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Medicine Shoppe Pharmacy Helps Patients Breathe Easier
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio -- People who take several inhalants four, five and six times a day to treat their respiratory ailments could find their number of daily treatments reduced, the owner of The Medicine Shoppe Pharmacy, Dan Wearsch, said Friday.The pharmacy, 2603 Mahoning Ave., recently opened a "respiratory compounding facility" where solid and liquid medicines are put in machines that convert them into mists. These mists, in turn, fill vials called "nebulizers." Patients inhale the contents of the nebulizers to treat ailments such as asthma, bronchitis and smoking-related lung diseases, Wearsch explained.The respiratory compounding facility, Wearsch said, is a sterile 8-by-12-foot room where he and his staff prepare the inhalants to meet each patient's needs. The medicines used in the inhalants are shipped to an anteroom, also 8 by-12, where they're removed from boxes and taken inside the facility.The facility, Wearsch said, is a "class-1000 cleanroom and Laminar Flow Hood for respiratory compounding." Besides inhalants converted to mists and injected into nebulizers, pharmacists prepare other medicines that require a sterile environment, such as eye drops and injected medicines.Patients benefit from combination therapies, Wearsch said, because they need only one or two therapy sessions a day instead of inhaling only one medicine at a time four, five and six times a day. Combining inhalants should also save them money, he offered, but he said it's premature to suggest how much.Wearsch said he built the facility in anticipation of the state of Ohio adopting federal standards governing inhalation therapies. The closest facility similar to his is in Akron, he said. "