all the links of the stuff that we talked about. Some stuff that we recommend. So like the pet pillar, get our x dot com. We'll put that on there. We will also have the resources on there. So InternalMedicineForPetParents.com/pharmacies. And we have a whole page dedicated to the different kinds of pharmacy's. We'll also put the link for the Veterinary, the Plumb's Veterinary online. So you guys can see that if you haven't seen it already, it's pretty amazing. And we'll include some of the different blog posts that we've done that you can also help with with clients get a little bit of client education. I think that covers just about anything and everything. Someone would want to know about medications, right?

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
Who knew we could talk so much about it and not even actual medications, how to give meds.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
So I hope you guys got something out of this episode. I know I did preparing for this episode. I learned things, which is really cool. And it goes to show that I've been doing this for over 15 years and I'm still learning. So if even if you've been in the field for much shorter, it is not a bad thing to keep continuing to learn. You know, it's part of the RVT motto. So just make sure we continuously learn and get better and make the lives of our pets and our clients better.

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
Well, if you're listening to this that's a good start because I feel like hopefully we can gear some people towards learning a little bit more and hopefully teach people something new each time.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
And now for the question of the week. All right, so this week's question of the week is going to be what's cool tip for client education and medicating pets can you share? So we'd love you to put that in the comments section. So definitely check out our Web site and leave a comment about what you think would be cool for teaching other people things you do.

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
Thanks for listening.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
Yeah. Thank you, everyone, for listening. I'm super excited that you are still with us since you got to the end of the episode, which is awesome. And you know, we will keep working and bring you guys more information for next week. Please let us know if there's anything else you'd like to know. You can drop us a line and leave a comment on the show notes and we'll make sure to do some shoutouts next time, too. Anything else you want to talk about, Jordan?

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
No, that sounds good. Hopefully be talking to you all next week.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
Sounds awesome!

Jordan Porter, RVT, LVT, VTS SAIM:
Okay. Bye.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
Bye!

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
Thank you for listening to today's episode of the Internal Medicine for Vet Techs podcast. If you like where you heard, we'd love for you to share with someone you think might enjoy the podcast. And make sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode. Want to give us a boost? Please leave a review on i-Tunes or your favorite pod catcher and we'll be sure to say thank you.

Yvonne Brandenburg, RVT, VTS SAIM:
Find out everything about us at InternalMedicineForVetTechs.com. Talk to you next week. Bye.

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Question of the Week:

​

•  What cool tip for client education/medicating pets can you share?
  
  • Leave a comment below!!!