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Compounding Pharmacies Provide Personalized Medicine

Nine years ago, Beth Walkup, wife of Tucson Mayor Bob Walkup, had her first surgery to remove breast cancer. Last April she had a second.

While few things can slow down Tucson's first lady, she found herself dealing with around a dozen side effects from her medication. A hot flash in a car created a memorable moment.

"The windows steamed over," she says. "Bob said, 'What's the matter?' and he starts jiggling with all the heater and says 'Are you having a hot flash?' and I was and I just put out that much steam."

While she can laugh at some side effects, others weren't as comical.

"Depression. I would be going along and I would just feel like the bottom had fallen out of the world, or I'm talking to someone and I'm crying."

To deal with the side effects, Beth looked for options. She began taking natural hormones, but not in pill form.

"I put on 1/8 of a teaspoon twice a day on my wrists and I rub it in and it's absorbed."

"So it can be as simple as putting something on their arm and they get the medicine into their blood stream," says Dana Reed-Kane of Reed's Compounding Pharmacy.

"Compounding is the science that began in early 1900's when pharmacists made things from scratch."

That means medicine can be tailored to a person's specific needs. Strengths can be changed. Dyes and other additives that can cause allergic reactions can be left out, and if you find pills hard to swallow, make it taste like a treat.

"Like for instance a child. They can't swallow a tablet so we'll make it a liquid."

With compounding, pills are almost passe. Medicine can be taken in the form of a lolly pop, gummy candy, or changed completely to a gel or cream -- which can mean lower doses.

"When you take something through the skin it's absorbed immediately and goes straight into the blood stream so it doesn't have to go through the stomach where it could break down medicine and cause it to be less effective."

For Beth Walkup compounding didn't reduce the risks involved with her treatments. But it opened the door to more options and allowed her to focus on her busy life -- not on her treatments.

"To me it was a matter of what kind of quality of life did I want and how did I want to still protect myself from breast cancer."