What needs checking before treatment?

Ask the health professional assessing you about the medicine and your health history. Ask how to get help if something goes wrong. Use the exact product name in that conversation.

Check the product and its instructions.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the federal medicine-review agency, says it does not review compounded drugs for safety, effect, or quality before they are marketed.

FDA · The review gap for compounding

FDA says poor compounding can leave medicine contaminated or with an incorrect amount of active ingredient.

FDA · Problems caused by poor compounding

Ask who prepares the product and what the health professional knows about that exact preparation. Ask for an explanation of the expected benefit and the possible harms.

Get instructions for the exact product.

Peptide products have different storage needs. Some must be kept cool; room temperature suits others.

Federal health guide · Storage information for semaglutide injections

Product label · A medicine kept at room temperature

Ask the pharmacy to explain the instructions that belong to your product. Ask how to reach someone if a label, delivery, or measuring instruction is unclear.

Reports sent to FDA link mistakes in dosing compounded semaglutide injections to health problems. Some of those cases required care in hospital.

FDA · Reports of measuring and prescribing errors

Pregnancy information depends on the exact product. A made-to-order medicine does not have pregnancy information reviewed by FDA as an approved medicine does.

FDA · What has not had product review

Use the full medicine name when asking the health professional about breastfeeding, being pregnant, or planning a pregnancy.

Severe symptoms need urgent help.

MedlinePlus describes how a serious allergic reaction may develop fast. Such a reaction is a medical emergency. This health guide comes from the National Library of Medicine.

MedlinePlus · Severe allergic reactions and emergency care

A tongue that swells or breathing that becomes difficult are examples of severe symptoms requiring emergency help. Do not wait for an answer from a website.

MedlinePlus · When to get emergency help

For a medicine problem that is not an immediate emergency, ask the treating health professional how to proceed. Keep the product details for that conversation.

A patient can report a medicine problem.

Patients can send FDA a medicine-problem report through its free MedWatch service.

FDA · Patient reporting through MedWatch

A report submitted about a medicine cannot, on its own, establish the cause of a problem.

FDA · What a problem report can and cannot show