Compounding
Compounding for children
Most medicines are manufactured for adults. Children are not small adults, and the gap between those two facts is what compounding is for.
Three ordinary problems
- A medicine that exists only as a tablet, for a child who cannot swallow one
- A dose smaller than the smallest tablet made, needing to be measured rather than guessed
- A taste a child refuses, which turns a prescription into a nightly argument
- A form that has to change as a child grows
- An allergy or intolerance to something in the commercial preparation
A medicine a child will not take is not a medicine. That is not a small problem to be endured; it is the problem.
What we will not do
Compound something that already exists in a usable form. Where a commercial preparation is available and suitable, that is the right answer — it is made under manufacturing controls a pharmacy cannot match, and it is usually cheaper for you.
Compounding exists for the gap, and a pharmacy that treats it as an upgrade is selling something rather than solving something.
It starts with your prescriber
A compounded preparation is made to a prescription like any other. What we can do is talk to your prescriber about what is possible — form, strength, flavour — which is often the missing step, because a prescriber cannot request a preparation they do not know can be made.
Flavour is not a frill
It is the difference between a course finished and a course abandoned. Getting it right is partly a matter of asking the child, which is worth doing rather than assuming, and partly of knowing which flavours mask which kinds of taste.
Not everything can be flavoured, and where it cannot you will be told that instead of finding out at bedtime.
Common questions
Will it be covered?
Sometimes. Compounded preparations are handled differently by different plans, and it is worth establishing before it is made rather than after. See coverage and costs.
How long does it keep?
Less time than a manufactured product, usually. The expiry will be on the label and it matters more than it does for something off a shelf.
Can you make what our old pharmacy made?
Usually, given the prescription and the details. Bring the label or the old container.
Is it the same medicine?
Same active ingredient, different form. What changes is how it is delivered, not what is in it — and your prescriber decides both.
Kind Clinic on the second floor sees children, and can write what is needed. Kind Clinic and Kind Pharmacy are separate businesses under common ownership. You can fill your prescription anywhere.
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