When you take medications, you expect to feel some kind of relief from your symptoms. So, it’s really frustrating and discouraging when a treatment option fails to restore the body’s balance and provide relief.
It can be even more frustrating if the medication doesn’t agree with your body. It could be that you’re allergic to one of its ingredients, the dosage is too high or too low, or the medication was not administered the right way.
When a medication doesn’t work for you, you can rely on a sterile compounding pharmacy to formulate specified doses of medicine according to the instructions of a doctor to cater to the patient’s needs. A sterile compounding pharmacy can develop medications that are specifically designed for your needs.
In order to know more about sterile compounding pharmacies, here are their pros and cons so you’ll know how to choose and where to get your much-needed medications.
Pros
- Cheaper Medications
One of the best things about these pharmacies is that their medications cost less. This is because they are only making enough doses for a particular patient. This also allows patients to get the treatment option they need to improve their health without digging deep into their pockets.
- Provides Access to Past Medication
Many medications have been discontinued by manufacturers because the demand for them is not enough to make them profitable. This doesn’t mean that the medication is not needed, though. It’s where a sterile compounding pharmacy steps in and creates the drug on an as-needed basis. What this means is that even if there’s only one patient who needs a discontinued medication, they can go to a sterile compounding pharmacy to get the medication they need.
- Create Hypo-Allergenic Medicine
This type of pharmacy is also capable of creating hypo-allergenic medications. These are drugs that don’t set off allergies or intolerance issues. This is really good news for patients who have specific health needs as they can now get personalized treatment to help them recover quickly.
- Eliminate Bad Flavors from Medications
Giving medications to children is often a struggle because most drugs have an unpleasant taste. Some parents have no choice but to hold down their children just to ensure that their kids swallow the medication. Thankfully, this type of pharmacy is capable of creating better tasting drugs that are easier for children to ingest. They are also capable of adjusting the size of certain drugs so children will not be overwhelmed.
- Create Better Types of Medication
Sterile compounding pharmacies are capable of altering the structure of some medicine so that the pills, which some people often struggle to take, can be transformed into liquid form or vice versa. This allows patients to get the medication they need in their preferred administration method.
Cons
- Not Always Covered by Health Insurance
If you get your medications from a sterile compounding pharmacy, there’s a chance that you may end up paying more for their drugs because they are not always included in insurance plans.
- You May End Up Receiving a Recalled Drug
Since the medications they make are personalized, and because most of these are rare, there’s a good chance that you may end up receiving a recalled drug without realizing it. Even with more access to information these days, not everyone is still able to recognize whether the medication has been recalled because of a particular problem.
- Risk of Contamination
Despite its name, a sterile compounding pharmacy still entails some risk of medication contamination. This is because these pharmacies are regulated a little bit differently than drug manufacturers.
Sterility is still a major concern on these pharmacies, and several state agencies have already issued warnings about the risk of contamination in some of the medications that they produce.
Final Thoughts
Compounding pharmacies play a central part in today’s healthcare system. If drug manufacturers were to stop developing medications that aren’t used by most people, patients and doctors could turn to compounding pharmacies.
Without them, many lives can be put at risk. However, sterile compounding pharmacies that are not properly regulated can also put people’s lives in danger. Weigh the pros and cons of a sterile compounding pharmacy, so you can make the decision yourself whether to receive medication from them is worth it.
