Fifty years ago, the prescriptions people received from pharmacies were all made in the pharmacy from scratch by a process known as compounding. Pharmacists would mix the chemicals and package the drugs themselves, which allowed them to tailor the prescription to the patient in cases where the patient needed to take the medicine in another form.

Since the 1960s, commercial drug companies have mass marketed prescriptions in standardized forms, making it unnecessary for most pharmacists to continue to mix and package the drugs themselves. However, because there are still those instances where a patient may need a prescription that is not available in a form that the drug companies manufacture, many pharmacies are beginning to offer compounding services again.

Door Creek has been offering compounding services since 1999. Our pharmacists and technicians who handle compounding have studied at the Professional Compounding Centers of America (www.pccarx.com) in Houston, Texas.

To customize your medication, we can:

1. change the strength of the dosage
2. omit fillers or dyes that can cause an allergic reaction
3. let you take the medicine topically, orally or however you need to take the drug
4. present the drug in a form that's easier to take, like lollipops with pain medication for children who have just had their tonsils out
5. tailor any of your prescriptions so that they are easy and safe for you to take

For more information about compounding, visit The International Academy of Compounding Pharmacists at www.iacprx.org