Children

Children Formulas

Medication can be tailored to the child to allow better compliance in cases when the commercial product is unable to meet the needs of the patient. For example, a suspension, suppository, or lozenge formulation is sometimes needed when the manufactured products are only offered as solid oral dosage forms. Sensory processing disorder (SPD), patients with food allergies, and specific dietary needs can also be a big challenge for caregivers and healthcare practitioners who need alternatives to the commercially available forms.

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Your child is unique. Why not give them customized care?

Compounded medications are an important piece of the patient care puzzle. For children with special healthcare needs and their caregivers, a compounding pharmacy offers them hope. When commercially available options are exhausted, a compounding pharmacist can help offer solutions to unique patient needs. Improved compliance, improved patient satisfaction, and reduced adverse reactions result when the correct compounding solution is utilized. By working together to provide customized, compounded medication, the result is unique solutions to patient needs that can improve the patient’s treatment outcome and elevate practitioner confidence.

What is a compounded medication?

One size doesn’t fit all and every patient is unique. Drug compounding is the process of combining, mixing, or altering ingredients to create a medication tailored to the needs of a patient by a pharmacist as the result of a practitioner’s prescription drug order. While compounded medications are not FDA-approved, they serve an important patient need—especially when FDA-approved medication is not available for treatment. Our formulations are made to order in small batches to ensure freshness.

Flavored medicine

A child who refuses to take medication because of the taste is a prime opportunity for compounding. Children don’t like pills, but they’ll take them gladly when it’s flavored like their favorite fruit or lollipop. Children often cannot take large volumes of liquid medication, but they will accept a small dose of a tasty, fruit-flavored, concentrated solution. By working closely with pediatricians, a compounding pharmacist can prepare medicines in easy-to-give flavored dosage forms that children happily devour.

Food allergies

Patients with food allergies can also be a big challenge for caregivers and practitioners. The foods that most often trigger childhood allergic reactions include eggs, cow’s milk, peanuts, tree nuts, soy, and wheat, and can affect up to 8% of children. Using pharmaceutical-grade ingredients and allergen-free bases, compounding pharmacists can provide a greater variety of medication options. Often, practitioners will turn to their compounding pharmacy to provide critical medications that would otherwise not be available. For example, high-fructose corn syrup and sorbitol, commonly used in commercial medications, must be avoided in children with corn allergies. A compounding pharmacist can choose a solution or suspension base and other ingredients that are free of these allergens.

Solving dosage problems

Most children aged 6–11 years can swallow a small oral tablet with training by a pharmacist or practitioner, but about 9% of children cannot. A compounding pharmacist who is knowledgeable about the pharmaceutical chemistry of each drug can ensure that the patient receives a customized medication that is more likely to be tolerable. Factors such as pH, drug stability, and chemical compatibility are accounted for when deciding on the best delivery vehicle for the medication.

Commercially unavailable medicine

From time to time, a manufacturer may discontinue a veterinary medication. Often this is because it is not needed in the vast quantities necessary to make mass production cost-effective, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t still some pets that need it. When that medication has worked well for animals, a compounding pharmacist can prepare a prescription for the required therapy – and tailor the strength, dosage form, and flavor to that pet’s specific needs.

Sensory processing disorders

Sensory processing disorder (SPD) often occurs with developmental disorders, such as autism, fragile X syndrome, and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The sensation of taste and texture in the mouth may trigger negative responses in children with this condition. The responses can include gagging, vomiting, and screaming, which will result in non-compliance. Compounding pharmacists have a variety of dosage formulation options, such as capsules, tablets, solutions, suspensions, or even topical preparations. Sometimes modifying the recipe is simple, such as changing the color or using a familiar, favorite flavor to entice a child to accept a medication. Also, children with the sensory disorder tend to be sensitive to gritty textures. In these cases, the compounding pharmacist can reduce the particle size of the medications by grinding in a mortar and pestle so that the mouth feel is smoother for the patient. Suspensions or solutions can also be made in a variety of formulations that have a unique mouth-feel that appeal to the sensitive patient. In other cases, a topical dosage form is applied to the skin. Transdermal administration eliminates the need for oral delivery of the medication. The compounding pharmacist can spend the time with the parents and child to offer choices and options for these children and caregivers when they feel they have none.

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Disclaimer

All prescription medications require a valid and complete online consultation prior to approval and final pricing is determined. All compounded medications in the U.S. are considered off-label use. Licensed healthcare practitioners have the ability to prescribe compounds for off-label treatment, if they believe that it is an appropriate course of treatment.

The drug and medical information provided on this website is not meant to cover all adverse effects, drug interactions, warnings, medical uses, directions and precautions. The information provided is a medical resource and the judgment of your physician and/or healthcare practitioner should not be substituted. Premier Pharmacy has made every effort to ensure the information on the website is accurate and current based on present medical literature.

Premier Pharmacy does not make any guarantees regarding the drug and medical information, and does not assume responsibility regarding the content. The drug safety and drug information contained on the website may be time sensitive and should not be utilized as a medical reference beyond the date hereof. The deficiency of a warning for prescription medications and vitamins provided on this website in no way should be construed to indicate safety, effectiveness, or appropriateness for any given patient.

If you have questions or concerns about your medications, please do not hesitate to contact us and/or your medical practitioner, including your pharmacist. Compound prescription products have not been tested or approved by the FDA for their intended use. No claims are made as to the safety, efficacy or use of this compound.

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