I have a horse who gets a foot abscess roughly once every 2 years and it follows the same pattern every single time - I have a day looking at him walking about in the field thinking, 'Is he slightly lame or is it just that the field's lumpy?', he's then hopping lame the following morning, I load him up on bute to make it more comfortable for him to move and because he's still moving about on it, the pumping action of the frog helps it burst out of his heel within 48 hours. Our vets used to have a rule that they wouldn't prescribe over the phone if they hadn't seen the animal in 2 years. They've now dropped it to 6 months, so when I rang them up in December and asked them for 2 days of bute, they insisted on coming out. That then got cancelled due to an emergency and they gave me 3 days of bute without seeing him that day, but insisted on coming the following morning, where he was inspected, found to have an abscess, poulticed (which goes against what my farrier says, which is don't poultice until it's burst), and then left me with 20 sachets of bute. The abscess burst the following day and he was sound again.
Total bill was £125, of which about £20 was for the bute. They're really taking the mickey. At least I have enough in the cupboard now to cover the next two abscesses!