
Man, blessed man.
It's Thursday, man.
I'm having a great day.
The weather warmed up a little bit, so I ain't got to walk around with my hands in my pocket, man.
Yeah, man.
I'll give you that.
You can only get your fingers.
in your pockets, not your hands.
But anyway, man, it did warm up.
I mean, it was eight degrees this morning.
So yeah, it's moving in the right direction.
How was your jump saw yesterday?
That was great, man.
We'll talk about it.
We'll talk about it a little bit later on in
the
on you, Dr. Omar.
It's actually, you know, I, we had, I did not plan to go.
There is a virtual conference that I was planning to attend virtually.
But the weather was very cold.
And I just like goes to your bones.
And I felt like I really want, you know, I need some warmth in my heart.
So I decided to attend live.
I said to attend live.
So I travel.
I travel.
Yes.
I ran away.
I ran away for a couple of days.
So you
Yeah.
Yeah.
Sub-zero weather and I was looking normally we get seven to eight the entire winter But we had them backed up This time around and you know You know those of us who are who are strong, you know strong willed dr. Omar and And those and those of us who take the right supplements
Uh, we can handle it.
We can handle
it's actually, oh my God.
Every day the flu virus.
It's like we have flocks of people coming to take medications for the flu.
It's just a regular flu type A. Many people are sick.
We have been seeing the greatest number of people sick since 2008 or 2010, more than 10 years.
We haven't seen this number of people who are sick.
And I'm not sure why.
I'm having for the first time in February, people coming to take the flu vaccine.
February.
Sorry, influenza vaccine.
In February, we think that many people are sick.
There is like in the schools, in the workplaces, it's every day we're seeing it.
So yeah, we have been dispensing many of the supplements for supporting the immune system for cold and flu more than any other time.
It just reminds me of the COVID times.
And no one is talking about it.
But please, please, everyone just be careful.
Wash your hands.
Try to minimize shaking hands.
If you shake someone's hands, please don't put it in your mouth or nose.
We do it unexpectedly after we shake hands.
I think we need to be careful.
I want to tell everyone to take daily doses of zinc, vitamin C, vitamin D, quercetin, NAC.
These are the top supplements to support a daily dose of that for the immune system support because you can kind of get in contact with someone that has the virus, but it doesn't get to you because you have stronger immune system because it stopped at your skin and then you washed it off.
So, take supplements like Wellmune that we have at Wikipedia that have concentrated doses, concentrated daily doses of these important micronutrients and vitamins that support your immune system at two capsules.
Every day after food, my patients and clients who are doing that, they have over the years better results with cold and flu and COVID.
They come back after a year and they tell me this is the best year of my life.
I've been thriving because I'm taking care of myself.
How has that, because I was just reading where the Trump administration is going to throw away all of the COVID tests that we've had stored up.
And they're just going to get rid of all of them.
The government's not going to issue any more COVID tests.
How has COVID been?
Is it under control?
Well, nobody knows now because there's no one testing anymore.
I think fewer people are testing.
The testing kits are sold in some of the stores, some of the pharmacies.
but not every place now is testing for COVID.
So it's out there, people are getting sick, but we don't have the stats, the accurate stats of how many people are getting sick.
So I have now cold and flu symptoms.
Can it be COVID?
Yes.
Can it be COVID?
Yes.
Can it be RSV?
So we don't know exactly.
So self-care now is very important.
We're going to have a huge pushback on vaccines.
and new vaccines and development of new vaccines in the coming a few months and years so we just have to be careful but unfortunately the stats are not available with there is also the problem of the bird flu that no one is talking about.
And we saw that Canada is buying half, I think, half a million doses of bird flu.
So that's also something that I'm exploring to see when is this going to be available.
But again, the media is a very important component of letting the public know what is happening, what is going on.
So we don't want people to be scared or afraid.
What you can do now with self care, the care of yourself and your beloved ones, make sure that you take the measures to
Like, yeah, let's not hug each other very, you know, intimately now.
Like, just take it easy because we have many people that are sick.
Wash your hands.
Don't do it too much, but just be careful and support your immune system.
Sleep well.
Be less stressed in these tough times.
Just let's take care of ourselves now, you know.
not monitor these things.
And as you stated, there's a new sheriff in town with Health and Human Services who doesn't believe in most of these things.
And we're not out of the woods.
I don't know.
I'm around a lot of people, but I feel confident.
I've had my vaccinations.
Dr. Omar, I haven't had as much as a sniffle.
It works,
right?
I mean, these things work.
You did the combination of getting your vaccines, supporting your immune system, and living healthy, and being happy, and kind of fighting it, and kind of, it's the dream for many people to do everything we can to stay healthy, and it works.
This works.
I think you are referring to Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
when he said that instead of letting people have drugs, keep them healthy.
I totally agree with that.
I totally agree with that.
But it's not just a daily kind of obsession of an idea that we're going to build everything around.
We have to always remember that there are seniors, there are people with chronic conditions, people that need us to that are already taking drugs on chronic.
with chronic conditions, so we cannot just shift and take the funds from medications that are very expensive, that are covered by the government Medicare and Medicaid and just shift the funds suddenly based on a daily obsession.
No, we have to actually have a plan.
Because I tell it to one of my friends years ago.
I want to tell you this.
I'm one of my friends years ago.
He was taking Abusing drugs, right?
And he told me I'm going to be the best today.
I'm going to do everything I can good.
I stopped drugs.
I'm going to pray I'm going to do this this this and He had big problems in his family And I told him like okay, you can do it, but you have to fix your problems in your family also
in concurrent with what you want to do.
And he did not.
His relationship with his family was very bad and he didn't do any efforts to fix this.
So unfortunately, he went back to the cycle of addiction again.
So I always say, okay, fix it, but look at the root causes.
The health care system has been having problems for long, long times.
Let's work on it with this kind of awesome vision of keeping
people healthy.
Let's put allocate some funds to functional medicine.
Maybe we have a challenge that our supplements are not covered by the insurance.
The any functional medicine approach is not covered by the by the Medicare and Medicaid.
Many of the things many of the new testing for let's say lipid profile are not covered by Medicare and Medicaid.
The more in depth.
testing that give the doctors and the practitioners deeper insights about how to prevent strokes, how to prevent cardiac events.
These are not covered by the insurance.
So let's allocate some funds there.
And that gets me a segue to talk to you about what I want to talk to you about today, which is the newest pain medication, the one that has been approved more than 20 years have passed since we had a non-opioid drug approved.
for pain, for acute pain.
A medication called Geornavex, a weird name medication for acute pain that they just approved that works in a different way from the opioids that opens gates for people with acute pain to take.
It has its limitations, but it has its promises as well.
It's not a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory like ibuprofen, and it seems like it works really well in the clinical trials.
It will be available
It will be available in the coming few weeks through insurance.
But I want to tell you, it would cost you $600 to get this medication and put it in hands of
So
No, 30 pills.
30
Yeah, 15 days supply maximum, $500.
$600.
Dr.
The following content is not intended as medical advice.
Always consult your own physician, pharmacist, or healthcare professional for your own healthcare concerns.
Bringing you a passion for health and wellness.
Dr. Omar Uliwa is here to answer your pharmaceutical questions.
Now, let's go in the pharmacy with Earl Ingram and Dr.
Omar.
slow.
you?
You can always call me at 262-429-9429.
Leave me a message or go to www.WiltopiaRx.com and leave me a
access to that in their
Okay.
All
Yeah, no, just about the drug crisis and everything I worked in.
I think I said this last week, I worked in pharmacy for 15 years as a pharmacy tech.
And unfortunately, I have a bunch of health conditions, so I'm not working.
applying for disability and all that.
And yeah, the drug prices are crazy.
For example, I do have kidney issues and heart issues.
And one of the meds I'm on is mycophenolate cell sept.
It's an immunosuppressant and without insurance that costs about $1,400 for a one month supply.
Wow.
And that's not a typo.
Luckily, right now I am on Badger Care Plus, which is Medicaid.
It's
Unfortunately, because of all the health issues I have going on because of my kidneys, other health issues have developed.
I'm on a total of 23 medications right now.
Because once the kidneys start going and the heart starts going, I'm on a lot of blood pressure,
you know suppress and spread his own stuff like that to keep everything under control.
And that's a lot of lab work too.
You sound like a very young guy.
I'm 39.
And the
sad
thing
the do sorry, sorry to interrupt.
I want to ask you what's the dose of Michael Finnelly that you take?
Is it 250 milligram?
Let me take a look.
I don't know.
All I know is it takes three tablets in the morning and three tablets at night.
All right, it's just because it's generic.
And the generic pricing, if you get it from an independent pharmacy, it's going to be much cheaper.
It's going to be maybe...
Oh, no, that's generic.
That's the generic.
That's the microfinally that is
generic.
Microfinally the generic.
Yeah, but the genetic actually we
sell the genetic just to tell you and this is very important for our listeners
is
that the genetic drugs at independent pharmacies we see the prices and we
try to mark it up in a low markup.
We don't make it crazy.
So I want to tell you that if it's microfinally 250 milligram, the bottle is going to cost you maybe $20 or $25 outside of insurance at an independent pharmacy.
So always for people, we tell them to check around because in bigger stores, they can mark it up because they know that if you go to around the corner, every pharmacy, you find the same pharmacy, they sometimes mark it up.
But it's it's challenging if you take all of these medications, I would be willing to talk to you after
the
show and have offer you a complimentary
a complimentary consultation and go over your medications and try to help kind of minimize a little bit and help communicate with your doctors to try to figure out some way to make things more, I would say less comprehensive, less complex.
23 medications is many and I think we can work on a plan.
So if you accept my offer, just send me an email to wiltopia at wiltopiarx.com and I'll send you the information for that.
consultation.
Yeah, I got it.
I will.
Okay.
I will write it in the chat.
Wiltopia at WiltopiaRx.com.
This is my personal email.
I call it the pharmacy because I love my pharmacy so much.
So just send me an email and I will reply back to you and then we can talk.
Thank
it's of condition leads to another and one medication as side effects and then we want to fix the side effects so doctors writes another medication and it's just
How about if I tell you the doctor doesn't communicate with himself?
Do you know why?
go to the doctor and you go
to the doctor and you see
the doctor because.
Yeah.
No, no, you go to the doctor and he's treating you for diabetes today.
Right.
All right.
He's going to write it in the codes to submit it to the to the insurance and to his to the hospital.
Tomorrow he's going to do some work also for blood pressure.
So he sees you every time for a different health condition because of the time allocated, as you mentioned.
And then we'll get back to the pain medication.
But certainly, this just opened up a whole different line of things, but we don't want to forget the pain, the new pain medication, 8-5-5-7-5-2-4-8-4-2.
You're officially in the pharmacy.
We're Dr. O'Mara Pharmacists on The Earl Ingram Show.
you
That's 855-752-4842.
You can text us at that same number.
You're officially in the pharmacy with Dr. Omar, the pharmacist.
Dr. Omar, you are the proprietor of Weltopia Pharmacy in Mecklin, Thamesville.
How can people get in touch with you, your phone number, and your email
address?
429-9429 or go to willtopiarx.com as you say it, wellness and utopia becomes willtopia.
Our body is very smart and God created us as a very smart body, like we eat food and this food is broken down in our bodies to little things and they're absorbed.
going to the bloodstream in the correct way, part of it is executed, part of it is used, and gut-created, our body is very smart machinist.
When you take medications, we want to take the minimum amount of medication to do the maximum benefit with the least side effects profile.
But if you go to the doctor today for one cause, tomorrow for another cause, and every time the doctor writes a prescription on the prescription pad, there is a time that the doctor has to stop or the practitioner has to stop and take bird-eye view and check the patient as not a health condition, but as a human being and listen to the patient.
Just listening to the patient can help the practitioners
reach deeper insights how to help them.
But this is how the healthcare system of paying for insurance works.
It's like you are putting health condition, you're getting paid based on the health condition.
So the functional medicine approach is looking at the person as a whole and trying to look at the root cause of the issue.
And it's okay to use medications, but the minimum amount of medications to help support the patient.
Some patients are going to need to take many medications.
Our goal as pharmacists and healthcare teams is to communicate with the doctor and the patient to try to minimize the number of pills and capsules and different.
therapies to get the maximum benefit and the minimum side effect because everything that we take, even supplements, everything has side effects and we have to watch for it.
Even for something like curcumin that we recommended to people for pain, curcumin is wonderful, turmeric.
is wonderful to help lower the inflammation grade helps with patients after cancer therapy to help prevent another cancer from happening supporting the body supporting the gut supporting the cellular power inside inside our bodies to give us more energy even curcumin has in drug interaction with blood thinners so we're not giving it to people on aliquus or brilenta or xarelto
So we look at everything that we take and we judge it based on knowledge and based on science and based on the license that we want to protect.
So that's why when I hear our friend calling and saying that he takes this number of
medications, I told them we need to talk because I would love to help make those 23 medications 2015, whatever we can do.
And I do this by communicating, not just me, I'm not like a miracle.
Every pharmacist does this to their own knowledge and the capacity according to what they can do, because we learned a lot about medications and what they do to the body and how they work together.
This is a big part of what we study.
So
Yes, we can take many medications.
And yes, we can have side effects based on those new medications that doctors are going to try with another medication, because it's easier to write a prescription rather than trying to take out a prescription.
So that's, I think, what RF Kennedy Jr.
is talking about.
I like the concept.
I just wish to see the application happening with root cause analysis, putting the right people.
in the room, counseling, taking their consults to take a decision.
It would work really well.
All the functional medicine doctors and practitioners are complaining that insurances are not paying for their therapies.
maybe we can talk about this but also the practitioners are worried that if the insurance start paying for the therapies they're going to ask for more information and more data input that will take more of their time outside of what they can offer the patients.
So it's a complex topic and it's a discussion and we have to be realistic and we have to find a way but I want to tell you that there are doctors and scientists who are deep into
functional medicine and conventional medicine.
And they created wonderful organizations, like an Institute of Functional Medicine, A4M, Longevity Medicine, scientists who are working day to day to provide support to other doctors and PAs and nurse practitioners and pharmacists, teaching them, educating them and putting bases to the science.
It's out there.
and we just need to open our eyes.
And we were just talking about a medication that gives hope to people who are having acute pain to not take an opioid, all right?
Not take an opioid, but your insurance needs to pay $600 to take this bottle of new medication that can help you.
It's gonna take a while for insurances to cover this medication, but this is a burden on the healthcare to pay $600 for one bottle.
I understand that it took R&D research and development for companies long time to come up with this therapy and they want to get their money back.
But $600 error for a pill that might cost you $1 or $2?
Why not $200?
Why not $150?
Where is the law that would kind of regulate how much the drug manufacturers are taking for medications?
And I want to tell you that, unfortunately, drug companies in America can put any amount of money for any medications that they presented to the public.
And that's kind of something that I would love for Donald Trump to look into.
If he wants to really have a stand, take a stand.
You know, Dr. Omar, before we go back to the phone lines, one of the things you just, I mean, the conversation that
you bring to us is so riveting and so really important.
You know, many of these medications, the tax dollars of the American people go into the development and the research of the medications that they're producing, that the pharmaceutical companies are producing, and yet they sell those prescriptions cheaper overseas than they do to the American people.
How does that make any sense?
There is a known fact that the drug companies had an agreement with, I think, George Bush, the father, not the son, to put any price on any medication and not discuss it.
It's not even a point of discussion.
I can sell you.
I can sell a pill for $1,000 or $10.
I do what I want.
And then I would just, I have the FDA approval and then insurance companies are going to pay for it.
And that's what made medications for serious conditions like hepatitis C. One month supply would cost the insurance company, I think $30,000.
Wow.
$30,000 and then it was sold for free in the third-world countries or very cheap in third-world countries and They were making genetics and selling it everywhere else because they could Create the molecule.
There was no protection in other companies the end result for the American public It would cost this amount of money insurance would pay for this medication But think of the bill for the health care that has to pay for this money for that
drug manufacturers.
So did the R&D need this amount of money to just kind of, you know, what, are you spending billions of dollars to develop the drug?
And this is the only way for you to get your money back.
Sit this aside and let's talk about something else called prescription benefit managers.
And these are the large PBM, the large companies that stand between insurance companies and pharmacies and the
patient and they say we're going to determine how much.
We should be paying for this medication for you and for you and for you and at the end of the day they don't tell anybody how much they make from pricing process that they have and they benefit.
They have profiteering that happens from the patient from the pharmacy from the insurance companies.
And no one is talking about it.
And they have caused many pharmacies to close, pharmacy deserts all over America.
So there's many, many components of the issue and the challenge.
And we need to be realistic and figure out how to bring this to the table.
Hey, hey, hey, good morning.
The beautiful morning here in Chicago.
With your morning in such riveting conversation, I agree.
How are you, sir?
Yes, sir.
I got a few if you could compare it with me.
Doctor, you're correct.
This is on a molecular level.
My uncle, I remember him as I was a little boy, I would watch as he would have just pills upon pills upon pills from who?
The VA, the veteran, you know, a VA.
And I felt sorry for him.
I see that with my old mother of all everybody, tons and tons of pills.
Didn't do him any good.
They're just torn him all away by the end of it, okay?
And then the application, the root cause of this whole thing, right?
When I was in the hospital,
They tried to give me meds, and I said, no.
I happen to be an ex-drug addict.
Well, I can't take these meds, you know, because otherwise they get addicted, you know?
And I was refused, and I'm like, how could you possibly refuse?
I said, because I believe if I did, you know, I'm trying to get off of drugs, whether or not I want to get hooked on drugs, God Almighty could cure me if He wanted to.
And one more thing, you know, the end result is, of course, what?
The love of money is the root of all evil.
You know what I'm trying to say here?
So we need to make a stand.
You know, have a stand, make a stand, above all to stand, because the best things in life are free, pressure and sunshine.
You know, you know, Dr. Omar, he brings about some relevant points, but I think we can't, we got to be careful.
We can't just say all drugs and, you know, you can't, we can't take the drugs.
We, we shouldn't do this.
You know, there's a delicate balance.
You're the pharmacist.
You know what that balance is.
But we can't say to tell people not to take medications because we're not doctors.
We're not pharmacists.
We don't know.
And we shouldn't make decisions unilaterally ourselves.
I know people who stopped taking their high blood pressure medications.
Dr. Allmine had major strokes.
They made those decisions themselves.
sir.
This is very important what you mentioned about them.
I think that.
we have to be careful to bring back the trust of the people in the medical community and in the healthcare system.
This trust is very important to help us believe in the medications that are offered to us.
So it's a very important point to bring back to the table.
You're doing this trust back.
You're officially in a pharmacy with Dr. Oma, the pharmacist.
The phone lines are open.
You know, you're tuned in to the earling room show.
I was playing this because I was thinking about you and Saturday Night Fever.
You can join us at 855-752-4842.
It's Thursday and man, just my favorite hour of the week.
Dr. Omar, the pharmacist, the proprietor of World Topia Pharmacy in Mecklin, Thamesville.
Dr. Omar, how can people reach you?
They can reach me by calling at 262-429-9429, or they can go to willtopiarx.com and drop a comment.
I don't think that this can happen because the medications is anti-depressants.
These medications are longer term used medications.
America is a country that has like kind of based on how do we say it.
It's not just a one-man show, right?
You might have your views, but the challenge is always going to happen with approval for payment for new drugs, but I don't think that they're going to just drop payment for medications that maintain a patient's health conditions like important antidepressant drugs.
We're all watching.
We don't know what will happen tomorrow because unfortunately many of the
decisions are impulsive based on someone having ADHD and just deciding, oh, I'm gonna do this.
I'm gonna do that.
I'm gonna do that.
Well, I mean, we're all watching, but we're all going to voice out our concerns and hopefully together we're going to prevent a challenging change that will affect many people in a bad way.
So, but I don't think from me as a pharmacist working in healthcare for a long time here, I don't think that it's going to be that easy.
to just a drop payment for a medication based on views of that person or another person, even if they are on the top of the chain when it comes to taking decisions.
Yes, it's bigger than any individual to just decide I'm going to destroy someone's life because I'm going to take their medications away.
They do sideways to create chaos.
And that's the challenge, but we're just watching, and we have to voice out our concerns when we see this happening.
Yeah, just wanted to clarify a few things.
And you guys brought up a lot of good points.
Yeah, it sounds like I'm on a lot of medications.
The nice thing is, is I do go to Aurora Healthcare for all of my doctors as the primary nephrologist, a pulmonologist, and a cardiologist.
And so every time I see each one, they can see all the meds that I'm on, including the over-the-counter.
Now I'm on 13 things, prescription, the rest are over-the-counter.
A lot, like you guys stated, is because of side effects.
You know, like that microphenylate, it has a whole bunch of side effects with it.
Prednisone has a bunch of side effects with it.
And so there's other things that they need to take care of the various side effects.
Brian,
I just wanted to clarify everything
Well, well, that's, that's, that's great.
We appreciate it, man.
Make sure you follow up with him.
He's a man of his word and, uh, and you could do worse than have some dialogue with Dr. Omar.
I can tell you that.
I hope you, hope you get better man and reach out to Dr. Omar.
Thank you very much for the call.
You know Dr. Omar, the time just flies when we're here and so it just moves so swiftly.
The reason I say it's my favorite hour of the week is because you really are making a difference in people's lives man.
Yeah, I always tell people I can only speak from, from, from my perspective and my wife's, you know, but, you know, man, now I will say we've got a shelf full of a lot of supplements, but, but, but I tell you those supplements, man, you know, they're just great.
Uh, you know, I don't, I don't notice any side effects.
which supplements I'm taking, maybe my wife might notice that I'm a little more, you know, argumentative.
That is great.
I mean, what you believe is true.
That's why it's very important to have trust.
When you trust a healthcare professional, that's very important in the health journey.
I just want to say that the last listener, I think was a different cooler from the previous
same one.
Same one.
Okay.
Anyway, I just want to say that if the patient is having the doctors and the pharmacy and many people are looking at the same case and they're caring for him as a closed system, Aurora are good in doing this.
So this is, we encourage this and we like that.
I just say that there is always room for improvement.
There is always room to have a different look.
at what we take and how can we make it better.
And that's what make us like wake up every day as a fresh day that we want to improve our lives, what we take, how we live, how we breathe.
So that's why it's just, you know,
wanted to talk
When you check in some of that sunshine and warmth, remember those of us who are here.
and what we're going through.
Well, you always bring a real sunshine whenever I see you.
It doesn't matter where you are.
Dr. Oma, the pharmacist, is always a blast, sir.
Thank you.
Well, Topia Pharmacy, Mequon-Thensville.
The phone number again.
262-429-9429.
We'll
See you.