Sunday, January 19, 2014

Extreme Veterinary Compounding

While most compounding pharmacies routinely tailor-make medications by prescription for dose-adverse humans and domesticated animals, occasionally they get calls for assistance from wildlife rehabilitation centers and zoos. When a massive or aggressive animal is noncompliant with the med it needs, compounders might help to save the day.

Take, for example, the case in which an Eastern North Pacific humpback whale and her calf became stranded far off their migratory course in the Sacramento River Delta in California. Wildlife scientists needed to administer massive doses of extra-strength antibiotics to save the whales, but the needed meds were not commercially available. So they called upon a local compounding pharmacy that was able to prepare the required pharmaceuticals.

What do you do with an angry silverback gorilla with a chronic eye infection? It’s not safe for either animal or handler to tranquilize him three times a day to administer eye drops. One compounding pharmacy’s answer: prepare a massive volume of super-concentrated ophthalmic solution and load it into a large toy water gun. Spray it into the gorilla’s face from a distance several times a day, knowing that some of the drops will make it into the eye.

And you’ll likely agree that the preparation of an elephant suppository — using a five-gallon bucket as a mold — qualifies as extreme veterinary compounding!

continue to read article quoted here

No comments: