Compounding Pharmacy
What Is Compounding In a Pharmacy?
Compounding allow healthcare practitioners to prescribe medication specific to their patient’s individual needs.
One of the primary benefits of working with an in-house compounding pharmacy is that a patient is not limited to the commercially available dosage, strengths, and forms. Instead, compounded prescriptions can be changed to different formulations that may be easier to administer.
Dr. David Brownstein, an advocate of compounded prescriptions, points out in a special report in Integrative Medicine that patients need individualized doses of hormones. “Pharmaceutical companies want us to believe that everybody needs the same dose of all medications,” he writes.
“in truth, everyone has a unique biochemical thumbprint; we don’t all need the same doses of pharmaceuticals, vitamins, or even the same amounts of nutrients in foods.”
For optimal hormone treatment, a practitioner can fine-tune or modify the dose of a patient’s compounded bio-identical hormone therapy as an individual’s hormonal needs change or accommodate an individual’s preferences and absorption abilities.
What Does "Bioidentical" Mean?
Although many bioidentical hormones are created in a lab, they have the exact same molecular structure as the hormones produced by the human body. In other words, bioidentical hormones are chemically indistinguishable from the hormones in our bodies. Because their chemical structures are identical to the hormones in the body, bioidentical hormones may generate the same physiologic responses in the body as the hormones produce by the body.
With bioidentical hormone therapies, each individual’s hormone deficiencies or excesses are evaluated. In determining the optimal hormone therapy for an individual, a practitioner take into consideration the interactions among the different hormones, as well as other potential effects of each hormone throughout the body.