At the core of Kalon West | Hormone Therapy Medical Clinic we believe in using off-label or “repurposed” pharmaceuticals for your symptoms and/or root cause relief. Most of Kalon West’s providers come from traditional medical backgrounds, who then also furthered their pursuit of healing through training in the fields of functional and holistic medicine. Kalon West providers’ combined experiences thus encompasses a depth of knowledge that blends the two worlds – traditional and functional medicine – delivering innovative and integrative solutions to common day health challenges. Working closely with holistic industry forerunners, compounding pharmacies and medical colleague collaborators, Kalon West adapts its practices to include off-label, repurposed medications and therapies, where appropriate for your health needs.
The majority of Kalon West pharmaceutical therapies will run through and utilize apothecaries and/or compounding pharmacies. So, let’s talk about compounded medications & their pharmacies. We’re all probably familiar with the process of filling an antibiotic prescription at a traditional CVS, Target, Walmart, Walgreens drugstore etc. But, did you know that you can “clean up” that standard antibiotic using a compounding pharmacy to deliver the same active medication (ie. amoxicillin) yet, provide the drug in a different pill capsule (ie. veggie capsule), with a different filler ingredient (ie. use sodium bicarbonate) and/or remove the dye, sugar, gluten etc that a brand-named antibiotic formulary may contain? To be frank – I did not!
When taking pharmacology in physician assistant school, pharmacists did not teach us the ingredients and formulas of every pharmaceutical product. The emphasis of our learning was more so centered around which pills, topical creams and intravenous products (IV) best suited treatment for specific pathologies – and, then, the drugs’ mechanisms of action (how they work). So, you can imagine how surprised I was when, eight plus years into practicing medicine, I discovered “fun facts” such as how commercial oral nystatin (an antifungal) contained sugar – yes, sugar – which is the very ingredient that fungi and yeast love to feed off of! How backwards does that seem?
Furthermore, during my hospitalist days as a practicing physician assistant – we hardly ever used compounding pharmacies for the filling and delivery of medications. On a common sense level, this is chiefly because every hospital has its own internal pharmacy and pharmacists. I recall treating a patient once, who exhibited severe rectal bleeding secondary to an anal fissure and hemorrhoids. A consulting colorectal surgeon wrote a paper-pad prescription for this client, a formulary for a calcium-channel blocker suppository. He handed the script to the client’s family and directed them to go fill the prescription at a nearby compounding pharmacy. Observing this interaction, I thought, “I didn’t know that was an option!” and also wondered why we couldn’t provide the same item via the hospitalist’s pharmacy.
To be fair, and not place the onus of my pharmacology naivety solely on my educational & hospitalist upbringing, I personally didn’t use to read the product labels of over-the-counter (OTC) medications. I mean, as an American citizen & a cultural byproduct of the 1990s onward, if one got sick they were given Tylenol, Dayquil, Miralax and Tums etc. Standard pharmacies and their shelved products were understood to be the essence of “good medicine”. And, as an argument furthermore, there still are situations in which these everyday medicinal products can have relevant applications. But did you know?… (you probably did, and are likely leap years ahead of me!)… OTC common cold & flu medicines contain “tiny print” “inactive” ingredients such as citric acid, FD&C yellow No.6, “flavoring” (who knows what that means), propylene glycol etc. Even stool softeners, such as docusate, are not solo-ingredient based as they may contain magnesium stearate, silica, talc, D&C Red No. 33 et alt.
Now, I understand that you can’t just swallow a powder without a capsule surrounding it and expect adequate absorption. I also acknowledge there are valid reasonings for formulating a pharmaceutical substance with an added chemical ingredient to provide a particular benefit to the patient (ie. a sustained release polymer matrix). However, it wasn’t until the early pandemic that I started to more intently investigate the formularies of pharmaceutical products, their delivery forms and “safety” in providing target outcomes.
As I read more and more labels of OTCs (ie. antihistamines), prescriptive pills (ie. blood pressure agents) and IV therapies (ie. diuretic drugs) while also asking pharmacists questions – my eyes opened to a variety of alternative pharmaceutical options & the ability to customize medications. Then, as I began using compounded medications & pharmacies, I witnessed my clients’ having less pharmaceutically driven side effects and more favorable health improvements. For instance: if a patient has a gluten intolerance and they are taking levothyroxine – compounding pharmacies can manipulate the levothyroxine product to be gluten free, which quite literally helps the client quite “stomach” the medication! So, fast forward a few years, post-pandemic, and compounding pharmacies are now the bread and butter of where I send my day-to-day signed scripts.
Ps. Compounding pharmacists are some of my favorite human beings. Their wealth of knowledge in chemistries, creativity in customizing therapies and genuine goal towards designing potent & practical formulas to make people well again – those are my kind of people, and some of the most valuable members on a medical team!