The Oral Health Clue That Finally Helped Heal Chronic Lyme with Erica Schlick

Hi everybody.

I'm Dr. Sanda Moldovan, periodontist and nutritionist. Welcome to the Holistic Dentistry Podcast, the show that gives you the tips and tools to detoxify your mouth for a healthier body as we explore together the root cause of disease. Remember, you're not healthy until your mouth is healthy. So take care of it in the most Hi everyone. Welcome to another episode on the Holistic Dentistry Show. I'm your host, Dr. Sanda Moldovan, periodontist and nutritionist. And I'm excited to talk to Erica Schlick today, who is the founder of The Trail to Health. And Erica's journey is quite impressive. Her struggles with health really motivated her to create this platform, to start summits, to really bring the light into what's the root cause of disease and what you can do about it as a consumer. So we're going to be talking about her journey into Lyme disease and other conditions that she's going to tell us about, as well as her oral health struggles and what did she do about those and how it made her feel. Erica also wrote a gluten-free cookbook called The Wandering Palate, and she's been featured in more than 400 television segments nationwide, as well as On the Netflix documentary series Afflicted and Destination TV. So, Erica, welcome to the show.

Thank you. So fun to be here. I'm glad we got to do this together. I know I interviewed you recently for the Women's Midlife Health Summit, so now the roles are reversed and excited to be on your show as well.

Definitely. I'm excited about your summit because there's so many women in midlife that are suffering and they don't know what to do about it. And It's kind of similar to your story.

It is. There's, I think, a lot of people walking around out there wondering what's going on, thinking that they're just getting older and not realizing that there's actually maybe something going on with their health that they need to address.

Yeah. So tell me what happened. I know in 2012 you were diagnosed with Lyme disease, mold toxicity, heavy metal toxicity, and autoimmune issues. Did they all come at once or?

So it was interesting. So in 2012, I actually went on my 3rd camping trip ever of my life and I started developing strange symptoms after. That, and it actually took 2 years to get diagnosed with Lyme disease. So I had unknowingly been bitten by a tick, and for 2 years I was rapidly decaying. I had all sorts of horrible symptoms including joint pain and brain fog and extreme fatigue to the point that I couldn't work anymore. I couldn't really drive. I was spending my days in bed. I had horrible neurological symptoms, light and sound sensitivity. I had to stop driving because I couldn't even remember how to get home at certain points. And so I was really, really debilitated. And so I was going doctor to doctor trying to get answers for it, and those The only one that was really helping me was a naturopathic doctor, and he's like, the only thing we haven't tested you for is Lyme or chronic fatigue viruses. And I was like, oh, I doubt it's Lyme. I was like, I'm such a city person, but test me for it anyways because I'm desperate for answers. And I tested positive for Lyme disease, and that's what kind of opened me up to this entire world of root cause medicine and what could actually be going on with our health. Because prior to that, I didn't really know what Lyme disease was. I thought it was an East Coast disease. I didn't think that it would affect me because I'm not an outdoorsy person or a hiker or into camping at all. So I was very surprised that I got it. And, you know—

Were you in Los Angeles at the time?

I was living in San Francisco, so I got it in Yosemite. So Lyme does exist in California, no matter what people try to tell you. It is very prevalent here. It's, I think, one of the highest states outside of the East Coast and the Midwest that does have Lyme disease. And so Lyme doesn't come on its own, as I'm sure you know and a lot of your listeners know. Lyme usually comes with many other things, including co-infections. I had been exposed to mold in graduate school, and I lived in a moldy apartment. Moved out and I thought I was fine, but I didn't know that mold can kind of come with you and stay in your system and colonize inside of you and continue to deplete your immune system. I'd also had high levels of heavy metals that I had accumulated over the years as well. And just learning more about root cause in the body and how some people just don't detox as well and we accumulate things. And then when you have a combination of all these things kind of filling up in your bucket at a certain point, your immune system just can't handle it anymore. And that's when everything kind of comes to life. Once I got diagnosed, I spent about 2 and a half, 3 years doing treatments, and I had felt like I was so let down by Western medicine that I didn't do any antibiotics. I worked with a naturopath, and I worked on a more holistic route to kind of really uncover what these root causes were and treat it. So I did a lot of herbals, a lot of ozone, more things that were kind of on the holistic side of treating Lyme, and I got to about 60 to 70% better, but I just kind of plateaued there. That was after about 2 years, 2 and a half years of treatment. And so I was like, I have to do something different. I have to do something And I was kind of at a crossroads. I was either gonna go to Germany and do hyperthermia or I looked into stem cell therapy and I ended up choosing stem cell therapy using my own stem cells and that was what healed me. For some reason, I just needed to give my immune system a reboot, I think. I think a lot of it at that point was more about immune modulation and yeah, that's what kind of finally got me over the edge and thankfully I've been Lyme symptom-free for about 10 years now. I haven't had any recurrence, knock on wood. My little wood table here.

What was that stem cell treatment like? Did they extract stem cells from fat tissue?

Yes, it was from my own fat. So it was a pretty simple procedure. So they did a lot of prep work for like 10 days to kind of optimize your body. And then they extracted the stem cells from my fat tissue and then gave it back to me via IV. And it definitely wasn't an overnight fix. I mean, it took about, I would say, 10 months to feel like it fully kind of worked and kicked in, especially like some of those neurological issues. Like the nerves just take a very long time to recover. long time to heal. And, you know, it did take a long time. There were some, some things that started going away sooner. I started getting my energy back. I started getting the joint pain kind of lifted around 3 months in. The brain fog lifted, which was amazing because that was my most debilitating symptom. I was like, I used to be so smart. I'm a licensed architect. Like, how can I not think anymore? And so I was really worried I wasn't going to get my brain back, but happy to report it works better than before.

Licensed architect. So, um, at what point did you shift though? So, okay, you got healthy, and, uh, what point did you say, okay, I'm gonna start a health business?

Yeah, so when I was recovering from Lyme, I started my blog. So this is back in around 2014, 2015. And so I really started it as a way to just kind of track my recovery, what treatments were working, just share my experience. Because, I mean, I think there's a lot more awareness for Lyme now. A lot more people are talking about it and sharing about it on social media. But 10 years ago, it was still kind of this fringe condition. No one really knew about it. You know, people weren't really sharing their stories as often. So I wanted to be able to help people that were on a similar journey. And so it started off just more as like a way to track my recovery. As I got better, it became more of a platform to kind of, you know, show that you can get better and that you can reach remission. Then I wrote my first cookbook because I wanted that to be kind of like a celebration of like, look, you can get better and do great things. Your life is going to be different, obviously, after you went through a chronic illness, but you can thrive afterwards. And then from there, it's just kind of evolved. I started my podcasts to interview a bunch of amazing doctors and speakers that are doing great things in this world and bring more awareness to some of these conditions. And then that has evolved onto the summits now as well.

I love that. And, you know, I know at some point oral health also became important. It's an important part of your journey. So at what point did somebody point you to a biological dentist?

So my naturopath that I was working with in those first 2 and a half years, once I was kind of hitting that plateau, she's like, I think one of the things that might be holding you back is your dental health. And I was like, what do you mean my dental health? I've never had a cavity. I brush my teeth like twice a day at least. Like, what do you mean? My teeth are great. And she's like, no, we gotta see if you had— she's like, did you ever have a root canal? I was like, no. And she's like, what about your wisdom teeth out? I was like, I did. And she's like, you might have cavitations. And especially since so many of my symptoms were kind of in my brain and, you know, in my head area is where a lot of my symptoms were, she's like, I think this could be a big piece of it. And so I went down the path to investigate. I did the, you know, the 3D scan to kind of see what was going on in my jaw and things like that. And sure enough, I did have 2 cavitations. So I had surgery for those and I couldn't believe how much it helped. Like it, I used to have really bad anxiety, like just horrible anxiety all the time. And something happened that after the cavitation surgery, I just felt this calm and I had some pretty nasty parasites and things in there 'cause I sent it off for testing. And I just felt this calm in my anxiety. And I also had this other weird thing that when I would go down steps, I would feel almost like there was like a, like a pocket in my jaw. Like it felt like it almost like kind of bounced in there. It was like the weirdest thing. And I would talk to dentists about it and they would look at me like I was crazy. And I was like, oh, well, I guess this is just normal. Maybe everyone feels this. I didn't really think anything of it. After my surgery, I don't have that feeling anymore. So I definitely feel like there was something in there that didn't need to be in there that, you know, was causing some issues in my health. But I think that's a really overlooked piece of people's journeys. You know, people forget about their mouth and how important our oral microbiome and our mouth is. And, you know, any infections that we have in our mouth that our immune system can't get to.

You're so right. You know, and I biopsy every single area of cavitation that I treat. And 70% of the time, there's also parasites in there.

That's what I had.

Yeah, and also Lyme disease organisms can actually hide in the cavitation sites because it's just necrotic bone that just there's no circulation, and they love to fester there. It's amazing that you have symptoms there. A lot of people don't necessarily feel something there, but you're more intuitive, I think, your body than most people, and you were able to tell that something's wrong.

Yeah, it was. It wasn't really. The only time I really noticed things there was with the the stairs, but I just remember it being like such a weird thing. Sometimes I would like go downstairs and almost like hold. my jaw because I was like, this is weird. But I'm like, maybe everyone feels like this. I don't know.

Yeah. So you treated the cavitations and then shortly thereafter you ended up doing some stem cells?

Yeah, I did the cavitations first and then a couple months later is when I did my stem cell therapy. And so I felt like I wanted to just get all infectious things out before and then kind of use the stem cells as a reboot for my immune system.

Yeah. So how do you help people now? Like, what do you do? Do you just help gather experts together on your website, or what are you passionate about now?

Yeah, I mean, I offer a limited amount of health coaching, but I feel like I can reach more people by either doing my podcast or doing the summit. So I really love to interview amazing speakers and doctors on some of these more overlooked health conditions and bring more awareness to them. I think that there's a lot of people out there struggling, being let down, especially by Western medicine, medicine that, you know, being told that their labs look fine and that they're fine when they know that something's not right and they just don't know what that answer is yet. But I think the more awareness and light we can bring to things like oral and dental health and like what might be in our—

Mm-hmm.

—imputations and root canals or going on in our mouth and things, you know, underlying conditions like Lyme disease or mold and environmental toxins that are just wearing down our bodies and our immune system and letting other things really kind of fester in it. So the more awareness I can bring to that, I feel like I can reach A lot more people working on these summits and interviewing experts and bringing light to these topics.

Absolutely. So you feel— you felt a lot better after the stem cells. Do you have like a maintenance that you do for yourself, like detoxification? How do you stay healthy?

Yeah, I mean, I, I feel like, you know, once you go through a chronic condition like this, you obviously have a completely new lifestyle, right? I mean, I eat very clean, I eat very healthy, I exercise every day, move my body. Prioritize my sleep and make sure that I have a clean environment as well, making sure my home is mold-free and taking care of things like that. So I do kind of like the basics, but I do like to get like an ozone IV like quarterly or whenever I feel like I'm feeling a little down or depleted, just to make sure my immune system is up. Maybe get like a Myers IV here and there, making sure my vitamin D levels are up so my immune system stays healthy. But for the most part, I mean, I'm I'm pretty good. I think in the beginning I used to do a lot more because I was so afraid of. of going out of remission that I was like, oh man, I'm gonna do everything I can. And it was almost like I was still kind of like doing like treating, but I was like, then I realized I didn't really need to. And so now I just do it more when I feel like my body needs something or right before. I've gotten really good at feeling like, okay, starting to get a little tired or I'm starting to kind of burn myself out or work too much. Let me, let me like, you know, give myself a little bit of more of my bank account, my immune system bank account to keep it healthy before I get to that depleted state.

What's your favorite way to recharge?

Ozone. I love ozone. I love ozone. It makes me human. It's like, I feel like it makes me superhuman. I love NAD. I love ozone. Those are 2 of my favorites right now that I kind of cycle through and keep me healthy. And then also simple things like working out. I love strength training. Going to the gym in the morning is my non-negotiable. It just gives me so much mental clarity and energy for the day. Makes me feel really good. The days that I don't work out, I don't feel as good or as clear-headed. So just, it's It's just like a non-negotiable for me just to be able to move my body. And I think from so many years of having Lyme and not being able to do that, like, it doesn't seem like a task or a nuisance to have to go to the gym. I'm like grateful that I get to move my body and exercise and, you know, be able to build strength and resilience.

Absolutely. I think you're touching on a lot of good lifestyle choices in order to stay healthy because some of my patients say, well, is there a good pill or supplement that I can take to stay healthy? But we really need to check in, stop for a moment. Okay, I need to Yeah, absolutely.

I feel like so much of it is lifestyle and those new habits that you have to form, right?

And you also mentioned strengthening the immune system, which I think it's key, especially in today's day and age. You know, we're getting bombarded with so many things, you know, viruses, EMFs, uh, uh, you know, in the news all the time. Oh, you know, lettuce has E. coli or this. So what are some of your favorite ways to keep your immune system healthy? Yeah, so I think, you know, the most important thing is to keep your gut healthy.

Absolutely. Vitamin D, I think, is critical, right? I mean, making sure that your vitamin D levels are adequate. I think, you know, just eating a very clean and nutritious diet too, like prioritizing clean protein and clean fruits and vegetables, you know, making sure that you're getting all your nutrients through your food as much as possible. I think so many of us, like you said, want that magic pill or that supplement or something that's just going to fix us without having to do the lifestyle changes. But I think doing the lifestyle changes really are Some of those key things, and then you know when you do feel depleted, like getting some IVs. I think like getting a Myers or like a glutathione IV is always like really helpful for me just to kind of give my immune system a little support when it feels like it needs it.

Absolutely. So now you created this True Health Summit, right? So when did you start your summit, by the way?

We started it in December of last year, so very recent. But we have been working very hard pretty much every single day and weekend since December on these. I but you know we.

Together for those people listening, and I know a lot of the listeners have been in summits and they are so much work. They are. And how do you go about finding experts and how do you research to make sure you bring the latest?

I feel like I've already kind of been doing this with my podcast. So I feel like I have a really good network of amazing doctors and speakers already. And the ones that I trust that have been on my podcast or my summits also have people that they refer to me. So that makes it a lot easier to kind of get connected to people that that you want being part of the summit that are kind of vetted. But I think there's a lot of amazing people out there doing, you know, great work, and there's a lot of people that aren't, right? So kind of weeding through that and seeing, you know, what their, their kind of stance is on things, making sure things are evidence-based so that we're not, you know, bringing in information that may not be evidence-based or true. So making sure that I'm working with people that are in that realm as well.

What was your first summit?

The Lipedema.

That's an interesting topic that most people haven't heard of. What motivated you to do a summit on it?

So it's interesting. So after I got my stem cells, so the stem cells healed me completely from Lyme. I don't want to say cure because there is no cure, but got me into remission. But about a month after I got my stem cells, I started gaining weight. And it was really weird because I'd never really had a weight problem. I always had like maybe bigger thighs, but other than that, I never really had a weight problem. And I noticed that it was something hormonal. It would come on with my cycle, and it was almost like I had this like Swelling and water retention that would then turn to fat, and this continued. And I was like, "This is really weird. I'm still eating really clean. I haven't changed my diet. I'm actually exercising now. So why am I gaining weight?" And you know, was for years I went doctor to doctor trying to figure out what was going on with me, and I got to the point that I gained about fifty pounds. No matter what I did, it wouldn't stop. And I did the HCG diet ten times. That, for some reason, was the only thing that would kind of reset me a little bit and give me a head start. If you don't know what the HCG diet is, it's awful. Like, you inject HCG hormone for 10 to 40 days and you eat 500 calories a day, no fat, no oils, and it's really, really strict. But that was the only thing that would give me relief to this tormented weight gain that I had. And so finally, about 8 years later, I was just desperate. I had gone to so many doctors, no one knew what it was. And actually, my doctor that does my IVs for just kind of keeping me healthy in my Lyme remission, she had worked with Dr. David Amaran in his office and she had seen a lot of women with lipedema. She was like, "Why are you so puffy?" She's like, "I can't even get the IV in you. Your arms are puffy." And I was like, "I don't know. I just get this puffiness and this water weight, and it just stays on as weight gain." And she's like, "I think you have lipedema." And I was like, "What is that? I'd never heard of it. It was another condition I'd never heard of." And so sure enough, she recommended some doctors to go see to see if that was potentially what I was dealing with. And I saw three different doctors. They all said the same thing. So I was diagnosed with lipedema. And so for listeners that don't know what that is, it's a condition that affects one in nine women, and it's a It's partly genetic, partly hormonal, and a lot of doctors agree that it probably has a connective tissue component to it as well. And so what it does is this swelling, your vessels get leaky, your lymphatics get leaky, and you get this fluid retention in your interstitial space, and then you create this fibrotic fat that develops. And so you mostly get it in your legs and arms. It can affect your torso as well. It's resistant to diet and exercise. It's an inflammatory condition that will just keep progressing, and so one of the best things you can do for it to kind of stop the disease process is have surgery to remove it. And then you can also do conservative care therapies. So after Lyme, after six years with Lyme and stem cells and everything, then I felt like I was a Rubik's Cube. I fixed the Lyme, and then now I had this crazy weight gain that I had never experienced in my life. And so that took about eight years to figure out, and then I had four surgeries in 2024 for it, and that. that thankfully has kind of reset it for me. So that's why I was so passionate about doing lipedema first because Lyme was miserable in its own way, but it's like an invisible illness. And then lipedema is a completely different disorder. Like, you actually feel okay, but you look completely not like yourself. And so it was really, really messed with me to have like an invisible illness and then go into such a visible illness. And I think they are both equally awful just in their own ways.

Wow. Yeah. So I don't know how many people that suffer from lipedema, but some of them don't even know they have it. I have patients—

They don't.

And— Swollen. You could tell they're swollen.

Yeah. It affects 1 in 9 women. So it's actually quite common. It's just never diagnosed. And most doctors don't know, aren't familiar with it, aren't able to diagnose it. And so that's another one that is thankfully starting to get a lot more awareness. I think during the summit, we talked to so many doctors and they said that about 90% of women find out about it through social media or podcasts and other women, not from their doctors, which definitely needs to change.

So what does a surgery for lipedema look like? It is a pretty intensive liposuction.

So cosmetic liposuction is very different. That one just kind of goes in and wherever you have like little deposits of fat, they kind of smooth it out and take it out. With lipedema, you have to do circumferential liposuction, meaning you have to go around the entire leg to make sure you're getting all the fat and the nodules. And it has to be done a very specific way because you don't want to damage the lymphatic system because it's already compromised with the condition. So it's pretty intense, like full body lipo basically to get it out. And that, you know, it doesn't— How long does it take? Like you do it in sections. So like I did like my lower legs and then I did my upper legs a different time, arms and torso in like different surgeries. So about 3 hours per surgery, 3, 4 hours. I did it awake, which is not for everyone, but some people you can do it awake, you can do it under twilight, you can do it You know, under general anesthesia, depending on like what surgeon you work with, they all have their preferences. Also, depending on the amount of volume that you have too will help determine that. But yeah, it's the surgery was intense, but the relief that it gave you and kind of the reset on the disease was life-changing. And I mean, it's not a cure; it's just what I like to call surgery is it's a reset. So now you know what you have; you've gotten a fresh start. Now you can do better by you know managing inflammation. So microdosing a GLP one is really helpful for that. Managing diet, like finding out what your inflammatory trigger foods are, and wearing compression, right? And doing the things that you can do to manage the swelling and, you know, getting manual lymphatic drainage regularly, lymphatic support, things like that.

Wow. What a journey, Erica.

It's been a crazy 15 years.

So tell us about your most— the podcast that's coming out, actually. I believe soon, and we're going to post the information in the show notes. What motivated you to do this summit?

Uh, you know, this summit was interesting because I think there's a— I'm entering midlife, so I was like, what's going to be next for me? What's coming up? So I personally am interested in the topic just because I want to learn as much about this kind of new chapter of my life as much as possible. But I think there's a lot of women out there as well that, you know, are struggling with their health and go to their doctors and think that they only need to take HRT and eat protein and build muscle through midlife and that they're going to be fine. And I think there's so more to the picture. And just in my own friend group, I see so many of my friends struggling, and they're like, I've done those things and I still don't feel good. And I think there's so many underlying things that they're missing. And that's why with this summit, I really wanted to take a more kind of root cause approach to midlife. Like, okay, yes, hormones and things are important. Let's get that balanced and checked out first. But if you still don't feel good, you know, what's going on with your oral health? What sort of environmental toxins are maybe, you know, wearing your immune system down? Do you have underlying infections? Like, what else could be going on? With your endocrine system that needs to be looked at. And I think there's so many more things that get overlooked that I really wanted to touch on in this summit and bring light to because I think there's a lot of women that are going to be entering midlife or already in midlife that just don't feel that good. And I think they don't need to live like that. They can find these answers, see what's going on, and they can start to thrive in midlife.

Absolutely. So who are some of the experts we can look forward to hearing?

So many. We have an A-list lineup. Obviously you, of course. And we're co-hosting the summit with Dr. Ebony Cornish, and she's fantastic. She works— she's the medical director at Amen Clinics, and she is just so into like brain health and how our hormones affect our brain and neural longevity. So her talks are really interesting. So day 1, we're focusing on hormones. So we have speakers like Dr. Jennifer Berman, Felice Gersh, Dr. Anna Cabeca is talking about the vaginal microbiome. We're doing some sessions on sleep and movement. Day 2 is the fun day with the really root cause stuff. So that's where we're diving into environmental toxins, cellular health, and underlying infections and things like that. So we have speakers like, um, Dr. Jabin Moore, Dr. Todd Medeiros, um, Dr. Ashley Beckman, Dr. Jill Carnahan is speaking on day 2. And then day 3 is really about how to thrive. Um, so we have speakers like JJ Virgin, Caleb Barnes, um, Dr. Stephanie Van Watson. So really talking about like longevity, how to thrive. Um, and then we're even doing a small section on aesthetics because, you know, I think as women, as we get older, we want to look good and feel good. So find out like what options are available to us, um, in that regard as Absolutely.

I love it. I actually can't wait for the summit because I want to listen to some of the experts you have on there. It's quite a lineup, but I know how difficult it is to get everybody to be part of it.

I know. That is one of the perks of living in LA. A lot of these speakers come through for other media appearances and we're able to piggyback on that and get some amazing speakers, which is good.

So if somebody cannot make it live to the summit, can they listen to it afterwards?

Absolutely. Yeah. So the summit is free to attend live if you're able to attend November 10th through If for some reason you're not, you can buy an all-access pass or VIP pass. We also have professional passes, and we're offering up to 6 CE/CME credits as well. So we have passes that you can access the library and our replay library for 12 months after.

Wow, I've never heard of that, that you can actually offer a CME, but it makes sense.

Yeah.

That's great, Erica. So a lot of good information. I mean, I'm so impressed with you, with everything that you do just to bring awareness, which is much needed. What last-minute words do you have for somebody that's listening, has Lyme disease, brain fog, they don't know what to do first? What advice do you have for them?

I mean, I would definitely say stay with it. You will get better. I know it can feel like the end of the world and that nothing is going to shift and that nothing is going to change, but eventually you will find something that works for you. And I wish one thing would work for everyone, but unfortunately that's not the case. We're all just such a unique Unique fingerprint of different exposures and genetics and toxins, and so you know if you're not getting better, if you're plateauing, work with a different doctor. Get different opinions. You know, do some research online. Listen to podcasts and summits where you can learn from different experts that maybe will spark something in your mind that will give you give you the right path to go down and investigate. But just trust that you can get better. The body is resilient. I feel like I feel better than I did before Lyme disease because I've been able to optimize so many things about my health that I actually feel like my brain works better now. I feel healthier. I feel That's great.

Everyone, please join the summit. It's going to be amazing. Thank you, Erica, so much for being on our show. And for those of you listening to this show, if you know anybody who can benefit from listening to Erica's journey and how she was able to heal through Lyme disease, please share this episode with them. And thank you so much for listening to this episode of The Lyme Diet. Thank you. And until next time, keep smiling. Thank you so much for joining me this week. Please make sure you check out the show notes for any links mentioned in the show. If you like today's show, please invite your friends to listen as well. That would mean a lot to me. Do you have a question you'd like me to answer? Message me on Instagram at Dr. This is Dr. Sanda, and remember, your mouth is the gateway to your health, so take care of it in the most natural and best way possible.