7 Things Your Custom Compounding Pharmacy Can Do (That Most Can’t)

Your local custom compounding pharmacy is much more than just a place to get medication; they can do much more than other pharmacies can.

These pharmacies are a central hub of information, advice, and products to help you achieve and maintain your wellness, no matter your age, condition, or health situation.

Most people recognize that a good pharmacist is often invaluable to the patients they serve, as is a good pharmacy. But are all pharmacies the same? Not at all!

What Is a Custom Compounding Pharmacy?

A custom compounding pharmacy does much more than give advice and fill prescriptions.

They provide a much more in-depth, exhaustive service than everyday pharmacies, going above and beyond to serve patients with unique needs.

They offer:

• Custom dosing
• Ability to combine drugs for convenience and effect
• Alternative dose formats
• Medications for pets
• And much more!

You won’t find services like these at a regular pharmacy!

Custom Dosing

Need a custom dose? Normal pharmacies can usually only work with commercially available drugs in specifically-created doses.

If you need more or less of the drug, you may have to opt for the next lowest or highest dose – and that isn’t always an ideal option. Worse yet, it might not even effectively treat your condition.

A custom compounding pharmacy can create custom doses for just about anything, but there are certain treatments that are almost always compounded.

This includes:

• Bioidentical hormone replacement therapies
• Prescriptions for the very young or very old
• Prescriptions for certain metabolic concerns (like liver and kidney disease).

By compounding, the pharmacy can target the amount of dose delivered to the patient’s exact needs.

For some sensitive patients, this can be the difference between accessing the right meds, getting well, and going without.

For others, it simply makes taking medication more safe and far less likely to cause side effects.

Combining Drugs for Convenience

Do you take multiple meds for one or more health conditions?

Remembering to follow your medicine regimen can admittedly be a bit of a pain, especially if you have a long list of meds to remember.

Most patients cope by using scheduled pill boxes or simply writing themselves reminders… but what if there was a better way?

A custom compounding pharmacy can often combine medications into a single formula, allowing patients on multiple drugs to cut back on the number of drugs in their regimine.

This simplifies the process of using multiple medications including:

• Pills
• Topicals
• Patches
• Troches
• Ointments
• Even injectables

The result of combining meds?

Taking or using medication requires less time, and the patient is far less frustrated, meaning they’re much more likely to be compliant with treatment protocols – and thus, achieve better results.

Combining Drugs for Effect

Sometimes, drug combinations aren’t as much about convenience as they are about making treatments work better. The fact is that certain drugs just plain work better together – for example, codeine and acetaminophen.

While both are effective painkillers that work reasonably well on their own, patients are more likely to achieve uniform pain resolution if they take the drugs at the same time.

Topicals are often combined and compounded for similar reasons.

• For example, doctors may sometimes prescribe a compounded mixture of topical steroids and salicylic acid, with or without the Vitamin D analogue drug calcipotriene, to treat severe scalp psoriasis.
• Instead of having to apply three separate topicals, the patient only has to massage in one single solution.

Ultimately, the list of potential combinations – for any reason – is extremely long (and often dependent on a long list of factors).

If you’re curious about whether this might be an option for you, give your local pharmacist a call and ask!

1. Adding Flavoring

Let’s be honest: some medications are just hard take – and getting kids to take their medicine?

That can be a real challenge, too, especially if they’re already sick and the medicine tastes bitter or sour.

You don’t have to suffer through bad-tasting medicines or pills you struggle to swallow when you work with a custom compounding pharmacy.

Most can add flavoring or coatings to the medicine, depending on the format, to make it easier to ingest and/or more palatable for little ones. Choose from a long list of flavors like:

• Grape
• Apple
• Banana strawberry
• Bubblegum
• Mint

Flavoring might not seem like a big deal, but it certainly can be – especially when you’re a parent trying to coax syrup into your child at 3 a.m.

Why suffer when you don’t have to? Just talk to your pharmacist for help!

2. Alternative Dose Formats

When patients have more advanced challenges, like an inability to swallow (called Dysphagia) or very young age (e.g., infancy), they can’t always swallow pills.

Patients who are immobile or under full-time care often suffer from the same issue, and may even be unable to use topicals or patches.

In these and many other instances, standard dose formats must be changed to better suit the needs of the patient.

For example, if you’re struggling to take pills, the pharmacy can reformat the drug into liquid solution to make it easier to swallow.

If you can’t swallow at all, they may be able to reformat a prescribed pill into a patch or a topical cream instead. Other options include:

• Formatting liquids into troches or lozenges
• Turning injectables into oral solutions
• Making liquids more viscous to ensure safer swallowing

While there are a few rare medications that cannot be reformatted, either for safety reasons or because it deactivates the drug, the vast majority of prescription products can be recreated in a different delivery style.

Just ask your pharmacist whether this is an option for your medication!

3. Filler and Allergen-Free Drugs

Some patients have extreme allergies to the fillers, dyes, or non-medicinal ingredients in certain commercial drugs.

In fact, allergic reactions to inactive ingredients are surprisingly common, and they can even crop up suddenly after the patient has been on a drug for many years.

The most common “culprits” are corn starch, wheat, and red dyes. However, allergies are extremely individual, and what triggers one patient may not trigger another.

Researchers aren’t sure exactly why this happens to some patients and not others.

Most studies do show it does occur more often in patients with pre-existing allergies (such as an allergy to bees or nuts). It’s also more likely to happen if patients have a diagnosed autoimmune condition like Multiple Chemical Sensitivity Syndrome (MCSS).

Obviously, taking a drug that contains a filler you’re allergic to isn’t a good option. But opting to just not take the drug? That’s not an option, either.

You could become sick or even lose function, and that’s not okay.

The good news here is that your custom compounding pharmacy can help.

By breaking down the drug into its base ingredients, they can rebuild it from the ground up, leaving out the harmful allergen to ensure you remain well.

It’s really that easy!

Medication for Pets

Is Fido under the weather? If your vet prescribed a certain medication to help him get back to his silly, fluffy self, you should know that you don’t have to pay expensive vet prices.

It can be far more affordable to buy pet meds through a local pharmacy – and just as with human meds, all you need is a prescription.

While regular pharmacies typically only stock human-specific doses and drugs, compounding pharmacies work with base ingredients. That means they can often create pet meds from scratch in the exact dose your vet prescribes.

Because they’re working with generic base ingredients, treating Fido may even be cheaper, too, and that’s a win-win for everyone involved.

Conclusion

Whether you’re trying to find the perfect dose of bioidentical hormones, or you’re struggling with side effects like nausea after taking your nightly pill, you shouldn’t struggle alone in silence.

Tell your custom compounding pharmacy and ask them to investigate your options. Taking, giving, or using medicine doesn’t need to be a daily battle if your medicine is custom-tailored just for you.