Pharmacy compounding is a medical technique that has been around for a number of years and experienced a recent resurgence in the field of dentistry. The process involves mixing medications, adjusting dosages, and utilizing customized forms that are tailored to fit a patient’s exact needs. Compounded medications allow for more exact dosing and easier medication administration.
For a while, compounding fell out of practice, because it was believed that mixing medications was dangerous. However, recent advances in medical science and technology now allow pharmacists greater control over the compounding process, resulting in a rise in popularity. This piqued interest also comes with a need to educate patients regarding the benefits of using compounded medications in dentistry.
Compounding To Treat Anxiety
Dentists use compounded medications to help alleviate their patients’ severe anxiety brought on by a visit to the dentist. Fear of the dentist is common and can be triggered through something as ordinary as the sound of a whirring dental drill. This anxiety can be based on a patient’s fear of needles or simply having a dentist work on problematic or sore teeth.
Dentists use compounded medication as topical anesthetic, replacing the need to inject painkillers near the site of dental work. The addition of flavors can make compounded medications more appealing to children and adults. Anxiety medication an even be added to some compounds to help ease a patient’s nervousness.
Dental Compounding Medications
Compounding is also used to meet the particular medication needs of a variety of patients suffering from an array of dental ailments. From the 70-year-old grandfather getting fitted for false teeth to the teenager needing wisdom teeth pulled to the child going in for braces, compounded medications can ensure each patient’s needs are accurately met and easy to administer.
In addition to the most common dental medications such as pain relievers and sedatives, pharmacists can also compound prescriptions for a variety of dental work, including:
- Dry socket treatments
- Fluoride treatments
- Medications for gum disease
- Plaque removers
- Mouth washes
- Oral ulcer medications
- Canker sore treatments
- Tooth whiteners
Customized Compounded Medications
Compounding not only provides for the development of medications to meet specific medicinal requirements and needs, it also allows for customized formats tailored to each patient. Patients who have trouble swallowing medication and those with a fear of needles can benefit from pastes, injections, or even gels. Children can even receive compounded medications in lollipop form.
Improved Medication Administration
Some dental medications contain noxious flavors or bitterness and make it difficult for the patient to administer orally. Compounding, however, can help alleviate this problem, enabling pharmacists to create medications that taste as good as they are helpful.
Compounding enables pharmacists to tailor medication to each patient, thus allowing more precise dosing and medication administration. Patients can rest easier knowing their dental medications can meet their particular needs and effectively ease anxieties.
Dental patients interested in learning more about pharmaceutical compounding and the variety of benefits it can offer should contact Compounding Pharmacy of America for further details.
Chief Operating Officer, The Compounding Pharmacy of America
Matthew Poteet, Pharm.D. graduated with Honors from Lee University with a Bachelors of Science in Biological Science. After his undergraduate training, he completed the Doctor of Pharmacy program at Mercer University Southern School of Pharmacy, graduating in 2004. Dr. Poteet has spent much of his pharmacy career on staff at two of the most prestigious academic teaching hospitals in the Southeast; Emory University in Atlanta and Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville. At these institutions he received extensive experience and training in sterile products compounding.
He returned home to East Tennessee in 2010, where he has held the position of Pharmacy Director at two sterile products pharmacies in Knoxville. Matthew lives in Knoxville with his wife, Chris. Dr. Poteet is Tennessee’s first Board Certified Anti-Aging Pharmacist by the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine.
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