Big Country Dermatology Pharmacy Blog

Compounding medications is an encompassing process, allowing pharmacists to combine, or mix various ingredients to create medications not available by manufacturers.  Similar to baking a cake, many pharmacies may use the same ingredients to create a compound with the same intended end result, and yet you will find vastly different qualities of cake from different bakers. The same holds true for compounds from different pharmacies.  

A key part of the compounding process is the method chosen to mix the medication. There are several processes used by pharmacies to create topical compounds. The 3 primary options we are reviewing are the traditional mortar and pestle, the electronic mortar and pestle, and the planetary mixer. In order to better understand and appreciate the planetary mixer, you have to first know about the more common compounding methods used by most compounding pharmacies.   

Compounding medication in pharmacy has been done for hundreds of years. You can even say thousands of years depending on how you view the process. While compounding itself may not be new, we continually improve our processes using the most up to date methods and equipment. Today we want to help you understand the process of actually creating a compound from start to finish. To do that, we will go through the steps of creating a compound and some of the details along the way.