The Power of Personalized Medicine: Exploring Compounding with Sara Hover, RPh

The Root Cause Medicine Podcast

Kate Kresge

Health & Fitness, Alternative Health, 810564, Medicine

4.8 • 581 Ratings

🗓️ 20 May 2025

⏱️ 46 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this episode of the Root Cause Medicine Podcast, Dr. Carrie Jones sits down with seasoned compounding pharmacist Sara Hover, RPh, to demystify the world of personalized medications. They dig into how compounding pharmacies offer tailored solutions for hormone therapy, acne, hair loss, weight loss, and more—and why this approach can be life-changing for patients who’ve hit dead ends with conventional medicine. Sarah shares eye-opening stories, from hormone creams and sublingual weight loss medications to pediatric popsicles and custom thyroid solutions, showing just how flexible and powerful compounding can be. What You’ll Learn: - What compounding pharmacies actually do—and why it matters - Why the finished compounded meds aren’t FDA-approved (and why that’s okay) - How bioidentical hormone therapy transforms women's health - Solutions for allergies to common fillers like red dye or peanut oil - Fun and effective delivery forms: lozenges, topical creams, even popsicles - Hair loss, acne, eczema, and anti-aging compounding options - The surprising science behind sublingual GLP-1s for weight loss - How to find (or help your doctor become) a compound-friendly provider Sara Hover, RPh is a compounding pharmacist with 30 years of experience and a specialty in hormone replacement therapy. She serves as a lead educator at PCCA, where she trains pharmacists and providers on the latest in compounding innovations. Sarah is passionate about personalized, patient-centered care—and believes no one should be told they're "crazy" when a tailored medication might be the real solution. Order tests through Rupa Health, the BEST place to order functional medicine lab tests from 30+ labs - https://www.rupahealth.com/reference-guide

Transcript

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0:00.0	Today on the Root Cause Medicine podcast. So the chemicals themselves are FDA approved and they come, you know, the regulation state, it has to come from an FDA registered facility. So every ingredient that a compounding pharmacy is compounding with does come from an FDA approved facility. The final product is not a product that we're going to market to the masses. That's where FDA comes in and says,
0:22.3	oh, this dosage form, this strength, you know, they do all of the testing and it's good for everyone.
0:26.8	But what we do as a compounding pharmacy is we like really individualize it just to you. So we're
0:32.4	not saying that what we're making is going to be good for everyone. Working with the doctor and the
0:36.9	patient and the pharmacy, you really customize that individual dose. So I like to say it's a one-person clinical trial. So you're the one person that's going to measure the outcome. The doctor's going to measure levels. And then we're going to adjust dosing based on that individual patient versus saying this is good for hundreds of thousands of people.
0:55.1	Hello, hello. I'm your co-host for today, Dr. Carrie Jones, and I am so excited to bring on
1:00.7	pharmacist Sarah Hover from PCCA, and we are going to talk about all things compounding. Now, oddly,
1:08.5	there's some intrigue around compounding pharmacies, so I asked her
1:11.7	all the questions. The thing about a compounding pharmacy is that it can be really helpful
1:16.1	when you're trying to make a medication for a group that maybe can't do traditional medications.
1:22.0	For example, the way your child might need something, a tablet may not work for them. Maybe
1:26.8	your dog or cat needs
1:28.0	something, your horse. Maybe you need a specific dose that isn't available at a conventional pharmacist.
1:33.9	Maybe you have allergies to an ingredient, a dye, an adhesive, an oil, and you can't do what's
1:39.8	traditionally out there, so you have to have it compounded. I asked her about FDA approval and the studies behind compounding pharmacies.
1:47.6	And then of course, I asked her about the options.
1:50.6	We talked about hormones.
1:52.2	We talked about pain creams.
1:53.7	We talked about acne creams.
1:55.5	We talked about hair loss options and a whole lot more.
1:59.4	So if you're curious about compounding pharmacies, but maybe you've
2:03.1	seen some interesting things out there on social media, or you know that the medication that you
	...

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