August 29, 2024 • 12 mins
We spoke with Dr. Amanda Swan, Owner of Swan Integrative Health and Wellness, about how her practice combines conventional medical approaches with holistic health practices to empower patients to feel their best and to optimize their health so that they can share their light with the world.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Community Access. I'm Alison Demurz. My guest today
is doctor Amanda Swan from SWAN Integrative Health and Wellness.
We'll be discussing women's health, all good things to talk about,
juicy stuff like ozepic and weight loss and PMS and perimenopause.
Welcome doctor, I'm very glad to be here.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
You have a practice in Glastonbury I do.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
I do Swann Integrative Health and Wellness. We are a
integrative health practice, meaning that we really help people to
kind of bridge the gap between the two very different
worlds of medicine that we're living in these days. The
conventional world, which is based in medication and defining diagnoses
and treating those diagnoses, and then the other side, which
(00:46):
is a little bit more holistic looking at nutrition, supplementation,
really fixing and balances that we have and most people
need a combination of those things to really achieve good health,
and we're here to help bridge that gap.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
I met you at the Mingtient Polo grounds about a
month or so ago, and in the news at that
moment was big news about ozempic and all these side effects,
and then with GOV started doing commercials, and I thought,
you know what, we need to talk about this because
Connecticut actually is the state with the highest amount of
people taking ozempic.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
Really, I would think California, Hollywood, you know, in New
York City, but it's actually Connecticut. Maybe we can afford
it more. Not sure, So let's just dive right in.
Let's start talking about it's some a glue tide, correct,
Is that the proper name for it?
Speaker 3 (01:35):
Good job, that's kinder mouthful, thank you. Yeah, this is
such a hot topic. I'm asked about this a lot
in my practice. Try to keep up on what's happening
out there, you know, socially and scientifically, And there's there's
always two sides to every story, right, There's a lot
of people that are raving about these medications and how
life changing they are, and others that are really poopooing
(01:58):
them and saying that they're dangerous and we should be cautious.
And I think the truth is somewhere in the middle usually,
and this is a good example of that. These are
very powerful and relatively safe drugs. Some of glue tide
is one in you know, a category called the GLP
one receptor agonists. Some of glue tide being the one
(02:20):
that's probably the most commonly prescribed and most popular right now.
It's a class of drugs that's actually been around for
a long time designed to help people with diabetes.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
The founder of one, or the.
Speaker 3 (02:31):
Discoverer of one of the first GLP one agonists was
a female scientist in Denmark. Her story is really fascinating
if anyone is interested in reading about it. So she's
created this legacy which is really neat that it's lived.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
On to today.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
The i'd say upside of these medications is that they
finally give us a tool for helping people manage some
of their own behaviors around food. We have and really
had a drug that was able to do that in
a very very long time, or the drugs that we
had either weren't that effective or were difficult to take,
(03:08):
We had less of side effects, and this one has
really been a game changer. GLP one is actually a
hormone that we make in our intestines when we eat,
and when that hormone is made, it travels to the
different receptors in our brain and our pancreas and in
our GI tract and it impacts the way that we
feel hunger or satiety. We feel a little full or faster,
(03:33):
our GI tract slows down a little bit. That makes
us feel a little bit more full.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
In our brains.
Speaker 3 (03:38):
We because we're feeling a little bit more full, we
have less hunger cues, We're less you know, not seeking food.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
As much as we might have otherwise.
Speaker 3 (03:48):
And for people that are really struggling with what we
call food noise or never really feeling satiated, these drugs
can really quiet those noises and enable them to just
sort of eat, get what they need nutritionally, and move
on with their day instead of always having this sort
of back voice telling them what's next, what can I
(04:09):
eat now? What about that snack that's in the pantry.
So it's really been liberating for people that have those struggles,
And of course with that we see weight loss, we
see improvements in blood sugar, and we see a lot
of emotional freedom come from this. For people that have
really been struggling, it's pretty awesome to see.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
Amanda, I am that girl.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
I literally just said on the radio that when I
wake up in the morning, the first thing I should
do is be like, thank you God, I'm awake, you know,
and please take care of my kids and let me
have a good day or be safe. And the first
thing I think of is what am I gonna eat
and where am I going to get it? And so
I am that girl with the food noise. So that
is so liberating and to have that hunger taken away,
(04:53):
you know, because there's so many different reasons why we eat, boredom, loneliness,
self medicating for whatever reason.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
So you talked.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
About the great parts of it, the upside, What is
the downside?
Speaker 2 (05:07):
Yeah, great question.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
Well, anytime a drug is new, we don't have lots
and lots of data to look at. Although these drugs
aren't super duper new, they're relatively new when we look
at the history of drug creation, so there's still time
to see what some of the downsides might be. We're
not entirely sure what happens when people come off of
these meds. There are some studies that suggest that weight
(05:31):
gain is pretty rapid, but newer studies show that if
we do it the right way, taper people slowly, really
help them with the behavior and the nutritional piece, that
weight loss can be sustained.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
So that's something that we're still kind of working on.
Side effects of course, are always important to consider.
Speaker 3 (05:49):
A lot of the side effects with these drugs relate
to the GI tract because of the way that the
medication slows everything down, so people can have constipation, which
is never fun, sometimes sometimes nausea, heartburn. They're usually pretty
manageable the side effects, especially if you titrate the dose
slowly and are working with somebody that is really good
(06:09):
at this and is really kind of catering your treatment
plan to you. There are some people that even at
very low doses, can't tolerate at all, and I don't
think we know what different differentiates them from somebody else.
But there's always going to be people for whom this
just isn't the right fit.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
I heard that some people get what's called sulfur urbs.
Speaker 3 (06:33):
Yeah, I've had a few patients report that exact thing.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
It's just like the smelliest, most awful burp that you
could have, and they can't even help it. I've also
heard that some work with low doses, some it doesn't
work until the higher dose. And is this something that
the doctor prescribes for weight loss now or no? This
is something people can purchase on their own.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
Great question.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
So O Zepic, which is sema glue tide with the
brand name Mozembic, is right now mostly prescribed for.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
People with diabetes.
Speaker 3 (07:06):
But with Govy, which is the same exact medicine sema
glue tide with a different name, was FDA approved four
weight loss, you know, as long as you meet certain criteria,
have a certain BMI or certain cool morbidities. So right
now there is that option to prescribe this four weight loss,
and you know, all the insurance companies feel differently about this.
(07:27):
It's very expensive in the United States. It's not as
expensive in other countries, so you know, it's probably a
topic for a whole other conversation. But until the prices
come down, availability is going to be really a challenge,
and we're seeing that in real life where patients who
really need or you know, are good candidates for the medicine,
sometimes insurance just won't pay for it. To pay for
(07:50):
it on your own is very expensive, and there's also
accessibility issues at the pharmacy. Pharmacies are short on doses.
There's a shortage of these strug across the country, and
so it's hard to even find the right doses.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
Even when insurance covers it.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
A friend of mine takes she gets a shot at home.
Another friend of mine gets a shot at a naturopathic place.
And when I was doing the research on this, it said,
you know, you could have thyroid tumors, all of these
different things. And my friend said, she goes, but you
could take lipatore and get the lay cramps. So every
(08:29):
kind of medication has possible side effects. It doesn't mean
you're going to get it exactly.
Speaker 3 (08:35):
And the same can be said for things that are
over the counter or natural supplements. You always have to
be mindful of what you're taking and work with somebody
that can really guide you and that knows what they're doing.
There are a lot of places that are getting semiglutide
from compounding pharmacies and then offering it to patients in
the office or sending them home with it. This is
(08:55):
being very poop pooed by the FDA and big pharm
up for obvious reasons. But at the right office, with
the right compounding pharmacy, I think there is.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
A place for this.
Speaker 3 (09:07):
It's just a matter of making sure that you're a
practitioner knows what they're doing. He is working with a
compounding pharmacy that's really reputable and that they're really taking
care of the whole of you, not just saying here's
this medicine, go have fun and lose all your weight.
You really need to have wrap around care with nutrition, counseling,
good support. I really think it's important that people that
are using these medicines are observing the changes that are happening,
(09:31):
because if they need to come off the medicine at
some point, you want to be able to replicate what
the medicine is doing for you off the medicine.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
If you can, you know, seeing.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
That, wow, my hunger cues are less, I'm snacking lesson
maybe I don't need to have that snack at three pm.
If you can do that without the medicine, but you've
learned that from taking it, then that's a beautiful thing
and you can carry on with what you've learned.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
A friend of mine who took it said that she
eats a low glycemi from saying this correctly diet plan
since she's gotten off the medication, and she feels like
she's still on the med because that's kind of what
the med did.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
Is that accurate? I think it can be.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
I also have a patient who found that her alcohol
intake just completely went away when she was on the medicine.
She was getting it prescribed, her insurance was covering it.
She was somebody that had a martini a few nights
a week with her husband when she went out to dinner,
enjoyed it. But once she started the medicine, she just
lost her desire to drink, which actually helped her in
(10:35):
her nutrition journey because she was less likely to get
you know, a dessert or whatever it is she maybe
didn't need to have because she didn't have the alcohol
in her system. She stopped the medicine because her insurance
stopped covering it, yet still had no desire to drink
good even a year later, which I thought was really
really interesting. There are some studies being done on how
(10:58):
these medicines can help people who are struggling with addiction,
whether it's drugs or alcohol, other addictions. There's something about
the way that the medicine works, probably in the brain,
that impacts those kind of cravings or seeking behaviors. Wow,
so that's a really exciting thing to be.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
Watching out for.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
Absolutely. I'm Italian, so we have to have good food.
But I always say as soon as you start drinking
alcohol a you're hungry, be everything ends up tasting good
anyways once you start drinking. So that's interesting.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
That's good. Well, we're going to have you back.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
There's so many other things I want to talk about,
like botox and fillers, and gut health and thyroid health.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
Women.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
We have so many things that we need to know.
So thank you so much, doctor Amanda Swan, owner of
Swan Integrative Health and Wellness. Thank you so much for
being here today and for the amazing work you do
to help everyone my pleasure.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
Thanks for having me
Welcome to Community Access. I'm Alison Demurz. My guest today
is doctor Amanda Swan from SWAN Integrative Health and Wellness.
We'll be discussing women's health, all good things to talk about,
juicy stuff like ozepic and weight loss and PMS and perimenopause.
Welcome doctor, I'm very glad to be here.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
You have a practice in Glastonbury I do.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
I do Swann Integrative Health and Wellness. We are a
integrative health practice, meaning that we really help people to
kind of bridge the gap between the two very different
worlds of medicine that we're living in these days. The
conventional world, which is based in medication and defining diagnoses
and treating those diagnoses, and then the other side, which
(00:46):
is a little bit more holistic looking at nutrition, supplementation,
really fixing and balances that we have and most people
need a combination of those things to really achieve good health,
and we're here to help bridge that gap.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
I met you at the Mingtient Polo grounds about a
month or so ago, and in the news at that
moment was big news about ozempic and all these side effects,
and then with GOV started doing commercials, and I thought,
you know what, we need to talk about this because
Connecticut actually is the state with the highest amount of
people taking ozempic.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
Really, I would think California, Hollywood, you know, in New
York City, but it's actually Connecticut. Maybe we can afford
it more. Not sure, So let's just dive right in.
Let's start talking about it's some a glue tide, correct,
Is that the proper name for it?
Speaker 3 (01:35):
Good job, that's kinder mouthful, thank you. Yeah, this is
such a hot topic. I'm asked about this a lot
in my practice. Try to keep up on what's happening
out there, you know, socially and scientifically, And there's there's
always two sides to every story, right, There's a lot
of people that are raving about these medications and how
life changing they are, and others that are really poopooing
(01:58):
them and saying that they're dangerous and we should be cautious.
And I think the truth is somewhere in the middle usually,
and this is a good example of that. These are
very powerful and relatively safe drugs. Some of glue tide
is one in you know, a category called the GLP
one receptor agonists. Some of glue tide being the one
(02:20):
that's probably the most commonly prescribed and most popular right now.
It's a class of drugs that's actually been around for
a long time designed to help people with diabetes.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
The founder of one, or the.
Speaker 3 (02:31):
Discoverer of one of the first GLP one agonists was
a female scientist in Denmark. Her story is really fascinating
if anyone is interested in reading about it. So she's
created this legacy which is really neat that it's lived.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
On to today.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
The i'd say upside of these medications is that they
finally give us a tool for helping people manage some
of their own behaviors around food. We have and really
had a drug that was able to do that in
a very very long time, or the drugs that we
had either weren't that effective or were difficult to take,
(03:08):
We had less of side effects, and this one has
really been a game changer. GLP one is actually a
hormone that we make in our intestines when we eat,
and when that hormone is made, it travels to the
different receptors in our brain and our pancreas and in
our GI tract and it impacts the way that we
feel hunger or satiety. We feel a little full or faster,
(03:33):
our GI tract slows down a little bit. That makes
us feel a little bit more full.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
In our brains.
Speaker 3 (03:38):
We because we're feeling a little bit more full, we
have less hunger cues, We're less you know, not seeking food.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
As much as we might have otherwise.
Speaker 3 (03:48):
And for people that are really struggling with what we
call food noise or never really feeling satiated, these drugs
can really quiet those noises and enable them to just
sort of eat, get what they need nutritionally, and move
on with their day instead of always having this sort
of back voice telling them what's next, what can I
(04:09):
eat now? What about that snack that's in the pantry.
So it's really been liberating for people that have those struggles,
And of course with that we see weight loss, we
see improvements in blood sugar, and we see a lot
of emotional freedom come from this. For people that have
really been struggling, it's pretty awesome to see.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
Amanda, I am that girl.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
I literally just said on the radio that when I
wake up in the morning, the first thing I should
do is be like, thank you God, I'm awake, you know,
and please take care of my kids and let me
have a good day or be safe. And the first
thing I think of is what am I gonna eat
and where am I going to get it? And so
I am that girl with the food noise. So that
is so liberating and to have that hunger taken away,
(04:53):
you know, because there's so many different reasons why we eat, boredom, loneliness,
self medicating for whatever reason.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
So you talked.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
About the great parts of it, the upside, What is
the downside?
Speaker 2 (05:07):
Yeah, great question.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
Well, anytime a drug is new, we don't have lots
and lots of data to look at. Although these drugs
aren't super duper new, they're relatively new when we look
at the history of drug creation, so there's still time
to see what some of the downsides might be. We're
not entirely sure what happens when people come off of
these meds. There are some studies that suggest that weight
(05:31):
gain is pretty rapid, but newer studies show that if
we do it the right way, taper people slowly, really
help them with the behavior and the nutritional piece, that
weight loss can be sustained.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
So that's something that we're still kind of working on.
Side effects of course, are always important to consider.
Speaker 3 (05:49):
A lot of the side effects with these drugs relate
to the GI tract because of the way that the
medication slows everything down, so people can have constipation, which
is never fun, sometimes sometimes nausea, heartburn. They're usually pretty
manageable the side effects, especially if you titrate the dose
slowly and are working with somebody that is really good
(06:09):
at this and is really kind of catering your treatment
plan to you. There are some people that even at
very low doses, can't tolerate at all, and I don't
think we know what different differentiates them from somebody else.
But there's always going to be people for whom this
just isn't the right fit.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
I heard that some people get what's called sulfur urbs.
Speaker 3 (06:33):
Yeah, I've had a few patients report that exact thing.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
It's just like the smelliest, most awful burp that you
could have, and they can't even help it. I've also
heard that some work with low doses, some it doesn't
work until the higher dose. And is this something that
the doctor prescribes for weight loss now or no? This
is something people can purchase on their own.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
Great question.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
So O Zepic, which is sema glue tide with the
brand name Mozembic, is right now mostly prescribed for.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
People with diabetes.
Speaker 3 (07:06):
But with Govy, which is the same exact medicine sema
glue tide with a different name, was FDA approved four
weight loss, you know, as long as you meet certain criteria,
have a certain BMI or certain cool morbidities. So right
now there is that option to prescribe this four weight loss,
and you know, all the insurance companies feel differently about this.
(07:27):
It's very expensive in the United States. It's not as
expensive in other countries, so you know, it's probably a
topic for a whole other conversation. But until the prices
come down, availability is going to be really a challenge,
and we're seeing that in real life where patients who
really need or you know, are good candidates for the medicine,
sometimes insurance just won't pay for it. To pay for
(07:50):
it on your own is very expensive, and there's also
accessibility issues at the pharmacy. Pharmacies are short on doses.
There's a shortage of these strug across the country, and
so it's hard to even find the right doses.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
Even when insurance covers it.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
A friend of mine takes she gets a shot at home.
Another friend of mine gets a shot at a naturopathic place.
And when I was doing the research on this, it said,
you know, you could have thyroid tumors, all of these
different things. And my friend said, she goes, but you
could take lipatore and get the lay cramps. So every
(08:29):
kind of medication has possible side effects. It doesn't mean
you're going to get it exactly.
Speaker 3 (08:35):
And the same can be said for things that are
over the counter or natural supplements. You always have to
be mindful of what you're taking and work with somebody
that can really guide you and that knows what they're doing.
There are a lot of places that are getting semiglutide
from compounding pharmacies and then offering it to patients in
the office or sending them home with it. This is
(08:55):
being very poop pooed by the FDA and big pharm
up for obvious reasons. But at the right office, with
the right compounding pharmacy, I think there is.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
A place for this.
Speaker 3 (09:07):
It's just a matter of making sure that you're a
practitioner knows what they're doing. He is working with a
compounding pharmacy that's really reputable and that they're really taking
care of the whole of you, not just saying here's
this medicine, go have fun and lose all your weight.
You really need to have wrap around care with nutrition, counseling,
good support. I really think it's important that people that
are using these medicines are observing the changes that are happening,
(09:31):
because if they need to come off the medicine at
some point, you want to be able to replicate what
the medicine is doing for you off the medicine.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
If you can, you know, seeing.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
That, wow, my hunger cues are less, I'm snacking lesson
maybe I don't need to have that snack at three pm.
If you can do that without the medicine, but you've
learned that from taking it, then that's a beautiful thing
and you can carry on with what you've learned.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
A friend of mine who took it said that she
eats a low glycemi from saying this correctly diet plan
since she's gotten off the medication, and she feels like
she's still on the med because that's kind of what
the med did.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
Is that accurate? I think it can be.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
I also have a patient who found that her alcohol
intake just completely went away when she was on the medicine.
She was getting it prescribed, her insurance was covering it.
She was somebody that had a martini a few nights
a week with her husband when she went out to dinner,
enjoyed it. But once she started the medicine, she just
lost her desire to drink, which actually helped her in
(10:35):
her nutrition journey because she was less likely to get
you know, a dessert or whatever it is she maybe
didn't need to have because she didn't have the alcohol
in her system. She stopped the medicine because her insurance
stopped covering it, yet still had no desire to drink
good even a year later, which I thought was really
really interesting. There are some studies being done on how
(10:58):
these medicines can help people who are struggling with addiction,
whether it's drugs or alcohol, other addictions. There's something about
the way that the medicine works, probably in the brain,
that impacts those kind of cravings or seeking behaviors. Wow,
so that's a really exciting thing to be.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
Watching out for.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
Absolutely. I'm Italian, so we have to have good food.
But I always say as soon as you start drinking
alcohol a you're hungry, be everything ends up tasting good
anyways once you start drinking. So that's interesting.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
That's good. Well, we're going to have you back.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
There's so many other things I want to talk about,
like botox and fillers, and gut health and thyroid health.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
Women.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
We have so many things that we need to know.
So thank you so much, doctor Amanda Swan, owner of
Swan Integrative Health and Wellness. Thank you so much for
being here today and for the amazing work you do
to help everyone my pleasure.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
Thanks for having me
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