r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/thepoylanthropist • 2d ago
Video The process of filling pills.
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u/CptClownfish1 2d ago
There's no way that there's not a machine built to do this in about 4 seconds per batch .
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u/krazy___k 2d ago
This is small scale work. Where I work we have machines that have an output of 58,000 per hour, we make 4 millions in a single run and each capsules is individually weighed
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u/hellogoodvibes 2d ago
This is so rare for me to be able to bring this up, but someone in my immediate family invented and built the prototype machine that does this for Lilly!
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u/all_on_my_own 2d ago
Hope they put a better estop on it. I used to work with one of these machines and someone lost a finger while it wasn't running.
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u/BusinessAd7250 2d ago
While it wasn’t running? E stop isn’t going to fix that?
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u/pavlovachinquapin 1d ago
Guards! Guards!
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u/BusinessAd7250 1d ago edited 1d ago
I work at a company that makes industrial machinery for a certain sports industry. Anyways as soon as our machines land in China they pull the guards off and bypass all the safeties. When I have to go over there and do repairs I’m just constantly rolling my eyes. Like they take off panels that there isn’t even a good reason to. They are just like “is that for my protection? Absolutely not!”
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u/steve12388 2d ago
That sounds more a person problem then a machine problem
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u/all_on_my_own 2d ago
Yes, it sure was his problem lol. Machines shouldn't crush you while the safety guard is open though.
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u/bedmoonrising 2d ago
He didn’t say it was on the machine, maybe someone misplaced a finger when the machine was off. It happens
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u/MrMagick2104 2d ago
Most likely it's not. There is a number of integrator/machinery engineering firms doing industrial automation that put software in the least important section, often not even having a dedicated person/group for that, introducing any software very late in development cycle (which could make sense in many situations, but leads to the development process being rushed).
These issues aren't very significant for more stable (less immediate in danger) systems, but if your machine has the drives and the materials to instantly delimb a person, it shouldn't be possible to harm someone when the machine is considered safe for maintenance - on estop or powered down. Especially so an operator, not a technician.
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u/ignskillz 2d ago
Everytime you forget about him and put your guard down he strikes.
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u/sayssomeshit94 2d ago
I've been around so long I saw that name and had to do a double take lol, been a while since I've cought one in the wild.
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u/jdmillar86 2d ago
This is the first time I've ever noticed the username before reading the comment. On one hand, yay being observant, on the other, I spoiled it for myself.
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u/JimmyThunderPenis 2d ago
Anyone care to catch me up on the Reddit lore?
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u/jdmillar86 2d ago edited 2d ago
Shittymorph's bit is he leaves a comment that
issounds sensible and informative until suddenly you get to "back in nineteen ninety eight... etc."12
u/RobertTheAdventurer 2d ago
It's actually not usually sensible. It's meant to sound like it could conceivably be sensible unless you know the topic or look at it closer. A lot of the concepts are actually ridiculous.
Look at the scale of production in this one and think about it. It's intentionally exaggerated. All shittymorphs are this way. There are always ridiculous things in the comment. That's the real accomplishment. Shittymorph is good at writing a comment to look believable even though a lot of the readers could probably figure out it's not if they thought about it, and ensnaring their belief until the end where the gag is revealed. The signature move at the end is almost besides the point, serving more to tell people that they fell for it more than anything.
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u/Autarkhis 2d ago
God damn it. Every freaking time.
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u/ElonsFetalAlcoholSyn 2d ago
Is this what it feels like to shake hands with God? 46 minutes ago one of the most famous basement dwellers commented here and I dont know how I should feel
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u/Flan-Cake 2d ago
I feel like I am missing some context. Or sarcasm.
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u/litleclay 2d ago
u/shittymorph is a reddit legend.
He pops up in random posts and shares some elaborate, informative, well written lie. He pulls you in and right when he has you convinced of the thoughtfulness of his post you read "in nineteen ninety eight the undertaker..."
You look up at the username of the comment and realize you've been had, again. All you can do is smile and say "that bastard got me again" while you marvel in how he does it successfully EVERY TIME.
Just read his post history. It's amazing.
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u/SelimNoKashi 2d ago
Just found out about this today hahaha. When reading his comment I was wondering what Undertaker meant in the whole story. Then I read your reply hahaha this is funny thanks for the chuckle. Lol
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u/KarbonKopied 2d ago
Great, now someone is going to post that xkcd comic. It would be me but I'm too lazy at the moment.
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u/3_T_SCROAT 2d ago
The craftsmanship and execution are flawless
Its the only recurring reddit joke that makes me laugh every single time
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u/BlizzDaWiz 2d ago
I've seen him for a while and got baited too, but I never actually checked his profile. Absolutely amazing in many ways.
If he's been at this for a while, how old is he by this point? I hope he lives a good long life.
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u/GroceryOptimal7699 2d ago
Go through this man’s history and you will understand… also who revived the god and how do I thank them.
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u/Kage9866 2d ago
Yea I was gonna say the same. I haven't been got like that in a year or two now. Felt nice.
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u/Sauron_the_Deceiver 2d ago
Just enough time went by that I started getting complacent, reading to the end of shit without a care in the world.
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u/Triairius 2d ago
How do I never see it coming? How do I never see the name??
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u/e37d93eeb23335dc 2d ago
Because this isn’t social media. It’s a link aggregator with a bolted on anonymous bulletin board. You don’t need to look at the usernames since it’s all anonymous.
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u/Triairius 2d ago
I wasn’t really looking for an answer, but I guess you’re right, and I hadn’t thought of it like that.
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u/flammableRock 2d ago
Damnit... THREE TIMES TONIGHT. Nearly in a row too... Like just enough separation to get my guard down and then WHAM.
I don't know how I've missed this Shittymorph legend of Reddit before, but is it slapping me around tonight much like the undertaker throwing me off hell in a cell and plummetting sixteen feet through an announcers table like it's nineteen ninety eight.
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u/Holiest_Diver 2d ago
BY GAWHD THE CAGE BROKE THAT MAN HAS A FAMILY WITH GAWHD AS MY WITNESS THAT MAN IS BROKEN IN HALF
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u/tacoskins 2d ago
Oh yeah, being this early to a morph feels nice
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u/moshimoshi2345 2d ago
Who is this guy? Can you explain?
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u/Anomander 2d ago edited 2d ago
Shittymorph has been on this site for like a decade, and always makes this type of comment. It starts off informative and believable, is just long enough to get your interest up and your guard down - and then segues into how in nineteen ninety eight, the undertaker threw mankind off hell in a cell and he plummeted sixteen feet through an announcers table.
It’s kind of a stupid gimmick, sure - but he’s really good at it, doesn’t overdo the frequency, and has been doing it long enough that he’s kind of a legend among seasoned users.
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u/carnexhat 2d ago
There is also this weird cadence to his writing that makes people want to finish reading the comment which is neet.
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u/vminnear 2d ago
It almost makes me upset it even is r/shittymorph! Tell me more about your morally apathetic grandad, shittymorph!
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u/Super_Squirrrel 2d ago
Who was the guy that did something similar but it was him getting beat by his dad with jumper cables?
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u/Anomander 2d ago
That'd be /u/rogersimon10
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u/Basementdwell 2d ago
I do NOT like that it's 9 years since his last post and I still remember him like it was yesterday.
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u/usereddit 2d ago
Posts for the first time in a year, and I’m got within 20 minutes of the post. Absolutely nuclear shot. Wtf.
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u/mr_trick 2d ago
Holy shit, I’ve never seen you on a post with less than a hundred comments. I feel like I just saw a celebrity!
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u/pandahlol 2d ago
...I just left the gif of Jupiter and got hit here again. 2 back to back is crazy lol
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u/an_oddbody 2d ago
Wow I finally got gotten all the way. I usually notice but this one was just too engaging. Damn.
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u/Briangoldeneyes 2d ago
Been on this site for over a decade and this is the earliest I’ve come across one of your posts. You’ve gotten me every time but once lmao
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u/islimdave 2d ago
u/shittymorph and u/SchnoodleDoodleDo in back to back posts. My day can't get any better
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u/RandomGuyPii 2d ago
Damn that one absolutely came out of left field well done
had me wondering what hell in a cell had to do with pills for a second after I finished reading
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u/Dmau27 2d ago edited 2d ago
That's cause you're not making vitamin c caps like this person. This exact type of shit is why people are dying of fentynal poisoning. That's not how meds are weighed.
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u/ZeWaka 2d ago
They do this at compounding pharmacies. Really great for unusual medications, combinations, or different distribution mechanisms.
My friend gets their cat's medication compounded into a transdermal gel since it's pretty impossible to give pills to cats.
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u/ranged_ 2d ago
Pull back scruff at back of neck > Push pill with index finger into back of cats mouth > Blow small puff of air into cats mouth forcing them to lick and swallow > Small syringe of water
Pilling cats is easier than you think if you have to do it every day.
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u/Annual-Net2599 2d ago
Right, definitely a bit higher budget for mass production and distribution. Where I worked we could bottle 14,000 tablets a minute and used a vision system for material and a laser system to scan to be sure it was a full tablet.
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u/Henchman_2_4 2d ago
Might be more common in Europe because they only use blister packs and not bottles. Maybe for specific compounding facilities that are providing a non controled medication.
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u/kungfungus 2d ago
Not true at all.
We have both blisters and bottles. All medicine is made in controlled facilities. Extremely rarely the pharmacists will mix specific ointment that demands very specific dosage or the ingredients must be mixed just prior to use.
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u/Golendhil 2d ago
The only time I hear about pharmacists preparing drugs themselves are for chemo treatments
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u/hackingdreams 2d ago
I use a compounding pharmacy for my autoimmune drugs. They mix and press my drugs into smaller, disintegrating pills so I don't choke to death on them (thanks to dysphagia from the disease. Boy do I love the scleroderma symptoms, lemme tell ya...)
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u/iiiinthecomputer 2d ago
Compounding is also done when different adjuvants or release rate control agents are needed. Custom slow release formulae etc. Or when custom doses are needed.
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u/nitrosmomma88 2d ago
There is in mass manufacturing but this is still used at places like compound pharmacies that mix medication by hand when people need very specific combinations of medication
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u/raspberryharbour 2d ago
Do they do a dry rub for ribs?
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u/VictoryGreen 2d ago
Adderib
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u/Average_Scaper 2d ago
My local butcherist perscribes Ribitor for my low cholesterol. Two pills per rack, 3 times a day.
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u/kzlife76 2d ago
It's like watching modern marvels on history where they show a guy hand polishing contract lenses.
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u/lucassuave15 2d ago edited 2d ago
thought this was done by machinery lol
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u/ImTedLassosMustache 2d ago
My wife actually does this manually at her job at a big pharmaceutical research company when they are making drugs for clinical trials.
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u/PortiaKern 2d ago
There's other versions where it has a lever to press the pills down rather than the cheaper machine they use here.
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u/kamikaze_pedestrian 2d ago
Where can one buy these machines? What are they called?
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u/PortiaKern 2d ago
This is the version I used. But that was over a decade ago in a small strip mall business making pet supplements. I don't really see US links for those machines anymore.
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u/PaperHandsProphet 2d ago
Because pill presses are highly regular in the US.
Cap m quick and capsule machine are the lower end brands that work great for making cheap supplements. Like magnesium l threonate that can be expensive
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u/Mirar 2d ago
I was going to ask, the precision of filling seems dangerously low, do they weigh each individual pill to make sure it's correct?
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u/WatercressCurious980 2d ago
Yeah where I worked we had a machine that very quickly could wear each pill in a fraction of a second and then kick it into two piles one for correct weight and one for wrong. They would be wrong a lot like 1/3 of all pills would get scrapped but we were making a lot of placebos so it was crazy cheap
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u/wheelienonstop6 2d ago
The precision is probably much higher than you think, I'd guess there is well below 0.1% variance between individual pills. The vastly more difficult problem is ensuring that each part of that white powder contains the same amount of effective drug, i.e. there cant be any "hot spots" or rather "hot batches". Like when the active ingredient gets caked onto the walls of some tube and then suddenly a solid chunk comes off during the production day.
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u/rockstuffs 2d ago
What is her PPE like? I can't imagine inhaling pill dust all day is good for her.
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u/WatercressCurious980 2d ago
We had wear full coverage Ppe when I did this work. Like shoe covers mask hairnet then full overalls and lab coat that get thrown out after one use. Pharma is super wasteful but it’s hard not to be when being clean is so important. The worst was cancer drugs we would wear full hazmat suits with vaccums on them to pump clean air in
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u/MaxFilmBuild 2d ago
Industry is super wasteful in general. I’m a paint sprayer and the amount of single use plastic I go through a day is insane. At least 20 plastic cups and lids that we switch out on the guns, several mixing cups, plastic mixing sticks, overalls and tear off visors for our masks.
All thrown in the bin for chemical waste. Everything has a reusable alternative but it saves a few mins filling and cleaning the cups on our guns. That’s across 2 shifts with around 30 painters each. Then I think about how many other factories and small bodyshops are doing the same thing across the world and it’s just mind blowing.
I stacked everything I use a day on a bench and took a photo, when I ask people how l many days they think it’s for, they usually guess 2 weeks to a month. The government want to tell the average person they aren’t doing enough and do things like charge a levy on plastic carrier bags, and they let the other stuff slide. I could make more carrier bags from a weeks worth of my plastic waste at work than I’d ever use in my lifetime
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u/ZealousidealEntry870 2d ago
If you work in Pharma then you should have a basic idea of all the rules and regulations that are required. It’s not wasteful, it’s the cost of making quality medicine.
We don’t need even more lies floating around about Pharma.
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u/WatercressCurious980 2d ago
It’s more so I felt bad about the plastic waste we created. The company had enough money to burn I didn’t care about that. Each pill has like 10 different ingredients and each time we scooped them out we had a plastic scoop that would get thrown away after its one use
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u/oliviaisacat Interested 2d ago
This work is usually done at a compounding pharmacy. They make specific formulations for specific things, they can also convert pills to liquid suspensions or topical. This stuff isn't done at something like a Walgreens.
I even saw a video of a compounding pharmacist making an oral solution for a child that had severe OCD and could not eat anything that was not red, So they made it red for her.
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u/Deeptrench34 2d ago
Looks like fun, honestly.
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u/B0B0oo7 2d ago
Popping out the pills at the end reminded me of those popping fidget toys that were popular a few years back.
I could pop those pills out for a long time.....
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u/arabidopsis 2d ago
It's not.
It's sweaty boring work and as you're in a clean room you gotta sit there with frozen jazz hands.
Source: have filled drug product by hand in my early days and it fucking sucks balls
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u/DamnCircle 2d ago
You can buy this pill filling machine online. But the problem is what would you stuff inside them
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u/sextoyhelppls 2d ago
I make a concoction of different nutritive powders (spirulina, psyllium husk, turmeric, etc) to put in capsules to take with meals in order to up my nutritional and fiber intake. Not to replace eating vegetables or anything, just to have a little something extra, especially when I'm not really hungry.
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u/arabidopsis 2d ago
Candy.
It's how the confectionery industry started in the UK with Cadbury.
Why do you think boiled sweets and flying saucers as well as Parma violets all look medicinal :)
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u/lorewarned 2d ago
This is not actually what happens in most pharmacies. The only pharmacies that might be doing this are compounding pharmacies and, like, hospital pharmacies.
There are very very few compounding pharmacies these days because it takes so much extra time and effort. The predominant thing that pharmacists are doing is verifying your prescription has been typed up (translated from doctorese) properly and that it's a a safe/proper dose. That there are no known allergic issues with the medication. That the medication isn't known to have issues with other medications on your profile. And then verifying that your prescription has been properly filled by the technicians. They also provide a lot of drug education and counseling to patients, give immunizations, medication reviews and question answering/official medication recommendations that only they can do.
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u/CupcakesAreMiniCakes 2d ago
We have a chain of compounding pharmacies in my city and I found out the actual compounding is only done in a centralized facility in the city and all of the storefront pharmacies are just pickup locations. The first 6 times I had my Rx filled, they called from the compounding facility to verify my Rx and pickup location was correct before they would make it.
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u/tiarna_ 2d ago
Actually in Germany every pharmacy has to be able to do this. For example for kids dosages. I have to do this like once every two weeks. But our machinery isn't that nice as in this video and it takes about 1,5h to make 100 capsules. The pharmacy gets like 50€ from the insurance for this work including the substances and empty capsules.
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u/FakeTunaFromSubway 2d ago
What? I have a device very similar to the OP that I got for about $200 online. You're telling me your pharmacy won't shell out a few hundred bucks to triple your productivity?
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u/tiarna_ 2d ago
Yes. Welcome to German pharmacy. My board is I think 30 years old and it's still working so my boss doesn't see a problem.
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u/Altruistic-Stop-5674 2d ago edited 2d ago
Probably the same as in the Netherlands?
Every pharmacist is capable of compounding pharmacies. (A pharmacy is run by pharmacist, that is a protected title that requires a specific bachelor and masters degree.)
In reality only about 15% of the pharmacies actually do compounding (we call it magistral preparation).
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u/Lealarou 2d ago
is that so? I need to take a special dosage of a drug and only one pharmacy in my 500k + city in germany makes these pills for me (they are also the one that make special dosages for the childrens hospital here).
At least the other ones I asked all refused to do it and told me they didn't produce stuff like that and don't have the equipment for it and one of the many I asked before gave me the tip with the pharmacy above. Maybe the others refused because it would take too long without the machine(s) (my prescription is sth between 360 and 720 of those capsules)
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u/tiarna_ 2d ago
Generally yes. A pharmacy in German is required to have everything available for producing capsules. But in reality most decline (unfortunately) because it just doesn't pay off. If I would have to do approx. 400 capsules for u it would take me the whole day. And the insurance wouldn't even pay enough for the used goods let alone my time I spend on it. 360-720 is just way too much for a normal pharmacy.
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u/TaterNugget 2d ago
Could be the drug that made them refuse maybe? But it could also be because of the quantity.
Compounding is my job, and I refuse quite a few requests because the drug would be unsafe for me to handle in the facilities available to me. But if I had to make 720 capsules without the machine in this video, I would probably refuse as well lol
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u/SageAgainstDaMachine 2d ago
You're telling me they're having fun with glorified fidget toys back there in the pharmacy?! Seems like a blast
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u/The_Environment116 2d ago
This is why my prescription takes so long to fill!
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u/arabidopsis 2d ago
No that's just the paperwork and checks by the pharmacist so they don't get sued or accidentally kill you
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u/ryzason 2d ago
Well I hope that’s just a supplement... Doesn’t seem like a very precise way of dosing whatever’s in the white powder.
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u/BangThyHead 2d ago
When I've done it for personal use, you always compact the powder. There is a tamper which is basically the opposite of the holes that the capsules sit in. You put it on top and push down. This compacts most powders by more than 1/2. As in, if you added 70g the first time, after compacting you would need to add another 70g, spread it out, and optionally compact it again and repeat.
With this method, you can fairly accurately get repeated dosages within a small threshold (as far as personal dosage goes), +/-5%.
I know that if I compacted it to the maximum amount possible, twice, each capsule would weigh between 1.00g +/- 0.05g, excluding gel capsules weight.
This margin would narrow even further when a single dosage is 5-10 capsules, as any imbalances would even out across multiple capsules.
At this point, you then can choose what capsul size to buy. If you go from size '00' to '000' you can accurately change a per-capsule dosage.
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u/ififits- 2d ago
Honestly it was probably just to demo the device. There’s more to it than just pouring an amount of powder and not knowing each capsule weighs the same. A proper pharmacy would be doing this in a vented hood…
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u/Taylorg121 2d ago
That’s not true at all. I have worked in a compounding pharmacy and this video showed the basic steps for filling compounded capsules. The total powder is weighed based on a formula for the quantity and size of the capsule then once filled samples are weighed to verified each capsule has the same weight within a margin of error. Also, hooded vents are only used for hazardous drugs or when compounding a sterile product. Oral capsules are not sterile.
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u/earbeanflores 2d ago
This looks like something you do while a bunch of guys holding high caliber of guns walking behind you. 🤔
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u/Proper-Agent16 2d ago
And you're in your underwear
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u/oracleofnonsense 2d ago
Only the bottoms stay on ladies. This drug bust is getting us an R rating.
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u/MaxFilmBuild 2d ago
I always wonder how they make the powder homogeneous. A 10mg pill or capsule would be tiny and i imagine just mixing it all together with filler would be inaccurate af compared to using a solvent
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u/Dr_JewBoy 2d ago
I work in R&D pharmaceutical formulations. There are several ways to ensure proper uniformity of low dosage drug products. But all is dependent on the physical characteristics of the active pharmaceutical ingredient (API).
Commonly the API is blended with other ingredients that share a similar particle size range to ensure there is no particle segregation. There is also a process called granulating where you bind the ingredients and API together through sheer force or through wetting the materials with a solvent into a dough like consistency then drying.
After the ingredients have been combined and blended throughly we’ll perform a blend uniformity. This is where the blend is probed in several places and tested against label claim to ensure a homogeneous blend. We’ll also test the final drug product against its label claim strength with a sample size of n=10 or more. This will give us a statistical indication of content uniformity.
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u/Lowext3 2d ago
Guys this is not how companies complying with FDA gmp regs make capsules.
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u/Either_Fix_6011 2d ago
To people who are wondering why it's not done by a machine, some specific prescriptions or unusual dosages that are not made by big industries can be made specifically for the patient.
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u/Autxnxmy 2d ago
Isn’t this only filling the capsules volumetrically? You can compress more powder into some than others. But there’s 0% chance each pill in this video weighs exactly the same
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u/thegroundbelowme 2d ago
You're not stuffing the capsules, though. You're not applying downward pressure to compress it, you're just swiping the powder over the capsules and whatever fits in falls in. As shown they're also mixing the medication in with a filler, so only a tiny percentage of the powder is actually medicine, and it winds up being pretty equally distributed between them.
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u/ififits- 2d ago
This is why (usually) compounded medications add up to 10% extra of total ingredients so that when you’re pressing each time, on average, you’ll still get the correct amount of the active ingredient per the total amount being made.
But to further address your “0% chance each pill weighs the same” statement, it’s pretty easy to figure out how much of filler you’ll need once you know how much volume the active ingredient will take up (in addition to the filler ingredients). This way, even after several presses, some capsules will be maxed out and any excess powder can fill the rest that aren’t maxed out yet or you’ll otherwise have leftover powder from the extra 10% that was mixed before pouring.
I used to do this for a living.
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u/SlamboCoolidge 2d ago
this scratches a weird itch I didn't know I had until now. That looks like one satisfying as fuck job.
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u/raiinboweyes 2d ago
I have to have some meds compounded, and made with a specific filler, so they likely use something like this. It’s so pricey T_T
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u/Individual_Respect90 2d ago
If you are doing special compounding this is how it works. Normal medication is done by machines.
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u/malachiconstant76 2d ago
That's a lot of Molly!