What Pet Owners Should Know About Compounded Medications
Administering medication to pets can be difficult and stressful for both pets and pets' parents. Fortunately, compounding pharmacies in Florida can alleviate many of the challenges pet owners face by creating custom medications called compounds. Let's discuss what veterinary pharmacy compounding is, What conditions it can treat, and what benefits it offers for pets and their owners.
What is pet compounding?
Pet compounding is the process of altering a medication to meet the custom needs of a patient. A pet pharmacy uses this process to tailor medications for dogs, cats, birds, and horses, typically changing the medication form or strength or adjusting its inactive or replaceable ingredients.
Why do some pets need medication from a compounding pharmacy?
Your veteran may write a prescription that allows a pet compounding pharmacy to make the necessary modifications if generic medications aren't suitable for your pet. For instance, topical medications are frequently used to treat cats who need thyroid medicine to avoid the infamously difficult oral delivery.
Custom Dosage: Some pets may require a dosage of unavailable medication due to their size, weight, or other health issues. This frequently forces pet owners to provide multiple medications or chop tiny pills into smaller bits, which can be challenging to accomplish precisely. It's difficult enough to administer one. A compounding pharmacy lessens these difficulties by creating substances of the right strength and quantity for the pet.
Allergic reactions to inactive ingredients: Some commercially available drugs contain chemicals that cause allergies or sensitivities in certain pets. A pet compounding pharmacy can help avoid adverse reactions by making drugs without these chemicals or with equivalent substitutes.
Administration challenges: Medication administration might be complicated for behavioral and medical reasons. Pets suffer from medical issues that make traditional administration methods challenging or impossible. For instance, some animals have trouble digesting or swallowing tablets, necessitating liquid or transdermal delivery.
Bad Taste: Pets often refuse medication because it tastes bad. Many drugs can be made more appetizing by adding flavorings like chicken. To make it simpler for pets to take their medication, a pet compounding pharmacy can change the structure of a prescription without sacrificing any of its vital elements.
Forms of Veterinary Compounds: Changing the medication's form is one of the most frequent compounded modifications. Many pets cannot handle standard pill and tablet forms. Thus, a pet compounding pharmacy will frequently administer medications in liquid, transdermal, topical, or more accessible forms. The most typical ones are:
Oral Capsules: It's usual practice to blend components for personalized treatment into oral capsules. Furthermore, capsules are frequently far more accessible to administer than regular pills or chewable medications due to their complete flavorlessness and ease of swallowing.
Liquids: As oral liquids can be readily flavor-infused and concealed in food; they are a popular option for pets who have difficulty chewing or refusing to swallow tablets. Certain medications can be combined to create liquids, ointments, and drops to make treating ear infections easier.
Transdermal medications: It is topically applied gels or lotions that penetrate the pet's skin to absorb the active ingredients. This compounding is used for pests that cannot or will not take oral medication, which is impossible for all medications.
What kinds of illnesses are commonly treated with pet compounding?
Compounding for pets can improve the effectiveness and accessibility of drug treatment for various ailments. Veterinary chemicals are commonly used to treat the following conditions:
Seizure conditions
Anxiety
Heart disease
Autoimmune disease
Hypothyroidism
OCD
What type of medications can be compounded for pets?
Hormone regulation medication: Methimazole is one frequently compounded regulating hormone usually used to treat cats with hyperthyroidism. As oral drug administration can be complicated for cats, and hyperthyroidism is a chronic condition, many cat owners choose to have liquid or transdermal medication provided by a pet compounding pharmacy.
Steroids: Steroids such as prednisolone are often specified to treat chronic inflammation and pain in pets, making compounding a common choice for more sustainable long-term medication treatment.
In conclusion, veterinary compounding pharmacy is far from a perfect solution for pet parents. However, its value lies in its ability to address the common significant issues owners face regarding medicating their pets. Given its benefits, it's a game-changer. The field is rich in variability, and to think it's still evolving only leaves room for more progress.