Every year millions of people around the world seek medical treatments for a variety of different ailments. From long-standing health issues passed down from generation to generation to quick bumps and bruises. There are a variety of different measures that you can take to better your health disposition. When you visit your family doctor, general practitioner, or visit an emergency room doctor, they may direct you to visit a physiotherapist, a specialist, a surgeon or encourage a lifestyle change to help with your medical issues. Still, often they prescribe medication as a solution to your medical problems. It is pivotal for us to cautiously approach drugs to assure we don’t harm ourselves in the long run for a short-term solution.
Technological and Scientific Advancements
As the years have gone by, the science and technology behind drug manufacturing have advanced. This has led to the mass manufacturing and streamlining of commercial drugs. With these new advancements, the pharmacist’s role has changed to be more patient-focused rather than the creation of actual drugs. This is largely a good thing; pharmacists can nail down how patients feel and how they react to certain drugs.
Taking a Prescribed Medication
Typically, after the doctor writes a prescription, a patient will head down to their local pharmacy and follow the suggested intake directed by their doctor and pharmacist. Still, oftentimes the medication may not work as originally intended. The patient could be doing everything right, taking the correct amounts at the correct times during the day, but something is wrong. The patient could suffer from severe side effects, sickness, allergic reactions, or simply the drug is not working at all. As soon as a patient notices that something is not going as planned, they should go to their prescribing doctor right away to find a solution.
Complications
There are varieties of reasons why certain drugs may not work for any given patient, but the most common has to do with allergies, and the number of certain ingredients is in the prescribed drug. Since most commercial drugs are mass-produced, it is near impossible for a certain drug to be changed or adapted for an individual patient. Thankfully, there are ways for drugs to be adapted to get the medication they need while removing any of the ingredients that may keep them from using it. This process is called compounding medicine.
The Solution
Compounding is the creation or altering of a drug by a licensed pharmacist to meet an individual patient’s unique needs when a commercially available drug does not meet those needs. Every country has its practices when it comes to overseeing and regulating the compounding of drugs. For example, the Pharmacy Board is responsible in Australia. The US Food and Drug Administration is responsible in the USA, and in Canada, the Health Products and Food Branch (HPFB) of Health Canada for anything related to compounding drugs. If there are any complaints or issues about compounded drugs would be reviewed by these organizations. Even though they are all separate bodies and have their own jurisdictions, they have similar policies and practices to assure patients are safe.
Finding the Right Licensed Compounding Pharmacy
The most commonly compounded drug products include dermatological medications, bioidentical hormone replacement, psychiatric medications, and sleep medications, to name a few. There are a few different things to consider when looking for the right compounding pharmacy. When finding a pharmacy offering custom compounding, it is important for those seeking the service to make sure they find a suitable and credible company to administer the service. You want to ensure that the pharmacy offering the service is reputable and following all the guidelines set out by their governing body. You also want to ensure they can promptly provide the service due to the health implications of taking medications. For example, at National Custom Compounding, as their team grows and finds efficiencies in their processes, they are getting closer to achieving their 24- hour guarantee.
With anything health-related, especially drugs, there are risks, so it is important to utilize credible compounding pharmacies. Compounded drugs do not undergo the same scrutiny as a typical commercial drug. Details around effectiveness, safety, or quality before they are prescribed may not be as in-depth. Poor compounding practices can result in serious drug quality problems, such as contamination or a drug containing too many active ingredients. This can lead to serious patient injury and, in some serious cases, death. Talk to your doctor the next time you feel ill to see if using a compounded drug is right for you; it may just be the solution you are looking for.
