I’m a licensed pharmacist in three states and today I’m gonna be comparing two really expensive products. There’s a lot of confusion with this these two products I’m gonna show you guys here today. This hurts my pharmacist soul. I have to get one of these here. Look the generic is only $3.28. For the same quantity to be somewhere in between here, it’s called like $12 for the brand name. My goodness. But I have to get one of these so I’ll get this one. My goodness this one’s even worse. $18 you got to be kidding and they have a generic. Oh my goodness. Well, I’m gonna get this one. You’ll see why here in a moment. My pharmacist soul has been crushed by the simple fact that I bought these two products today. I hope that this message reaches whoever needs to see it. Folks, take a look at this product. What does this say? Diclofenac sodium topical gel 1% it’s an NSAID arthritis pain reliever. What does this say? Diclofenac sodium topical gel 1% it’s the same chemical and the same percentage. It’s the exact same thing, but these had two different prices and the tubes are exactly the same quantity 50 gram here and 50 gram there. What was really weird about this is that there there was a Walmart off-brand version of both of these. They’re the same thing. Yet Walmart had two different packages for the exact same thing. What I’d like you guys to learn about this is that although not technically true, this is how I want you to think about this. Voltaren is the company that makes Diclofenac. Aspar cream is the company that makes Diclofenac. Now, I know that’s not technically correct. This is actually made by Glaxco Smith Klein and this is made by Sanofi is actually who makes this. It’s difficult for people outside of our profession to understand this. So that’s how I want you to think of it. This is particularly true with Aspar cream because people would say I want Aspar cream. Well, okay, there’s like 17,000 different products that they make so I don’t know what you mean and they just assume that because they’re only familiar with Aspar cream let’s say lidocaine that that’s the only product that they make but there’s many many of them. I am gonna try one of these because my elbow still hurts. Here’s the instructions like anyone would ever read that. This is pretty neat actually. Diclofenac comes with this card. You’re supposed to use this as a measuring device. So let’s measure out. Let’s do an upper body dose. Let’s give this a potato whirl. Oh my gosh, this is so awkward. Is that what you’re supposed to do? Just slather it on there. So you can use this up to four times a day, by the way. I don’t really typically recommend this. I don’t think it does anything. The reason being is because Diclofenac being an NSAID is not something that’s gonna pass through the skin and despite what you may think it has to get through your skin to inhibit the enzyme that it it blocks the enzyme. So it’s a COX inhibitor, right? And if my old preceptor were here right now, he would say, Where do you keep your COX enzymes? I keep mine on the inside of my body. So it doesn’t do anything unless it gets absorbed, which it really isn’t absorbed very much at all. I actually did look into this and so there is some benefit to it. There’s clinical studies that show that it’s better than placebo. So I mean I wouldn’t totally discredit it. I would totally discredit it. But for me, I’m a lidocaine fan. That’s the one I typically recommend. It’s been like an hour and doesn’t feel any better at all. I don’t feel anything. Not a fan.