← Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Dr. Erika Schwartz on Why You Don’t Feel Like You Anymore | EP 647
00:59:38
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- [00:00]
John R. Miles
Why choose a Sleep Number smart bed?
- [00:02]
Dr. Erica Schwartz
Can I make my site softer? Can I make my site firmer?
- [00:05]
John R. Miles
Can we sleep cooler?
- [00:07]
Sleep Number does that cools up to eight times faster and lets you choose your ideal comfort on either side your Sleep Number setting. Get early Access to sleep number's biggest sale of the year, 25% off the i8 bed. Our most popular plus free home delivery limited time. All Sleep number smart beds offer temperature solutions for your best sleep. Check it out at a Sleep number store or sleepnumber.com today.
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Coming up next on Passion Struck.
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Dr. Erica Schwartz
I think most healthcare is protocol driven and one of the things that I talk about in the new don't let your die to kill you is how AI is going to change that. I say that what's going to happen is that AI can take over all the algorithms and all the protocols and will now force by doing that, it'll force the conventional medical education to change because that's where all the problems come from. Really. It's the conventional medical school because the same education I received 50 years ago in a medical school is being given to people today.
- [01:12]
John R. Miles
Welcome to Passion Struck. Hi, I'm your host John R. Miles, and on the show we decipher the secrets, tips and guidance of the world's most inspiring people and turn their wisdom into practical advice for you and those around you. Our mission is to help you unlock the power of intentionality so that you can become the best version of yourself. If you're new to the show, I offer advice and answer listener questions on Fridays. We have long form interviews the rest of the week with guests ranging from astronauts to authors, CEOs, creators, innovators, scientists, military leaders, visionaries and athletes. Now let's go out there and become Passion Struck.
- [01:55]
Welcome to episode 647. I'm your host John Miles, and whether you've been with us for a few years or this is your first time, thank you so much for being here. You're now part of a global movement committed to living with intention, leading with purpose, and unlocking the life you were meant to live. Let me ask you this. What if aging didn't have to mean decline? What if your hormones weren't a ticking time bomb, but the very key to your vitality, confidence and longevity? And what if our entire healthcare system is built around a flawed, fear driven, outdated paradigm that's been keeping us sick instead of helping us thrive? That's exactly what today's guest, Dr. Erica Schwartz, has dedicated her life to challenging. Dr. Erica is a board certified physician, bestselling author, podcast host, and a global pioneer in bioidentical hormones, preventative medicine and patient driven care. Her trailblazing work over four decades in the making has helped redefine what it means to age well, live well, and take back control of your health. She's also the founder of Evolve Science, a cutting edge practice in New York City that integrates hormonal optimization, gut health and lifestyle design to unlock human potential. In today's bold and revealing conversation, we dive into why most doctors are still missing the mark on hormonal health, how societal norms and outdated medical dogma keep people silent about suffering. We discussed the real story behind her viral moment with Kelly Ripa and how her book the New Hormone Solution offers a new blueprint for both men and women. We also unpack the roles of peptides, gut health and lifestyle and hormone regulation and what she means when she says, don't let your doctor kill you. This is part of our ongoing Reclaiming Wellness series in exploration and to how we heal from the inside out and reclaim what matters most in an age of burnout, breakdown and misinformation. If you happen to miss our episode on Tuesday with Dr. Drew Ramsey, make sure to go back and listen. He blew the doors open on nutritional psychiatry and why you are what you eat and think. Do you want more inspiration? Join the Ignited Life, our Weekly substack@theignitedlife.net where I share behind the scenes insights, book notes and reflections you won't find anywhere else. And don't forget to check out our merchandise line@passionstruck.com or theignitedlife.net Every piece is designed with one mission in mind to remind you that you matter. So whether you're rocking a hoodie that says Live like it or sipping from a mug that says Ignite the fire within, wear your purpose out loud. Now let's get into it. Here's my conversation with the incredible Dr. Erica Schwartz. Thank you for choosing Passion Struck and choosing me to be your host and guide on your journey to creating an intentional life. Now let that journey begin.
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Hey Passion Struck family. I am so excited Today to have Dr. Erica Schwartz with me. Welcome Erica.
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Dr. Erica Schwartz
Thank you so much, John. It's a pleasure to be on your show on your podcast. That's cool.
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John R. Miles
Well, show, podcast, it's a bit of everything, right? Do some live, we do some YouTube, we do some in front of audiences. So trying to make it more of a show, tell you the truth.
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Dr. Erica Schwartz
Okay, so I'm happy to be on your show.
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John R. Miles
I loved your background, your journey From Romania to Italy and ultimately to becoming a trailblazing physician in New York is really incredible. What parts of your multicultural upbringing shaped your unique approaches to life as well as medicine?
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Dr. Erica Schwartz
That's a tough question, John, because I think everything that happened every day of my life has shaped who I am. I'm sure that the story being everybody has their unique story. I think that coming from Romania, growing up in communism, then moving, being moved to Italy by my parents when I was a teenager, finishing high school in Italy and being brought to New York and going to college and medical school and everything else in New York, I'm sure that they came together. But I have to tell you that over the course of the years, there were times, like periods of time when I would, like, I refused to remember that I was born in Romania. I wanted to be American. So I wouldn't want to accept any of my historical heritage of, like, my childhood being in Romania, having missed like the first 16 years of living in America. Can you imagine what that does to a person? Like, you're just trying to think you're American, but you don't have the foundation that other Americans had, let's say. To answer your question, I think everything shaped me. Now I'm not trying to be American anymore. I'm trying to just be Erica.
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John R. Miles
Well, when I was in my early 20s, I got to live in Spain for three plus years. And I truly love the European lifestyle. In fact, I loved it so much it was hard to go back to America, because I truly love their philosophy that they work to live instead of living to work, like so many of us in America find ourselves doing. But you speak five different languages. Impressive. You're trained in critical care medicine and now lead a global movement focused on bioidentical hormones and prevention, which we're going to be talking a lot about today. But you were on this path that Mark Hyman is on and a number of others, where you realize conventional medicine wasn't enough and you were called to do it differently. What caused you to see that before so many others saw it?
- [07:44]
Dr. Erica Schwartz
It's a good question. I wonder about that a lot, actually. I think it just didn't work. And I think as you go through your path and my first job out of medical training, which was in New York in internal medicine and critical care, was to run a major trauma center. And there I actually was useful because conventional medicine in the United States is great when it comes to trauma. And it's. That's where you want to be. You want to be in an American Trauma center. If you get run over by a bus or you have a heart attack or something horrible happens. So I was in the right place to practice conventional medicine. But then, over time, two things happened that kind of shaped me, moved me off that track. And one of them was the fact that there were people who came into the emergency room and we did everything wrong and they walked out. And there were people that came into the emergency room and we did everything right and they didn't walk out. So it gave me this moment, like, this pause and remember, I was 28 when I started, so I didn't have that much life history, like, life experience in there. So I thought, well, there's got to be something else. And all of a sudden it was like, wait, it's not us. There's more to it than us. So that was a moment when I was like, okay, well, I know what we're doing. We're going to continue doing it, but it's more than just us. So then the next phase was going into private practice and wanting to have relationships with patients, because you don't have relationships with patients in the emergency room, right? So I went into private practice and I started practicing internal medicine, which is what I was trained in. And that took me, like, about four or five years to realize that it was useless, that what I was doing was waiting for my patients to get sick. And that's not what I expected. I expected that I would go into. I don't know what I expected. Honestly speaking, I went in thinking, all right, I'm going to be part of their lives. I'm going to understand them better. I used to make house calls. I wanted, like, a bigger picture of what I was doing. And it dawned on me that bigger picture really wasn't including helping them. So then I started taking it upon myself to figure out how can I keep these people healthy rather than wait for the other shoe to drop. And it. I created in my own mind this vision of life being a continuum of health with small interruptions when you're sick. And the smaller the interruptions, the better, which is completely counter to the conventional medical thinking, which is, let's find a disease every single day and keep on hammering down on the human body until there's nothing left but treatment, medication, slash and burn, everything. So I just thought that that didn't make sense. So this is how I got into prevention, really, which didn't exist because, mind you, we're talking about the early 90s. And that was like, nobody even knew what I was talking about. I Didn't know what I was talking about. And there was no place to go to find like minded people or to learn anything. You go to the library, the medical school library. And I was always lucky that I was like part of the medical school establishment, so to speak, where I went to medical school. I was on the board. As I got older, they were quite welcoming to me. I don't know why, but anyway, they were quite welcoming to me. So I, although I was so different in my way of doing things, as I realized that this was not good enough what I was doing, and I was reading more about it. Life throws things your way and you either take them or you don't. So this thing with hormones came to me, obviously, as I said to you before, at the right time and the right place, because I got involved with hormones because one of my patients, I was treating menopausal women with the conventional North American Menopause Society, American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology, the party line there. And people were doing okay, but they weren't doing so great. And then what dawned on me, that's where I guess my European upbringing came in, was that diet should affect you, exercise should affect you, stress should affect you, sleep should affect you. So what we now talk openly and is, oh, you have to take care of yourself was not so obvious because everybody was in their lane. And it was like the times when subspecialties were like the most important thing. And now we realize, well, if you need a subspecialist, obviously good for you, but you actually need somebody to quarterback your whole care if you're going to be okay. And so I started figuring this out on my own and one of my patients came in and asked me to write a prescription for hormones that at the time were called natural hormones, not bioidentical hormones. And I looked at them and I was like, I don't even know what this is, and sent me to a compounding pharmacy that I had never heard of the word before in my training. But I did listen to the patient because I've always thought that being a patient advocate was what a doctor supposed to be. And I still believe that's what they should be. Anyway, so I wrote the prescription and when I sent it somewhere in California, and then the patient was very happy. And then a few years later, I went into menopause at the age of 46, which was early, and I took the conventional treatment that I was giving out and felt horrible. So I remembered the patient I had written the prescription for and I wrote the prescription and sent it to California. And the guy from California sent a whole box of stuff for about $450. And we're talking about 1997 at this point, right? And he sent me powders and creams and tablets and things to be refrigerated, all kinds of crazy stuff. And I literally had to take a notebook and, like, you needed a PhD in biochemistry to figure out what to do. But I was so desperate because I really didn't like the way I felt. And I started doing it, and within a week, I felt back to myself. So I thought, okay, this is onto something. So I called the guy and I said, can you send me the medical literature? Because I'm a conventional scientist, so to speak, right? So I said, send me the information. So he sent me a whole pile of stuff. Then I went to the library at the medical school and read about it. And whatever there was to read, I was, like, convinced. That obviously made sense. If you're going to put into your body, body stuff that your body was making when it was making it, you probably will do okay. And I started working and I called the guy and I said, listen, I have a lot of patients I can put on this medication, on this combination of things, hormones. And I said, but it's very expensive. $400 a month in 1997 was a lot of money. Might be a lot of money today, too. Anyway. And the guy said to me, you know what? I don't need you or your patients, so I'm not changing your prices, so goodbye. And he basically did me the biggest favor of my life, because what he did is he forced me to figure out how to do it. So I found a compounding pharmacy locally where I was living, which was in Westchester county, north of New York City. And I worked for the following three years, literally benchmark, in this compounding pharmacy, and used my patients with me as guinea pigs to figure out the formulations and how to do it. And then I wrote a book called the Hormone Solution. And the book came out in April of 2002. And the women's Health Initiative, which was the study that destroyed the whole women's hormone business, literally, and had left 7 million women not taking hormones with no alternative to take except for the North American Society. Menopause Society told them to wear layers, and that was what they were telling the doctors, which was just offensive to me. Anyway, so the book became number two on Amazon, and all of a sudden I became the expert on hormones. And that's how it started. The real journey and then over time, I realized that taking hormones, taking estrogen, progesterone, testosterone alone was not enough, that you needed more. And that in order to put everything back together and make our lives optimal, we needed the thyroid, we needed the adrenals, but we also needed to sleep, we needed the right diet, we needed to exercise, we needed to put all the pieces together. And I said, we're like a puzzle. So the more pieces of the puzzle you put together, the more likely you are to come up with a picture that tells you who you really are. And as this journey I embarked on continued, I was very blessed because a lot of people followed me on it. But then I also started finding like minded people. And now I teach one of the faculty members at American College of Anti Aging Medicine. And so there are a lot of people now. It's. That was 20 years ago. Today everybody wants to know about it, and everybody's well with welcoming arms, trying to learn what we had to learn on our own.
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John R. Miles
Thank you for that fantastic backstory. And I've recently been rereading a book that made Jon Kabat Zinn famous that he wrote in 1994. And when I heard you talking about your story, he starts out this 30th anniversary of his book by going back in time about what was happening. And I remember in 1994, I had just joined a SEAL unit, and it was the first time I had ever been exposed to mindfulness. And he says at that time, when he wrote this book on mindfulness, no one knew what it was about.
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Dr. Erica Schwartz
Right.
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John R. Miles
And there were a lot of people questioning it. And in 2002, you're advocating for hormone therapy when very few, if anyone, in the mainstream medical community was taking it seriously.
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Dr. Erica Schwartz
Right?
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John R. Miles
And now you fast forward, you're known by many as Kelly Ripa's hormone doctor, and you work with many other celebrities. But I have to imagine back then the amount of pushback that you were facing was immense.
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Dr. Erica Schwartz
I don't know, you know what I actually. So that may be what being from Romania brings in. Coming from communism, I just, like had blinders on and I believed in what I was doing. I looked at the patients, and my patients always did great. So that was really the gauge that I used for what I was doing, and it just worked. And I think that looking backwards back into what I've gone through, literally what we've all gone through in the past 20 plus years, I can tell you that what I marvel at, that I'm still alive to see it. It's true.
- [19:25]
John R. Miles
Erica, you once wrote or said that we think that being aged beyond menopause, that we're no longer useful. And for me, that really hit hard because why do you think society equates a woman's worth with her fertility? And how do you think we can start shifting that narrative?
- [19:43]
Dr. Erica Schwartz
Well, I think unfortunately our culture, it's a mess to begin with. So obviously when you're looking at fertility and women's fertility being like what the defining moment of a woman's life is really not where we should be looking. Because I think that I used to say, like what you just said about after menopause, this is Mother Nature's we become roadkill. We're not on the, on the food pyramid. We're like all the way down. You're not having children anymore, so if you're not fertile anymore, nobody needs you. However, if you look at other cultures, you see how the importance of the wisdom that you've acquired, whether you're a man or a woman who's older, may actually help society move forward rather than backward. And when you look at a society that's at loss for direction, for leadership, for guidance, for, I guess, abilities to evolve, older people are really the place to look at. And it's really interesting because if you look on social media and I mean, I just recently decided to have my own Instagram because I decided there were too many experts in things I was doing for 30 plus years and I might as well share my wisdom. And you look at a lot of experts that are really not experts and they don't have the experience and don't have the knowledge, and we are all prey to what we read and what we see on Instagram. And I think that it becomes really important to take it seriously. And if you have the experience and the wisdom, you probably can help a lot more. So there were now I saw a lot of 90 year olds and 100 year olds and they're showing them exercising and they asked them questions like, what would you do differently when you were younger? How would you have lived your life differently? And I think those are really signs to me of a culture that's going in the right direction, that's trying to look at what can we learn from those who are older than us. Maybe fertility is very important because we want to perpetuate the species, but I think learning and not repeating the same mistakes over and over again is pretty much equally as important.
- [22:14]
John R. Miles
Thank you for sharing that, Erica. And you are a physician, you're a podcast host, you're the author of eight books and we're going to be exploring one of those in depth, titled the new hormone solution. You and I share the same publishers. I'm excited about that. But a little birdie told me that you also have another book coming out. And I didn't know if you could share anything more about that, but I thought I would ask.
- [22:38]
Dr. Erica Schwartz
Sure. We're re releasing don't let your doctor kill you which was published 10 years ago actually, and it's coming out as a new book because I guess there is some kind of rule in publishing that I of course don't know anything about. But I found out that if 30% of the book, more than 30% is new, it's considered a new book. So it gets re released. So apparently the new don't let your doctor kill you is a new book because there's more than 30% content that is new. So that's coming out in September and I'm really excited about it because it is my favorite book. We'll talk about the Hormone Solution, which is an important book as far as teaching us the importance of hormones at various ages and looking at it on the continuum of life. But don't let your doctor kill you is really about not letting your doctor heal you. Yes, but it's about the importance. And I think there couldn't be a better time for that book because I tell you, I think that if you don't take it in your own hands, if you don't become your own advocate, if you don't learn how to stand up to the doctor who's talking to you or whoever the provider is, if you don't ask the right questions, if you're a victim of fear and the bullying that goes on every day in our healthcare system, you're not gonna be okay. And don't let your doctor kill you is a strong statement, but it's a true statement and it's coming from 40 years of experience. And I started writing the book in 1998 and my then editor said to me, you can't publish that. Nobody knows who you are, you're gonna destroy your career. Nobody cares. Well, today I feel like it's a needed book because I feel like unless now when we're all so confused about what to do with our health care, unless we take it into our own hands, and I have Covid in there and the AI and all what's going on, unless you're able to step back and not react and think you're going to get into trouble in health care, and I've Seen it a thousand times. I see patients three days a week still, and I love it. I'm going to die with my boots on, not going anyplace. I listen to the same story way too much about how the conventional health care system is hurting people. And I think that the only way that we can protect ourselves is by not being afraid and not allowing bullying and being able to take that pause and looking at not another second opinion, but a second perspective. And by that, if you have back surgery, let's say, right, for argument's sake, you'll go to one orthopedic surgeon, you'll go to 10 orthopedic surgeons. Chances are that their training is the same, and you're going to get variation on a theme. If you get to a functional medicine doctor or a prevention doctor, or somebody who believes in stem cell therapy or any of the newly growing fields of longevity and anti aging, you're going to get a different perspective. It may not be the right perspective for you. You may decide you still want the back surgery, but at least you've done your homework beyond Google. And I think that becomes really important. And so don't let your doctor kill you is really about giving you the tools to not be afraid and to do what's right for you.
- [26:29]
John R. Miles
I just wanted to comment on a few things here. I have personally myself lived that journey as a patient. And over the past couple years, I've had a few interviews on this. One of them was actually with Maria Menounos. Another one was with my friend Bill Potts. Bill has beaten cancer now six times. The common story that they both said was what helped them both beat the odds was that they became their own CEO of their health. And it's what I did as well. The way I look at health is really holistically, I think of our bodies is a tree. And the problem with a lot of the healthcare systems, and I get a lot of mine through the va, is everything is protocol driven. So no one's looking at the whole tree. They're looking at a leaf or a branch, but they're not looking at what is underpinning the whole thing. And I think that's where so much of the whole system is getting it wrong. Because a lot of these things are so interlinked, whether it's to your gut or something else that's going on, that whatever's happening is a symptom, is just like loneliness is a symptom of something larger. A lot of the mental health issues that people face is a symptom. Of something larger. As Chris Palmer put out and his book Even schizophrenia is a metabolic disorder of the mind, which is tied to a metabolic disorder of the stomach. So that's how I kind of look at it. So what you're saying is right up my alley and right up the alley of a lot of my listeners who are huge fans of biohacking and alternative health and alternative ways of looking at their health.
- [28:08]
Dr. Erica Schwartz
I couldn't agree with you more. And I think that VA care is not the only one that's just protocol driven. I think most health care is protocol driven. And one of the things that I talk about in the new don't let your die to kill you is how AI is going to change that. I say that, you know, what's going to happen is that AI can take over all the algorithms and all the protocols and will now by doing that, it'll force the conventional medical education to change. Because that's where all the problems come from, really. It's the conventional medical school, because the same education I received 50 years ago in a medical school is being given to people today. So it's by the same people. Maybe they died, but the new generation is not any different. They're teaching exactly the same way, the same things that they did 50 years ago. So I think AI should be helping that. And we need a serious overhaul of the conventional medical school education, because that's where I've never met. When I was on the board of admissions, one of the medical schools in New York, I never interviewed a prospective medical student who came in saying, oh, I want to be this fancy doctor, or I want to be this arrogant person. They all wanted to be healers, they all wanted to help. And then something happens over the four years of the medical education, followed by three to 10 years of postgraduate subspecialty training that takes that out of them. The humanity is gone. And I think that without the humanity, and like you said, you have to be the CEO of your own healthcare, but wouldn't it be nice to have a quarterback that actually knows something more, that works with you as your partner, that respect you, the things that you are the only one who lives in there and that they don't live in there. It's very interesting to see that. So I. That's part of don't let your doctor kill you.
- [30:22]
John R. Miles
Obviously, I want to jump into your other book, the new hormone Solution. And I want to look at this for both men and women, because my audience is both of them. I'm gonna say this quote, but then I'M going to open up the question so it's broader. You write in the book that most women try to ignore the symptoms, justifying them with I'm too young or I'll do it the natural way. Why do you think we've been so conditioned, whether you're a man or woman, to ignore or downplay the signs of hormonal imbalance until it really becomes debilitating.
- [31:00]
Dr. Erica Schwartz
For us culture again, like you did what you just said, we live in a culture that's all about youth, it's all about being fertile, is all about having great libido, it's about building muscle, it's about the young leading the pack. And once you start missing your periods, not sleeping so well at night, not looking so great in spite of plastic surgery and all these other things we're doing to keep ourselves looking good, what happens is that you become roadkill. So as you become roadkill, it's better to try to deny it. Because everything else in our culture, if we deny it, maybe it'll go away, but it won't go away. Hormone imbalances are really important. And in the hormone solution, what I explain is that hormone imbalances occur at all ages. Whether you're a teenager with acne or you're a 20 year old who's trying to get pregnant and is not being able to, or has other issues with fertility or they have PCOS or whatever is going on, or you had your children and you have postpartum depression and all kinds of other things, your life changes dramatically and will never be the same. All of these things occur long before you go into premenopause and perimenopause and menopause, which are now catchphrases. But the thing is, all along hormones change. And if you understand that, then you can actually treat it by changing your diet, changing your sleep pattern, changing your exercise, doing all kinds of things, stress management, taking hormones when necessary, and understanding that there are ways you don't need to deny that it exists. And it's funny that you brought that up because the woman once, and I will never forget her, she was in her 60s and she said to me, I still have my period regularly. And I thought, oh my God, this was like probably about 20 years ago. And I was like, wow, this is really interesting because I've never heard of that before. But the thing is, she didn't have her period. She was just afraid to admit that she just didn't have it. Now things have changed. So everybody's talking about menopause, people Come to me. I have. The practice has shifted. Is now 50, 50 men, women. It started with all women. They were all menopausal. Now they're 30 years old, 20 year olds. They want to know how to balance their lives. They want to be healthy. People change. So this has changed a lot because our culture is changing. So I see a lot of that. And I think while people are. There might be some that are still trying to make believe that they haven't gone through it, they don't have any problems. The thing is that the sooner you think hormones, the sooner you're going to feel great. Because we know ways of doing it and they're safe. Hormones do not cause cancer, they do not hurt you, they protect your bones, they protect your cardiovascular system, they prevent Alzheimer's. And we know all of that, and we know all of that from the conventional scientific literature. So there's a lot of data to support that. And if you have the right doctor or provider, I don't know, PA MP on your side and you do your research, that there are very nice and easy ways in which you can transition from being all about youth and fertility and libido and not having a wrinkle on your face and feeling wonderful and being able to stay up all night and then just sleep through the next day to a new world, which is the world of you can't do that anymore, you're going to just take it easier. You just have to adjust to your age. And that's what the hormone solution is about, showing you at different ages, how to improve things, how to balance hormones, how to balance your life and how to really put together your optimum life. And we hear the word optimum and longevity and anti aging all the time. But it's not anti aging because I don't want to anti age. I want to just age feeling good. But I don't want to age gracefully. I despise that term because I feel like that's from Victorian times. Maybe they used to say that I want to age. And I am age by being a contributor, by being a participant, by being able to help share the information that I have so that other people don't have to suffer, so that other people don't have to fall into the wrong direction. That's my goal. I don't have any other goals. I reach them all.
- [36:10]
John R. Miles
So I thought I'd use myself a little bit as a human guinea pig today. I remember almost a decade ago, I was just feeling really flat. I just, I didn't have a lot of energy didn't have a lot of libido, just trying to figure out what was going on. And when you typically go to your doctor's checkups, they run the normal blood checks. And I remember I went to this nurse practitioner and he said, I'm going to run this bank. Have you ever. Of a broader range, he goes, have you ever had your minerals tested? Have you ever had your testosterone tested? Have you ever had this tested? And I never had. And he goes, well, we're going to do a full panel workup on you because we need to start seeing your biomarkers and everything else. And at the time, I had no idea what he was talking about, but of course I remember it came back in my testosterone, if I have it right, it's a typical male in their 20s. It should be around 900, if I think the number is correct. Well, mine was like 190. And I took it to my traditional doctor and said, do I need to do anything about this? And his response was, you're getting older and testosterone typically drops a bit, and it's just natural for that to happen. And the np, on the other hand, gave me the analogy of, you went to the Naval Academy, you were trying to get good grades. And I said, yes. And he goes, well, right now you have an F in hormone balance, and wouldn't you like that to get to an A? I just bring it up because there are two very different ways to look at the same person's blood work. But I think it spells a common dilemma that many of the listeners probably face.
- [37:46]
Dr. Erica Schwartz
Right. And that's what we were talking about, medical school education. That is so backwards. And you know, what you said, listen, I like this MP you had. He told you the truth. There's like the concept, and you've heard this about, I'm just going to age naturally. Well, I don't know what that means, aging naturally. I don't want my bones to break. I don't want my brain to rot. I want my heart to be in great shape. So if there is a way to put things together, I think that I would choose that. I think that when the doctor says to you, you're getting on, I think my answer to that would be, okay, so what you're getting on, then I want to work on it to make sure that I feel good and I'm healthy and I can contribute. Because now I really don't have to worry about the same things I worried about when my kids were young. Now I can worry about sharing intelligence, sharing information that I'VE gathered that I've learned over the years. So I think when somebody says something like this to you, I said, just leave the doctor. That's it. You don't need them. You don't need them. Unless you're of that mindset that you want to just pack it in and sit there and watch TV or whatever, which is fine. It should be fine to do whatever you want to do. But if you, like you said, you are feeling flat, your libido was down, and you knew there was something off. Well, you are the kind of person who wants to improve it. There's some people who probably don't, and it's okay. I think that if we understood that each one of us is different and that there are ways to improve or just be okay, then it would work well. So, yeah, your guy was right. Testosterone was a little low.
- [39:47]
John R. Miles
So one of the big topics that I often hear a lot is there's testosterone use for both men and women. And then there's a growing number of people who are advocating for hgh, human growth hormone. What's your opinion of HGH as being beneficiary or not?
- [40:07]
Dr. Erica Schwartz
Well, I was using HGH on the practice about, I would say, 25, 30 years ago, and it was, like, very taboo in those days. And we used it a lot and it worked great. But today I use it less. Not because it's done anything wrong, not because there's any science to say that you're in danger with it, because if done properly, it helps you. It helps keep you young, really. But I think testosterone is the hormone that you're missing. So why not put testosterone back in? But I also work with peptides, and peptides are also part of what your body makes, which are little protein molecules which also start diminishing as you get older. And if you put the peptides back in together with the hormones, you come out with a really great outcome. And I'm giving a talk in two weeks that the, as I said to you, I teach it. I said American College, but I meant American Academy of Anti Aging Medicine. And we have a. The spring session of they teach physicians and providers. Basically, that's what they teach. So that's at the end of April, and it's in Florida Bayou. Actually, it's in Palm Beach. And one of the lectures that I'm giving is about microbiome. And you were talking about gut before microbiome. And I brought in the connection between microbiome and hormones. And I hope that lecture will help people understand the doctors, the ones who providing the care. The importance of creating balance. We don't learn nutrition in medical school. You don't, you have to learn it on your own. And I think that if your microbiome, if your gut is not great, it's not doing well. It's not going to make hormones where it makes most of your hormones, because that's where they're made. And it's not going to help you find the balance you need. And how do you take care of your gut? You take care of your diet.
- [42:25]
John R. Miles
Since we're on this topic, BCP157 was made pretty famous by a conversation that Joe Rogan had with Andrew Huberman. Is that something that you use in your clinic?
- [42:38]
Dr. Erica Schwartz
I've been using it for about five years before Joe Rogan and Andrew Huberman talked about it. We've been working with BPC157 in two ways, one being the oral way, which gets its anti inflammatory gut restoring, immune boosting. And we've been using it injectable for people who have injuries or hip problems or whatever, joint problems. And the results are tremendous. They're wonderful. So yes, it was wonderful when I saw it, the two of them discussing it and bringing it to light. Because unfortunately, peptides who are really tremendous were really the domain of the bodybuilders. They were the domain like the same as testosterone, really the domain of the gym rat. Right. And they're not called gym rats anymore, they're called fitness enthusiasts. But the thing is that they knew a lot of things that could help. I'm not saying I don't work with anabolic steroids, but I don't think too many people work with anabolic steroids these days. Maybe they do, I don't know. It's not the world I hang out in. But between testosterone, peptides, the right supplements, like NMNs, like NAD, the stuff that these guys, the hackers, the biohackers are talking about between them, if you know how to put them together, what you do is you bring back health. I'll give you an example, a quick story and it's very close to me. It's actually my husband. My husband is 77 years old and he started having problems with his right hip. And it's. It happened because I wrote the book Don't Let your dad to Kill youl, otherwise it would never have happened. So I sent him to one of my buddies who is at hss, which is like the big hospital for special surgery in New York City. And he saw the top pain guy over there who basically who I know is into exosomes and stem cells, and he would be somebody who would not just inject steroids there anymore, which is completely outdated. And he said to me, erica, I'm sorry, but your husband's way gone. He needs a hip replacement. So I actually reacted like any patient would. I talked to my husband and I said to him, well, I think you're going to have to have a hip replacement. And I asked the guy who referred to to refer me to the guy he would be using. So we got this great orthopedic surgeon. He went to see him. The orthopedic surgeon, of course, said he needs a hip replacement, and he was scheduled to have the hip replacement. And for some reason, I woke up the next day or a few days later, and I thought, wait a minute, that's one opinion. You need a different perspective. And I was going to one of the conferences at a 4M, and I was talking to one of my buddies there who teaches with me, another professor there, and I said to him, because I knew he injected hips. How do you do with them? What are your results? And he said, well, I have a really bad hip and I'm walking and I'm doing fine. And it would make sense. It's really just, what's the worst that could happen? It doesn't work, and then you'll have to have a hip replacement. Well, make a long story short, he went to see him and he's right in Orlando, and he had his hip shot, which basically got up and off the table within less than an hour and went to the airport and came home and then went to the gym and started working with the trainer to rebuild his glutes and his hamstrings and his quads. And you know what? My husband didn't have a hip replacement. My husband's doing okay. Do I think that this is chance? No. He got injected with peptides. He got injected with exosomes. He got injected with prp, which is his own blood. And the thing is that there are ways to try to prevent, like you were talking about these people who have had horrible diagnoses that put together the conventional with the integrative with the prevention, and came out with great results.
- [47:14]
John R. Miles
Thank you for sharing that. I just wanted to ask something about the peptides, especially the oral ones, because you go to Amazon and if you're looking up the peptide, you'll see everything from $30 examples to $250 examples, and all claim to be the right thing. And it also gets into this whole topic when it comes to hormones of natural, bioidentical and human identical. But what's your guidance if people are looking to try these things of where to shop and where they can find the legitimate products that actually contain the stuff that they're supposed to.
- [47:49]
Dr. Erica Schwartz
Please don't buy them on Amazon, don't buy them at the drugstore. People will go to GNC and say I'm getting it from gnc, please don't they. All these studies, studies that have shown the seeing they went to labs and they sent to the lab the supplement and what was in it was tau compounder primarily. So I think that the only way to do this is to find a provider that is your partner that knows about them, that will find you the best product. I won't work with just any product. I won't work with just any compounding pharmacy. I work with specific pharmacies that I've been working with for more than 10 years. I work with product development people and I've developed product with them and manufacturers that I know that I have the proof that there is what they say there is in it. You don't want to just buy something that's cheap or something that tells you that is a cure all. And on social media you see a ton of new cure alls. Please don't believe it. They're not all cures. You have to find the one that's right for you and you have to find it with the right person to take care of you. And if they work, if you're taking, let's say you didn't hear anything I said and you're going to buy whatever you know what if within three months of taking them, you don't feel any better? Get rid of it. It's not doing what it's supposed to do. Remember why you took them to begin with. I see patients who come to me with 30, 40 supplements, peptides, anything, right? And they're not feeling well. That's why they're coming to me. And they. The thing is that they've been. When I say how did you get this? It's usually I got it from Instagram or I got it from a friend or I got it from on sale at Acme. And the thing is you want something that works. And I know we're all desperately looking for solutions and we're all a culture of the pill that cures everything. There's no such thing. And knowing that, it's not about giving up, but it's looking for things that work. So when they work, you know they work. So after three months, I tell people when they come to see me for hormones or anything else, I say, listen, if three months after we started working together, you don't feel any better than when we started, I'm not the right doctor for you.
- [50:36]
John R. Miles
We're getting close to the end of the interview, and I don't want to end it without going through part of the program, because in the book, you lay out five groups for hormone protocols. So for a listener who's unsure of where to start, how do they figure out what group they fall into? And what are some of the first steps?
- [50:56]
Dr. Erica Schwartz
I think I believe in doing blood tests, right? And I believe in doing blood tests because I am a conventionally trained doctor. There are some who believe in saliva. There are some who believe in urine. In New York State, where I practice, you can't use urine. So while urine is a good way of finding out what the metabolic pathways for your hormones are, you can't do it in New York. And it doesn't really matter. You just. So the question becomes like, where do you fit in? So you could fit into mild. Like I was saying, you're a teenager with acne or you just had a baby and you're getting postpartum depression. You don't need an antidepressant. You need more progesterone. So if you fit into the mild, I give you guidelines as to how to go. Go to your practitioner with the book. Show them the book and say, this is what she says. What do you think? Listen to me and listen. Not me, Erica, but me, the patient, and say, this is what's going on. Help me by listening to me. So it's mild, moderate, and severe, obviously, is like what you said. You were severe, you were flat, you didn't feel good. You knew that you needed serious help. And I'm sure as soon as you got the help, all of a sudden you were like, oh, well, I feel better, right?
- [52:22]
John R. Miles
Pretty quickly. Within a matter of weeks. Yeah, Right.
- [52:26]
Dr. Erica Schwartz
So that's the point that within three weeks to. And that's why I say three months, because I'm just being generous about saying, listen. Not everybody's going to get it right from the very beginning. I've been doing it for 35 years. I have too much experience in this already. But the point is, if you feel better, you're great. If you go into the group that is just mild, you should feel better very quickly by changing your diet, by taking some progesterone, by exercising, by sleeping. See, the thing is that people Always say, oh, you go to the doctor, you have a physical and they tell you go have a go exercise, you need to lose weight. Well, the point is, and we didn't even touch on GLP ones anyway, so peptides and they'll tell you that, but they won't tell you how. And the point is you want to know how, you want to know how. And I think what you, John, were referring to was that by helping you find a lane you fit in, it can help you figure out how.
- [53:38]
John R. Miles
One last thing I wanted to talk to you about was actually relationships because I think this is an interesting aspect that people need to think about for couples. How often do you find partners? Hormonal imbalance affects the other's well being and the overall relationship dynamic. I was just hoping you might be able to share something maybe that you've seen in your practice.
- [54:03]
Dr. Erica Schwartz
Sure. I wrote a book about it called the Intimacy Solution. And what I did it was, and I don't even know what made me write that book, and it was about the fact that relationships and intimacy and sexuality change at various ages and they also change because of our hormone changes. And when you're 18 and you have sex, you think intimacy and sex are one and the same because you have no other way of knowing anything about it. As you get older, your hormones change, your life changes, you have children, you grow up, whatever you do, a lot of stuff changes, right? And then intimacy and sexuality start separating and you can be more intimate with your friends than you can be with your spouse. You may have sex with your spouse, but you're not going to be as intimate with them because your life experiences are more likely to sink in with a friend, let's say. But as your hormones change, your ability to maintain your level of libido, your sensuality, your interest in sexuality changes. And I see it all the time with women coming in and saying, I have no libido. And the interesting thing about that is once you get their hormones imbalance, libido comes back or it doesn't come back. And if it doesn't come back, it's about the relationship. Then it's like, I've been married to the same person for 30 years and you know what I have to tell you, and you know it, all of us who have been married more than five years know that things change. You're not going to have the same, oh my God, let me jump into the sack with this person. After 5 years, 10 years, things start changing and then you have to work at creating intimacy. You have to work at creating a relationship and having the right relationship. And I see a ton of partners, couples, whether they're heterosexuals, homosexuals, doesn't matter to me. They're couples. They're people who live together, people who share their lives. And I think that as their hormone balance changes, so does the relationship.
- [56:31]
John R. Miles
Absolutely true. I've seen it in relationships I've been in, but I've also seen it in struggles that my friends are having in their relationships as different aspects of life happen, both to themselves and to their partners.
- [56:46]
Dr. Erica Schwartz
Right.
- [56:46]
John R. Miles
Well, Erica, it was such a joy to have you today. Where's the best place people can go to learn about your practice, your books, everything about you?
- [56:56]
Dr. Erica Schwartz
I think at Dr. Erica Schwartz, the R E R I K A Schwartz on Instagram, that's. Or they can go to Dr. Erica.com which is. Or the practice, which is ESL. They're all on Instagram. You can Google me. It's not. And all the books are available on Amazon. It's not hard. You know what? It's a lot harder to take control of your own life and saying it's my life and I'm going to do it my way, I think, than finding me.
- [57:27]
John R. Miles
Yes, well, that is the ultimate test for anyone. Erica, thank you so much for joining us and congratulations on the release of this book and the re release of the upcoming one.
- [57:39]
Dr. Erica Schwartz
John, thank you so much. It was a pleasure being on your podcast and I really appreciate you inviting me. Thank you.
- [57:46]
John R. Miles
Oh, you're welcome.
- [57:48]
Dr. Erica Schwartz
And that's a wrap.
- [57:49]
John R. Miles
What an enlightening and empowering conversation with Dr. Erica Swartz. If today's episode reminded you that you're not crazy for feeling off, or that the symptoms you've been dismissing might be signals worth listening to, then I hope you feel seen, heard, and better equipped to take ownership of your health. Erica's insights challenge us to step beyond passive healthcare and interpersonal agency. As she says, hormones are the key to your entire operating system, and when they're out of sync, so are you. But when they're balanced, the entire body thrives. As you reflect on today's episode, ask yourself, have I been ignoring or normalizing symptoms that might actually be hormonal? What kind of care am I accepting? And do I need a second opinion or second perspective? And lastly, am I ready to stop surviving and start optimizing? You can find all of Erica's books in our show notes@passionstruck.com want to watch the full interview? Head over to the John R. Miles YouTube channel and hit that subscribe button so you never miss a powerful conversation like this one. Coming up next on Passion Struck, I have a deeply human and science backed conversation with Wolfgang Linden on mental fitness and emotional integration. How to develop inner clarity, resilience and self leadership in the face of chaos.
- [59:03]
Wolfgang Linden
Every once in a while you will run into a dead end and the only solution is to try something you've never done before. Will you know ahead of time that's going to work? No, you do not. You have to take the risk. But given that everything else you've done so far hasn't worked, you have really no choice but to engage in the risk.
- [59:27]
Dr. Erica Schwartz
And.
- [59:29]
Wolfgang Linden
With marital partners, you may have a number of relationships that just.
- [59:35]
Dr. Erica Schwartz
And.
- [59:35]
Wolfgang Linden
If you leave one behind, there's no guarantee that the next one is better. But there is a chance that it's better.
- [59:42]
John R. Miles
Thank you for being part of this movement. Your commitment to growth and intentional living is what fuels everything we do. And remember, the fee for the show is simple. If something resonated with you, share it with someone who needs to hear it. Until next time, Live life. Passion Struck.
- [59:59]
Dr. Erica Schwartz
Sa.