Thursday, May 30, 2013

Finding A Compounding Pharmacy For Your Special Medication Needs

By Marjorie Vargas


A compounding pharmacy is just like a regular one that can be found in many grocery stores and in drug stores everywhere, but with one significant difference. This particular type of pharmacy can make specialty drugs that may not be readily available in common facilities. They are a lifesaving option for patients who cannot get their medications through normal facilities.

Pharmaceuticals go back many, many years and originally all were considered to be compounded. This was before modern manufacturing, and was the accepted way to get the correct combinations of healing components to the patient. The ingredients were taken from natural sources, such as from plants and animals. The original uses also included the making of dyes, perfumes and early cosmetics.

A patient may need or prefer a compounding facility for any number of reasons. Some of them could include allergic reactions to an ingredient in the commercial version and the specialty pharmacist can remove this without altering the effectiveness of the medication. Bioidentical hormone formulations are also popular usages for compounding. Virtually any legal ingredient can be combined to make a unique and specific medication for an individual patient.

There are two different processes that are recognized in the pharmaceutical industry. The first technique is referred to as "traditional" which would include IV fluids that a hospital prepares for an individual patient, sometimes many times a day. This can also include oral medications that may need to change the original form, for example from a pill form to a liquid form.

Another form of compounding helps to solve the more complex issues that may be encountered in obtaining a medication for a patient. This allows the pharmacist to get creative and tailor the specifications to exactly what the patient needs. This can include changing the form of the original med into a cream, gel or other form to make it easier to be ingested or applied. Animals and children can benefit from doing this, as more appealing and tasty flavorings can be added to their liquid medicine to assist in getting it down, or making pills smaller or easier to be ingested.

There are also a limited number of pharmacies that can produce a medication that has been discontinued for mass distribution due to low sales numbers. If a patient has a good response to a particular medication and wants to continue it, a compounding pharmacy may be able to help.

In the US, these facilities must be licensed and are subject to some of the same state regulations that their counterparts are held to. The PCAB (Pharmacy Compound Accreditation Board) is the agency that regulates these specialized labs but this accreditation is not required or mandatory, and they are only inspected every three years to check for compliance with the standards that are set for other pharmacies.

The compounding pharmacy can be of a great benefit to many different groups of patients, depending on need, including animals. Most of the population can get their medications in the normal fashion, but for a select group of people needing specialized prescriptions, a compounding pharmacy may be the answer.




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