Whether you know it or not, the medicines that you give your pet have most probably been produced by a compounding pharmacy. Custom-made medications are a vital part of keeping different breeds of animals healthy. Thousands of animals all around the world receive such medicines every single day. Whether you own a horse or a cutie dog, he or she has in all likelihood received custom medicine.

Different dosages may be formulated depending on an animal’s average size. For example; dogs generally need larger doses than cats. Special flavoring may be used to make medicine more edible to different animals – for instance; cats might like to receive some chicken flavoured medicine.

Why do Veterinary Clinics Utilize Veterinary Compounding?

Like many others pet owners, it is natural for you to be concerned about your pet’s health. When your animal gets sick, you generally take them to a veterinary clinic as quickly as possible. Based on the diagnosis, your local vet will prescribe the most suitable medicine for your pet.

Pharmaceutical compounding pharmacies and veterinary clinics work simultaneously with each other to widen their prescribing abilities, and overall add to and expand a veterinarian’s ability to treat a patient promptly in the most effective manner.

The Many Uses of Veterinary Compounding

Compounding might also be used to make drugs easier to administer besides formulating medicine that is at the proper dosage for a specific animal and to make it more palatable taste-wise. Veterinarians work personally with clients to prepare the right kind of medicine for their needs. This is because giving medicine to a cat is a lot different than giving it to a horse.

People with especially fussy pets can ask for capsules in place of liquids, or may ask for particular flavouring to keep their pet happy. Compounding improves the ability of a vet to effectively prescribe the best medications for your animal which translates to a greater opportunity to offer the best possible treatment.

Compounding and a Happy, Healthy Pet

So the next time your pet needs some medicine, pay attention to what is prescribed. No matter what the type of medicine is, compounding most likely played a significant role in its formulation somewhere along the way.

Remember that the specific dosage that you give your pet bird or snake or the flavouring that makes your dog more palatable about taking his medicine wouldn’t be possible without ground-breaking compounding techniques. There’s no doubt that compounding is about keeping your pet healthy, and making it better, easier and a lot more manageable for you.

These days’ people consider their cats, dogs, and other pets as members of their family. For this reason, choosing a veterinarian with an understanding of how important your pet is to you is essential. Actually, the relationship between you, your vet, and your pet should be similar to the relationship you share with your physician. Besides, this relationship should apply to your pet’s medications as well. So buying medicines from a veterinarian that recognizes the value of customer service as it is relates to your pet’s healthcare is of use to both you and your pet.

So how do you define a veterinarian-client-patient relationship? According to the American Veterinary Medical Association, it has been described as follows;

• The veterinarian must take the responsibility for making medical judgments regarding the health of the animal and the need for a specific medical treatment, and the client must also agree to follow the instructions of the veterinarian.
• The veterinarian has adequate knowledge of the animal to initiate in any case a general or a preliminary diagnosis of its medical condition. This means that the veterinarian has recently seen and is personally up to date with the keeping and care of the animal by an examination of the animal. This should also include medically suitable and timely visits to the premises where the pets are kept.
• The practicing veterinarian must be available even at a short notice for follow-up in case of an emergency, an adverse reaction or failure of the treatment.

According to AVMA guidelines, a vet must make all efforts to maintain a positive veterinarian-client-patient relationship before issuing a valid prescription. According to the compounding compliance policy guide (CPG), the section about Compounding of Drugs for Use in Animals, a convincing relationship is compulsory when compounded medicine is prescribed.

This kind of relationship has the potential to serve the best interest of your pet. Besides, this type of an understanding is improved when there is a recommendation from the pharmacist to help authorize the veterinarian. This guarantees that only the best medication is being used in a safest manner for your dear pet.

Knowledge of the quality, strength (concentration), purity and availability of the molecule in the formulation that we intend to administer is essential to rational therapeutic drug use. Further, it is the veterinarian’s responsibility to practice medicine scientifically and ethically. If we believe these statements to be true and valid, then we can understand that various levels of scientific or empirical evidence regarding the nature of a particular drug formulation provides us with various levels of guarantee that patients will favourably respond to the administration of a drug.

The main assurance for safe and effective use of a drug comes when the available drug formulation (dosage form, excipients, concentration, etc.) is associated with a desirable response, without any unpleasant adverse effects, as evidenced in controlled clinical trials that assessed safety and efficacy. When well-controlled clinical studies are not available, then we must use more unsubstantiated supportive information which includes data collected from other species, pharmacokinetic data, case series and/or anecdotal reports. As the specificity and impartial nature of the supporting data weakens, our confidence in the drug’s result should also weaken. We must keep in mind the value of the available evidence for safety and effectiveness, when applying any remedy. (more…)

Has it ever happened to you how competitive pricing, counterfeit drugs, untrustworthy sources for drugs and the honesty that our profession must maintain present an everyday dilemma? How can veterinarians avoid being affected by gossips of adulterated and contaminated food and drugs and still maintain the public’s trust?

Dawn Merton Boothe, DVM, Ph.D., Dipl. ACVIM and ACVCP, director of pharmacology at Auburn University, asked veterinarians to contest the adulteration of products in her letter to the editor in the Dec. 1 Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Assn.
Compounded drugs aren’t approved by the Food and Drug Administration. When approved drugs are not available, or are not suitable because of the way they are packaged by the manufacturer for a doctor’s intended use in a particular patient, compounding of that drug is allowed. Though the compounding industry is growing fast, it is not well regulated yet. (more…)

Products approved for human use under the Medicines Act 1981 can be used as veterinary medicines only when prescribed by a veterinarian and used in accordance with this standard. This comprises of medicines, new medicines, pharmacy-only, prescription and restricted medicines and substances.

Human medicines have not been evaluated for safety or efficacy in animals, nor have they been appraised with respect to potential residues if used in food-producing animals. They would have been manufactured in accordance with good manufacturing practices but they may not have been manufactured in facilities approved by the ACVM Group.

They are not necessarily prepared or packaged appropriately for use as veterinary medicines, they could include forbidden substances (see www.nzfsa.govt.nz/acvm for current list), and their labelling is probably irrelevant to their use as veterinary medicines. (more…)

Pharmacy compounding is the art and science of making customized medications for patients. With the consent of a doctor, we can change the strength or dosage of a medication, alter its form to make it easier to consume, or add flavor to it to make it more palatable.

We can also prepare the medication using more than a few unique delivery systems, such as a sublingual troche or lozenge, a transdermal gel or sprays. Or for patients who find it difficult to swallow a capsule, syrup can be prepared.

As a pet owner you would want your pet to receive the highest quality of veterinary care and you must be well aware that animals can be extremely difficult to treat with medications. For example, dosages can be quite tricky in treating dogs due to their varying shapes and sizes. (more…)

The practice of pharmacy compounding is becoming a well accepted solution to veterinary problems. Compounding is the art and science of preparing customized medications for patients. Its revival in recent years has provided valuable benefits to today’s pet owners.

But the question is why should one consider compounding as a solution for their pet’s medical problems? That can be better answered with another question: How difficult is it for you to get your cat to swallow a pill?

We know that animals can be extremely difficult to treat with medications. Cats are infamous for refusing to swallow a pill, and usually eat right around one that is disguised in food. And dosages can be very risky with dogs. A medication that works for a 3D-pound Golden Retriever may be far too much for a six-pound Yorkie to take. (more…)