Garden City Pharmacist’s Pain Management Alternative

The Father's Day massacre at Haven Drugs Pharmacy in Medford brought to light the growing problem of prescription-addictive drugs like oxycodone/OxyContin and the devastating affect it can have on abusers and those they come into contact with.

Long before this tragedy, however, pharmacist Anthony Bambace, proprietor of Garden City Chemists in Garden City, has been working on an alternative solution to Opiate-type drugs, under the guise of “topical pain management.”

Bambace specializes in this method, in which raw materials of a medication are compounded and combined for “a synergistic effect to make a more effective drug.”

Instead of swallowing a pill, topical is a cream that is applied to the area of pain; 98 percent of the drug stays concentrated in the area, Bambace said. There are no side effects to any of the internal organs, he added. The best thing? It is not addictive.

More than 20 of Bambace’s customers at Garden City Chemists have “consistently” used this type of pain relief medication. “We’re getting some good response with this because it is much safer and more effective,” he said. “Think of the medication you take orally, but now, to decrease the side effects, we take the raw materials and incorporate this into a fast-absorbing cream.”

Bambace said there is a place for “opioids,” which are prescribed for reducing chronic pain like those of cancer patients. “Pain is the No. 1 untreated problem in medicine today. That’s a fact,” he said. “It’s difficult to treat pain. Opioids (like OxyContin, Vicadin, Percocet) are effective, but the abuse potential is very high. A patient will naturally take more than what is prescribed because taking them builds a tolerance in your system so that the person continues to need more medication for the same pain relief. They can get hooked without realizing it.”

Bambace can empathize with the patients who need strong pain meds and the pharmacists who dispense them. “As pharmacists, we’re not here to diagnose, we’re here to help; so we try to do what is best for the patient,” he said. “We try to warn our patients of the consequences of taking opiates but sometimes when a patient has terrible pain, the choices are limited; it’s a difficult situation that society is trying to control.”

That is why he switched to topical pain medication. “It is a great alternative that people should be aware of, and I want to make them aware of it,” he said.

For more information on Garden City Chemists, or about topical pain medication, call Bambace at 516-747-1516.