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Good morning and
welcome to
the
Earl Ingram show.
As always, you can join us at 855-752.
48-42, that's 8-5-5-7-5-2-48-42.
Got a lot to talk about this morning.
Good morning, Chief Cardi.
How you doing, man?
Man,
I'm doing pretty good.
Earl, how about yourself?
How you feeling today?
I'm doing fine, man.
You know, I'm always doing fine, especially on Thursday morning when we are joined by my good friend, and we're officially in the pharmacy with Dr. Omar the Pharmacist.
As we await.
Dr. Omar, the pharmacist.
We're gonna talk about a lot of different things this morning, but we're gonna begin again.
You're officially in the pharmacy with Dr. Omar, the pharmacist on the earling room show.
Hey, good morning to you, Dr. Omar.
How you doing, man?
I'm doing great.
It's sunny.
It's beautiful.
Yeah, yeah, it is.
And it's gonna be at 50s and a little bit above, man.
We're actually... Oh, my God.
heading towards paradise.
Let's
go.
That's great.
It's a very nice way of saying it.
We've been missing the sun for so long, and it's just fearful.
Yeah, you know, it is the sun itself, the rays of the sun, and, you know, it does so much.
It's not even just the warmth, is it?
It's something about it.
Well, you know, I mean...
Yeah, vitamin D.
we need more vitamin D and the best way to get vitamin D is to be exposed to the sun for like 15-20 minutes a day and it would be great if we can get it naturally rather than just taking it from a supplement because it's a pro hormone that we need in our body that helps with so many things, supports the immune system, supports the skin health, the gut health.
but I'm talking as a pharmacist and a clinician, but it also helps with mental health and just feeling good.
When someone calls me at the pharmacy, I tell them, good morning, how are you doing in this beautiful day?
my customers start laughing and they start to find ways to make it beautiful.
If it is sunny,
they tell me it is sunny today.
Yes, it's beautiful.
If it's not raining, they tell me, oh, thank God that it's not raining.
So the mental health is very important with weather changes.
And it's also gives us an opportunity to reset and think and rethink of the beautiful things in our lives.
that we're missing and the weather is just getting us to life is starting again, right?
Yes, you know, spring, the old axiom, spring, spring's eternal.
And so, you know, life is coming back, you know, when the spring arrives and, you know, we've got a lot of rain on the way.
And so,
you know rain rain is a necessary reality for spring because life springs back in the flowers and the trees uh and all it'll to help beautify all the things around us so uh i don't get discouraged when there's rain you know i always think hey it could be snow it could be snow so bring on the rain uh dr oma
You were going to talk this morning about pain.
And so let me ask you before we get so deeply into it.
Is some pain a part?
Should there ever be a tolerance for pain?
You know,
yeah.
Tolerance for pain is subjective matter because some people have very high tolerance to start complaining from pain.
So you ask two people, what's your pain?
They say we are in pain.
What's your pain level?
One is gonna tell you it's like three out of ten.
Another person is gonna tell you it's fifteen out of ten.
So much pain.
And so it's kind of get us to the question of where does pain stem from?
Is it from the brain or is it from the body physically something in the body?
And actually the the determinant of the
Level of pain is the brain because there are receptors in the body called neccessive receptors.
They are everywhere in the body and they get the pain and they send a message to the brain and the brain would translate it and give you the idea that I feel discomfort.
Oh, I am in pain.
Then you start to tolerate it to a point that you complain about it.
And then sometimes you would tell yourself, you know what, I'm going to suck it and just kind of be a man and kind of live with it.
And then the pain increases.
And this is the challenge is like, if you let the pain increase in your body, it will be harder to control it.
So as soon as you feel pain, start to seek a solution for relief, start to figure out.
find a way to relieve this pain because when it gets to be a crisis and you can't sleep at night, you can't work, you're going to try to find more aggressive solutions to treat with your pain with more side effects.
So it's pain, a sign from our bodies that something is going askew or something is going wrong?
Exactly.
It's not normal that we have pain or we live with pain.
God created our body in a homeostasis state.
Homeostasis means balance.
So if let's say you touch something hits you, you feel pain just to stay away from this thing that hits you.
If this pain continues, that is inflammation.
inflammation means that the body is reacting to something and then after it's reacting to this external factor or internal factor it helps to heal it and then you have no inflammation you have no pain if the pain continues then you would hear a lot this means you have continuous low-grade inflammation which means the body is still overreacting to the thing that happened
All right, but eventually I'm still in pain.
What can I do?
You go to the pharmacy or you order an over-the-counter pain medication.
Start to have no pain every time that you have the over-the-counter medication.
You keep taking it week after week, months after months, but that can have other problems in your body as we've been discussing before the episode.
So you have to be careful how you work with your pain and there are certain questions that I always ask in my pain questioners to make sure that I am addressing the right person with the right solution.
that can help them manage and deal with pain.
Remember, when there is a doctor that works in pain management, it's pain management.
You're managing the pain because there are certain health conditions that you're going to live with that kind of pain.
But we want your perception of this pain to be tolerable and not to prevent you from living your life, loving your family, and being successful.
You know, Dr. Omar,
Oh, you're officially in the pharmacy with Dr. Omar, the pharmacist, on the Earl Ingram show.
We'll take, Dr. Omar will take any questions or comments.
Certainly whatever it is that you want to discuss with Dr. Omar, we don't always have to stick with the subject matter.
You're welcome.
But Dr. Omar, you know, you walk, when I was, again, a young guy and...
And yes, I would go into, you can go into the pharmacy and you'd see Bayer aspirin and you'd see maybe a couple others.
I can't remember what the names of them were, but now you go in and there's a whole aisle full of pain medication over the counter.
And, and so what's the difference between pain medications?
Aspirin, I, I do.
ibuprofen and in many other kinds of pain medications.
I think we've lost Dr. Omar for a second.
No, I'm here.
I am here.
Yeah.
But so
Dr. Omar, what's the difference between and if I've got a headache, how should I determine if I should take aspirin, ibuprofen, you know, and all these other different
types of pain medications that you know better than I, I've forgotten the name of them, over the counter.
You go to the pharmacy and in the aisle, there are two big segments of over-the-counter medications.
Acetaminophen
or
APEP, and there is nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, NSAids.
Acetaminophen, it's primarily used to reduce pain and fever.
They don't have a strong anti-inflammatory effect like the ibuprofen and the Advil.
Non-esteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs naproxen and aspirin also is considered like that.
So patients usually start with acetaminophen because it has like kind of less side effects.
the kidneys high doses can affect the liver but usually you can start with acetaminophen safe dose is like 500 milligram 1000 milligram in one day maximum dose is 4 grams a day after that it will cause damage to the liver there is a famous question that we had in the
uh pharmacy school in which our pharmacology doctor would ask us like who is going to die first this person who takes uh 100 pills of uh via aspirin or this person who takes 100 pills of acetaminophen and the answer is that you can take up to maybe 160 pills of
buyer aspirin and you're not going to die from problems in the kidney.
You're going to die from an ulcer.
Look, 160 or something.
But if you take more than eight tablets of acetaminophen, you can die hours later from liver failure because it has detrimental effect on the liver and high doses.
And that's why if people are taking Tylenol, high doses, long period of time, they have challenges in their liver.
and they might need to seek other ways to treat their pain.
855-752-4842 you're officially in the pharmacy with Dr. Omar the pharmacist on the Earl Ingram
show.
So you can see what's going on.
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Now, let's go in the pharmacy with Earl Ingram and Dr. Ola.
officially in the pharmacy where Dr. Omar the pharmacist, you know, he's going to take any questions or comments that you have about your health and, you know, the medications, medications that you are taking.
Dr. Omar, how can people get in touch with you?
If you can always call at 262-429-9429.
We can also text me at the same number or go to willtopiarx.com and
card and card of people.
didn't catch all of what we're talking about now.
How can they hear this again?
They
can always log on to civicmedia.us to check out the episode.
Click on the Earl Ingram show.
And if they, like I said, like you said before, they can always call into Detection Online, 855-752-4842.
You
know, Cardi, you asked a question earlier.
I did.
You want to ask Dr. Omed a question now?
Yes.
So I was reading this article.
Kind of like on social media and a lady has stated that when your foot falls asleep to shake your brain to wake it up.
Is that true or how does
that
work?
Oh When you shake your brain to wake it up to when I don't know
it was It was on social media.
Uh,
yeah But
anyway, so
So when you, when you're taking these different, nobody says, as you talked about, a seat of, of a seat of pediment.
Yes.
Um, yes.
And you just, you know, you don't know, you just want to get rid of this headache that you have.
And, and sometimes, you know, the headache is a sign that your blood pressure is too high.
And so if you keep taking these different medications or over-the-counter medications, because when your blood pressure is too high, you start having headaches, if you try to mask that with these over-the-counter medications, you really can do some serious harm to yourself, can't you?
I completely agree.
Now I am having headache and I want it to go away.
So I'm going to take some over-the-counter medication like Tylenol or ibuprofen.
If the headache comes the next day, I do it again.
If it continues, if I have to use over-the-counter medications more than twice a week, then I have to look for the cause for this headache.
It can be high blood pressure.
It can be low magnesium in the body, so I might just solve it by taking magnesium.
It can be anything else.
It can be a different form of pain that's unidentified.
So one of the main questions I ask my patients is how often you use over-the-counter pain pills?
on a weekly basis.
And based on that, we can determine some kind of inflammation or another health condition that's going on.
But the challenge here is that some patients come to you and they say, I have fibromyalgia.
My doctor defined me with fibromyalgia, which is kind of multifactorial pain syndrome that is unidentified.
And doctors throw a diagnosis and there is not a specific medication that would help with this.
And that's why the patient would be taking three, four different medications for pain.
That's when we try to find pain alternatives in which I want to seek something else that will help.
For example, curcumin and turmeric.
That is an excellent pain management solution, all right?
But we have to take the right form that's coming from high grade, high grade curcumin.
in a capsule for take it after you eat and take it regularly because it's not going to be acute work acutely working to deal with pain now so i want to differentiate between acute pain i want to deal with it now so that's why i took ibuprofen once in a blue moon once a month and
pain management in which I need something to take on a daily basis.
For instance, curcumin or turmeric, there's so many companies that make them.
I have maybe 10 different brands that are very good on curcumin, but I always check with the patient.
Do you take blood thinners?
because if you take blood thinners like aliquus, like plavix, that is going to affect the, if you take curcumin, it's going to affect the blood thinning effect of this medication.
So if I have, if you want to take it and your doctor doesn't have a problem with you taking it, that's a solution.
But if you're taking
these medications, I usually don't have patients take something that would increase the blood thinning effect because now I have to deal with the bigger context of pills and capsules that you take and drug, drug, drug, drug interaction and drug supplements interaction.
So I would introduce other solutions like low dose naltrexone.
LDN that I talked about before on the show, and I'm going to tell you briefly what it is.
Noval therapy that we've been using for 40 years.
See, novel and 40 years.
We've been using it in compounding pharmacy.
We are using it in order to help with pain reduction and inflammation reduction by briefly blocking opioid receptors so they can increase the body's endorphins, which is the happy hormones in the body.
Managing various conditions of pain, including fibromyalgia, rheumatoid arthritis, neuropathic pain, and that's kind of a prescription drug compounded for pain management.
So Dr. Omar, 8-5-5-7-5-2-48-42, you're officially in the pharmacy with Dr. Omar the pharmacist.
Any questions or comments that you have, we can take them now.
855-752-4842.
Dr. Omar will continue that conversation we just had on the Earl Ingram show.
back to the Earl Ingram show.
As always, you can join us at 855-752-4842.
855-752-4842, text us at that same number.
It's Thursday, so the one and only Dr. Omar the Pharmacist is on the line.
You're officially in the pharmacy with Dr. Omar the Pharmacist.
You know Dr. Omar, the more I hear these conversations from you.
The more I realized just how critically important it is That we pay attention to these conversations and the things you're talking about for instance You know you talked about people taking you know blood thinners and And I remember I had a stent Many
you know, well, well over a decade and a half ago, I wound up with a stint and, um, and I was taking, it might have been plavix to, to thin my blood and because they had put this stint in.
Now I didn't know, uh, you know, up from down, left from right.
I'm a much younger man and I had this procedure done.
and I kept taking the plavix because nobody ever told me that I was not supposed to continue taking the plavix even long after I had the stint and the only thing that really kind of saved me was I was tossing and turning one night and a commercial came on and it was talking about
they inherent dangers of taking plavics and and now you mentioned so if if if I went to and had some other issue and I went and had some pain somewhere and started and still taking plavics and start taking a cedar pediment or some other things you really put your your life in jeopardy, right?
I mean just not knowing
after a stent to take a pelvic scan range between at least six to 12 months, and then the doctor would determine after that if you need to continue to have it.
It has side effects, of course, and some patients would respond to other blood thinner is different and better, and that's why it is kind of according to each one's situation.
But the main thing is after three and six months, you should be checking with your cardiologist if you would continue on this type of medication because it would affect everything else.
Change of bleeding time is going to affect other medications that you take, other foods that you eat, and supplements that you take.
For instance, if you take Plavix and you take also
Tylenol shouldn't be a problem, but if you take plavix and you take a medication like omeprazole, that is a big problem because omeprazole is going to make the plavix not work as it should.
So you should take another medication instead of the omeprazole to help with acid reflux.
So drug interaction is a very big topic in pharmacy and big part of what we study and learn because I meet many patients who take 10, 15 different kinds of pills and capsules and we have to check the drug interaction.
That reminds me of a story of a patient that came to my pharmacy.
He was 76 years old, taking blood thinners, taking pain medications.
and he had no relief.
He had rheumatoid arthritis and it was like miserable, the level of pain that he was complaining from.
And after I did an assessment with him, I connected him with a practitioner who prescribed low dose naltrexone because you can take it even if you are on a blood thinner.
And after two weeks, the same patient walked into my store.
and he stood on one leg and he did the round on one leg and he gave me flowers and he told me I've never felt this kind of feeling for almost 20 years and that's only after starting it by two weeks and usually it can take up to six months for such a new novel therapy like lodos nautrexone to work
but for some people it can happen earlier.
The challenge is that it is compounded, so it doesn't have the marketing media that's behind other medications.
So many doctors do not know about it, so we have to do the extra effort of communication with practitioners to prescribe this kind of low side effect profile, very high efficient.
pain management solutions like LDN that has more than 2,000 paper and research and study that show its effect.
And it can go far beyond just pain management.
It helps with other autoimmune conditions, helps with to fight cancer, decreases inflammation, helps with COVID and longer COVID.
It's by far the main compounded medication that they changed.
the last 20 years of practicing functional medicine in every pharmacy that does compounding in America.
That's only one tool that we are using that is not acetaminophen and ibuprofen and Aleve.
What we are looking for is long-term management of pain that is not as harsh as the other medications on the liver.
and the kidneys.
And I told you before that if you have 10 over 10 of pain, and I can work on two points of this pain with a different tool, so physical therapy is going to help with two points.
If core coming is fine for you, it's going to help with three points.
Taking magnesium every day and other two points, we can create a plan for a manageable, tolerable pain.
The main big question is going to be what is suitable for me?
What can I do?
And that's where you need guidance and that's why we tell people if you know someone that can help you that you can call and check with that can offer free consultation or even paid consultation to get what is specific and precision treatment to help you.
and someone who's going to communicate with your health practitioners and make sure that they take care of you, they're responsible, not just an ad on Facebook.
That is someone that you have to check and ask that question.
You know, Dr. Omar, prior to meeting you and having these conversations with you every Thursday, it just opened up my mind.
to all of these things because before if I had some issue and something was bothering me, it was always I have to wait to see the doctor.
And sometimes waiting to see the doctor, it's not the way it was 30 years ago, I could call my doctor and say, hey, doctor, my eyelashes hurting and the doctor could bring, okay, come in tomorrow, Earl.
But that was when the doctor had his own practice.
And so he was free to kind of do those things.
Now, you might need to go and see your doctor, but you can't get to see the doctor for three weeks or maybe a month.
And so having an opportunity to talk to someone who has the knowledge because you keep talking about using tools.
You're looking at it from a completely different perspective than I ever knew pharmacists looked at things because as I stated before, you know, prior to having my conversations with you, my only conversations with the pharmacist was, hey, here's the prescription.
And then I picked up that you have any questions.
No, I take the prescription.
I go home.
And, and so now I attribute my health.
Uh, when people see me, they say, man, I don't believe you're 70 years old.
The way I move around and all those kinds of things, it wasn't that way so long ago.
And, and so my, my interactions with you and, and learning from you, uh, on, on this show.
and talking to you has really changed my life.
And so that can happen to anybody else who's listening.
That's why we say what, if you have a question to comment, you certainly can call and Dr. Oma will have a dialogue and a conversation with you.
Because when you start talking about pain today, I didn't know the difference between ibuprofen,
a Cedar, a Cedar Thetamine, a Thetamine or whatever it's pronounced.
I didn't know the difference.
You know, I, I, I've got to leave at home.
I've got ibuprofen or I don't know if that's the same stuff, whatever it is.
I've got those different things in my cabinet, but you know, I don't go to them.
I'm not reaching the grab and popping a Cedar, a Cedar Thetamine, a Thetamine, however it's pronounced.
Or
yes,
yeah, or
any in all it is the tile in all.
Yeah, or any of those things anymore, because I'm cognizant of it and the damage that it does.
Am I just making noise?
No, you're not.
It is actually.
Well, I want to tell you the truth.
If me as a pharmacist, not checking the difference between acetaminophenan.
ibuprofen for a while I would forget everyone forgets because there's so much noise of information around us so that is why it's like we try to treat every patient as like a whole kind of world of science and and things that are happening to you you're not just a high blood pressure patient you are somebody that need to
figure out a way to live healthy and normal and that's how pharmacy and medicine should be.
I received a question earlier about a supplement called SPMs.
Someone asked about what is SPMs?
I hear about it.
It's something that I
I can use for my pain.
SPMs, these are specialized pro-resolving mediators, so it's kind of a long name for something that tells you that they work as VIP switches that turn inflammation off.
If you have more of them in the body, it helps to turn and switch the inflammation off.
We use it with some patients.
to help with pain, but on a deeper level of inflammation, they come from omega-3 fatty acids.
So that's a type of a supplement that may be on the more expensive side.
On the lower expensive side is another supplement called PEA, P-as in pencil, E-as in apple, E-as in Edward, E-as in apple, palmitoyl ethanolamide, which is another naturally occurring fatty compound.
your body produces under stress or injury.
I would say roughly 40-50% of people that take PEA would help with pain management and other people, it doesn't work with them.
That is why it might take you a while to figure out how to work with the pain level that you have.
And that's why I created a pain management consultation through my website where I ask more than 130 questions.
More than 130 questions you answer, so I can create a plan for your pain.
There is also a new medication that just came called Jornavex, Jorna-like journey, Jornavex, which is the first non-opioid pain medication discovered maybe in the last 20 years.
And this is a pain medication for acute pain, not chronic pain.
So, it's so many, so many options and it's very overwhelming and that's why, like, you know, we have a lot of things to discuss when it comes to pain and that's why I think we can discuss it over several
episodes.
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pharmacy with Dr. Omar the pharmacist on the Earling room show as always you can join us at 855-752-4842 855-752-4842 let's go right to the phone lines Mary from Tulsa hey good morning to you Mary you say what
thanks for this opportunity Earl thank you and I'd like to ask Dr. Omar your knowledge of an online source of some pharmacy information that I followed for some time it's peoplespharmacy.com
The co-hosts are a husband and wife team.
She's a medical anthropologist, and he's a pharmacologist.
So I was wondering your opinion of this information that they give.
And also, what's the difference between a pharmacologist and a pharmacist?
Thank you very much.
So, Epul's pharmacy, they are, I think, located in Texas.
These are my friends.
I know the owner myself.
She's one of my concierge.
group with PCCA, a fellow member with PCCA, and she's an excellent pharmacist.
And I don't know what she's doing with her husband, but she helped me a lot in many questions that I had to her.
And if this is the people's pharmacy that I know, then they would be offering very good information.
because they are very knowledgeable.
What I found over the years is that every other time we talk, I tell you, I am traveling to this convention or this seminar where I meet fabulous people with awesome minds and they're always reaching for what's beyond dispensing and medication.
How can we help people get better?
How can we create a healthier community?
I want to tell you like, I honestly don't know what they are saying on their information online, but I believe that
it would be great information.
Try to always find sources coming from a pharmacy that have a brick and mortar store.
Because if a pharmacy is having a brick and mortar store, not just an online service, then this means they are reporting to a board of pharmacy, they are reporting to DEA, they are reporting, there is government authorities that look at what they say.
So those people are validating the information that they are providing.
But I want to tell you, like, if you're following something from the people,
pharmacy, you are following the right stuff.
All right, let's go to Gail from Kenosha.
Good morning to you, Gail.
Thank you for the call.
You say what?
This is Gail.
Okay, Gail.
Go ahead, sir.
Okay.
If somebody's trying to quit smoking, what do you suggest will help them?
Excellent question.
because we were just talking about it yesterday.
The nicotine patches, the help, nicotine patches or nicotine gum, the help.
Also, if there is a problem with hand mouth syndrome of needing to put something in your mouth, there is nicotine lollipops that we compound at willtopia in which you get five to eight lollipops.
and then it has nicotine in it and you suck on it every time that you feel like you want to get nicotine and that you can get a prescription for this from your doctor.
We really want to use something for the first month and two months and three months.
After three months, the main goal with quitting smoking is a psychological fear of
smoking again and you need to create new friends that you hang out with because if you're hanging out with people who are smoking, you're going to smoke again.
And smoking is the worst thing that you're going to do to your life.
If someone is smoking and we're worried about lung cancer and it's not about
how it will happen, it's when it will happen, but it will happen eventually, lung cancer will happen eventually for people who are smoking.
So I am really happy for this question because I've been getting less and less questions about quitting smoking.
If you have tried the nicotine gums and patches and the pills of shantix before and they didn't work and they didn't help, what can I do?
I would tell you go call the turkey and stop smoking today.
I truly early know doctors, more than one doctor, that if a patient comes to them and they have like long list of health conditions, the doctor would start with quitting smoking to the patient.
If after three months and they find the patient did not follow the plan for quitting smoking, they wouldn't see the patient again because they killed the patient.
You know what?
I don't think I can help you anymore.
So I'm glad for the question.
I can help you with a specific plan for you to help you to quit smoking and it's going to be between something to replace the nicotine, something to help with the dopaminergic feedback that you need, that feeling of happiness that you get from smoking can help you with a supplement for that.
can help you with lifestyle changes and for coaching for that part.
And I would be so proud if I can help you in this journey because it's, it's something that is fearful.
And doctor, what's the
number that he can reach you?
262-429-9429, text or call, text to Omar directly or leave a message, press three, leave me a message.
I'll get back to
you.
And I can tell you, Dale, there is life after smoking.
I stopped smoking, I stopped smoking 20 years ago.
I
was gonna say, I don't smoke myself.
I just call for a neighbor,
for a
neighbor.
Yeah, yeah, there's life after smoking and, you know, it's fabulous.
All right, well, thank you very much.
You know, Dr. Omar, we're out of time again.
Out of town.
Yeah, man,
you know, well again, how can people reach you?
You can go to willtopiarx.com or 262-429-9429 call or text.
All
right, Dr. Omar, we'll see you in a week.
Enjoy the warm weather.
All
right, 8-5-7-5-2-48-42.
Listen, we go open the phone lines.
in, you know, the next segment of the show, 8-5-5-7-5-2-48-42 on
the Erling Room show.
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