Braid Vets Leith Walk

I can't think of one positive thing to say about Braid Vets in Leith. It was a bad experience. My cat was brought to the branch 3.5 years ago. He was suffering from a 4/5-day long constipation, refused to eat and lost weight. Despite being weak, the cat showed a bit of aggression towards the young consultant who was afraid to touch him and failed to take temperature. Ignoring the possibility that the blockage could have been caused by a foreign object stuck in the intestines (the cat had been caught spending much of his time around the Christmas tree), the vet, after a brief examination, concluded that the cause for his distress was likely a "heart murmur". Sounds rather frightening, right? She did agree, however, that his "racing heart", as she called it, could've been stress-related. She also detected a mass in his abdomen implying that it could be a tumour. I won't go into the details describing what kind of mass it actually was... What the vet failed to mention was that there are different types of heart murmurs: some are benign, have no impact on the cat's health and show up when the heart rate is increased due to stress, while other are pathologic. The vet made a referral to their partner emergency night clinic for extensive, hundreds-of-pounds worth tests (x-ray, blood tests, etc.) to be done urgently. She advised to act as fast as possible otherwise the cat might die. She even went as far as suggesting euthanasia as an option if affordability was an issue. The charge was around £80 for a 5 minutes long consultation, an analgesic injection and an overpriced can of wet food my cat refused to eat. I found it hard to believe that my super active cat's cause of suffering was heart-related. I decided not to traumatise him and instead of following the vet's advice followed my own intuition, which turned out to be the right thing to do. After talking to a friend who is a paediatrician, I administered laxative (Microlax enema and Miralax powder). It did the trick. My cat soon had his first bowel movement in days. Later I found a stick and some dry fir needles in the litter-box. His health was fully restored within days. Long story short, my cat was misdiagnosed at Braid Vets. I don't know whether this was due to poor training, lack of expertise, of talent, or simply a common practice in the grabby vet industry to extract as much money as possible from the loving pet owners. Despite the grave "prognosis", my cat has lived active and happy life for the years that followed. Recently his health started to deteriorate. When I took him to a different vet, Petplan refused to pre-authorise treatment basing their decision solely on the "heart murmur" and "mass in his abdomen" (mis)diagnosis from early 2015. I contacted Braid Vets last week via the complaint form on their website, but haven't heard a word back yet. Read Less