[fatjacksonthecat]

Hi all, I tried to message a moderator to ask if this is allowed first but Im not yet permitted to send messages so if what Im about to ask is off limits then feel free to delete, I will understand as I know this is a question that is most likely completely out of the ordinary.

 I am not a chemist of any sort, I know very little. The reason Im here is because I have something called a mast cell disease that causes allergic reactions to basically everything under the sun,excipients in medications are a biggie. Because of this I have to get most of  my medications compounded at extremely expensive prices. My doctor recently wanted me to try to get over the counter loratidine (claritin) or fexofenadine (allegra) compounded but at 400 dollars a script theres no way.

This has led me to thinking out of the box. I had a pharmacist tell me once that I could filter my prednisone through a coffee filter to filter the excipients and that has worked very well. With my doctors blessing I have tried doing that with claritin as well, however, from what I understand because claritin isnt water soluble I am in essence be filtering the claritin back out right? I found out that loratidine( or claritin) is very soluble in alcohol and after experimenting with it, it did dissolve much better in alcohol but the problem is I also react to alcohol.

So I am now thinking to boil off the alcohol after filtering out the excipients but want to avoid  destroying the loratidine. I looked up the temperature that loratidine  would denature and it seems to be  well over the boiling point of water and alcohol( from what I understand). Here is one reference I used below. Like I said if Im way off with this, just let me know. I have no training in chemistry but  just trying to help myself through a very difficult situation. This is also out of my doctors area of expertise and so he does understand my need to experiment. Thanks in advance.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/226564848_Thermal_behavior_of_loratadine

[wildfyr]

I think you could easily extract the loratidine with something like everclear. And you can remove the alcohol by either gentle heating or simply ambient condition evaporation, which can be sped up by pushing air over the container with a small fan. Do you feel like you could get access to anhydrous (not wet)  magnesium sulfate (aka Epsom salt)? This would allow you to easily remove the water in ever clear (5%). You simply add a few grams of it to the alcohol extraction, it will clump up some, and filter it at the same time you are filtering the excipients.

Excipients seem to come in many forms, are you sure the ones you care about will not be soluble in ethanol?

[fatjacksonthecat]

Very cool , I had no idea alcohol could evaporate those ways. I actually use epsom salt regularly so I could definately do that. Im guessing alcohol with less water evaporates more quickly?

Ive thought about the other excipients and wondered how I would deal with those possibly also being soluble but I did find a claritin name brand formula that just has corn starch, lactose and magnesium stearate.The latter two Im fairly certain Im okay with but the corn starch is the  one I want out, which I know has poor solubility in water and thinking also does in alcohol. There are other cheaper formulas with  a couple more ingredients I might experiment with if this one works, but then again if I can get just one to work Ill be more than thrilled. Thanks SO much for your help.

[Borek]

I sympathize with your problems, but I am afraid per forum rules we don't allow discussion of self medications.

Topic locked.