Compounding Pharmacies
Compounding Pharmacies: What makes the difference between a bad, a good and a GREAT compound or mixture for my baby's reflux medication?
Compounding is just a fancy word for mixing or blending. There are a lot of regulations surrounding how these pharmacies have to operate and there are main stream retail pharmacies, like Walgreens or CVS that also dispense blended PPIs but they use kits. This page is going to talk about all of these options.
Compounding Pharmacies that are making their own formulations: These formulations (or recipes) were created by Jeffrey Phillips Pharm D. and they were created to help adult patients typically in an ICU setting. The basic formulations are called SOS (simplified omeprazole suspension) and SLS (simplified lansoprazole suspension).
The reason why they aren't great for babies is because they are mostly sodium bicarbonate. If you've ever used alka seltzer (which is mostly sodium bicarbonate) you know that the fizz, fizz is NOT a good idea for babies. It causes a TON of gas, making many reflux symptoms worse and it tastes terrible.
These formulations also, don't last very long. 2 weeks if that and then they start to loss the effective benefits.
Not to mention you have to time 30-45 minutes before or after feeding to give the dose. That never works out well.
First Kits Pre-formulated Compounds: There are companies that make kits where a retail pharmacy that doesn't have the facility to blend medicines will use to distribute to patients that need special formulations. The most popular of these kits is a brand called First Omep or First Lans. They supply both the buffer (usually sodium bicarb and liquid) in one bottle, and the medication and liquid in another. The retail pharmacist will mix the two together and give to the patient.
These kits present the same problems that most compounding pharmacies have. The mixture tastes terrible, produces a ton of gas and doesn't last long regarding stability of effectiveness and you must time around feeding.
Remedies Pharmacy: Then there are some pharmacies that bring care to the next level by only providing formulations that will create the most effective care product on the market. That product is TC Max and this is all they use for creating compounds for infants and small children with prescribed PPI treatments.
You can read more about TC Max on this page but TC Max uses very little sodium bicarbonate so very little gas production, and uses magnesium hydroxide and calcium carbonate for it's primary buffers or blends. It also tastes like vanilla ice cream and it is lab tested stable / effective for 60 days.
Plus you don't have to time around feeding! I'm sure we all know that getting a baby to wait when they're hungry is never a good idea.
That's why this practice suggests using Remedies Pharmacy if PPI therapy is part of getting your baby the best GERD care.