Meet the PA: Erik Osborne
“I’m a firm believer that when a patient walks in – they have more of the answers and the solution than I do. I get to ask the questions and pair with my knowledge to guide them to a treatment plan.”
We were lucky enough to connect with Erik Osborne because a patient of his messaged us on Instagram about how much she was loving WonderCow (thanks Lauren!). Erik has a background in counseling, spent time in the military, and went on to become a Physician’s Assistant. Now located in North Carolina, he founded and is the CEO of HealthCoin Exchange, a healthcare provider created with the goal to offer affordable healthcare solutions leveraging modern research and alternative solutions. Check out how his practice is utilizing supplements for natural health… including one we think you’ll recognize.
Learn more: gethealthcoin.com
WonderCow: What is your background and what got you to where you’re at now?
Erik Osborne: I am a PA
“I really became interested in functional medicine along the way, and it truly stemmed my love for natural medicine.”
I have a brother who had a head injury when I was 15 years old. After helping him with his entire rehab process, I always knew I wanted to be in medicine. I worked for one of the largest independent practices in North Carolina for six years before branching off on my own.
WonderCow: What’s your mission and your “why” in your profession?
Erik Osborne: Growing up, my brother had always looked after me, his little brother, and there was this sudden role reversal after his accident. All of a sudden, I kind of became the older brother and I became a caretaker to him along with my parents. I realized that I personally got so much satisfaction out of helping him and seeing improvements.
“I realized that I was blessed with a gift, being able to offer something to other people.”
My passions never dwindled from there. I’ve always had this burning passion to help people in some capacity. I think with medicine, it’s a bit more tangible. There are numbers outside of what patients say that you can see, like how exactly you are impacting people based on numbers, their BMI, and also their personal feedback. I will say I feel very fortunate to have pursued a degree in counseling and therapy because it really is the centerpiece of how I practice medicine.
WonderCow: What keeps you motivated in doing what you do to help people?
Erik Osborne: I’ve always been a self-motivated individual but just knowing there’s more people to help and more people walking through the doors. I enjoy complex cases. I enjoy learning new things and staying on top of the latest and greatest advancements in medicine. Sometimes there are studies to back things up and sometimes it’s based on patient testimonies, and sometimes these clinical studies take a long time to complete and get verification. I do make sure to look at the data from studies.
“I try to read at least one article a day and learn something new every single day. That’s my commitment to my patient-based practice.”
I’m a firm believer that when a patient walks in, that they have more of the answers and the solution than I do. While I can help guide them to the treatment plan, unless they’re open and honest with me – I can’t get to a point where I can help them. It makes a huge difference when they’re willing to share the intricate details of their lives. You have to sift through a lot to get to the deeper interconnected workings.
WonderCow: What other services does your practice include?
Erik Osborne: We have a built-in lab, so when patients meet with us, we do all the annual physicals. We meet at least once a year with every patient and offer unlimited sick visits.
“Our goal is to truly hear from each individual what’s actually going on – rather than just refer out to another specialist without getting the entire story.”
As a medical professional, when you take the time to hear from a patient, you find out things like, “When do these headaches occur? Are they occurring on a regular basis? How are you sleeping? What kind of foods are you eating? Family history, etc.” These are the things that providers are supposed to be doing – but often the system doesn’t allow time for that. Which is why we prioritize it for our patients as a complete solution. “It really comes down to that. It’s really spending the time asking the right questions, getting the patients to open up and then knowing where to go with the information that they give you.”
WonderCow: How do you prove the efficacy of a supplement when they’re not FDA approved? How do you give credibility to patient testimonies?
Erik Osborne: Just exactly that – with personal testimonies. I constantly browse a supplement site’s plethora of options available for patients looking at different products. With the colostrum supplement, I thought it was interesting. So I did research, start digging into it, and the more I looked at it, it just made perfect sense. It’s the very first food that babies are exposed to – and babies rarely get sick. It’s protective in so many ways.
“With its healing and antibody properties – it makes perfect sense to me from a scientific standpoint. I am a WonderCow subscriber. My whole family takes it, and we love it.”
WonderCow: What have you noticed since telling your patients about WonderCow?
Erik Osborne: I will sometimes casually mention things to my patients and let them know there are different products out there, based on other patient testimonies. I’ll read patient testimonies and then I’ll get my own sample of patients to get their feedback. Lo and behold, I think we probably have 25-30 patients on your product. I’ve gotten great feedback from every single one! So, thank you for sharing it. I love the product so much, and it’s science at its finest in that regard. To me, it just makes sense that colostrum would be very protective. So many people have GI issues and need help in repairing the gut line. If it’s the first food meant for babies to consume, I think it’s God-intended. Like I said, I wouldn’t recommend a product unless I did my research.
WonderCow: What led you to WonderCow Colostrum?
Erik Osborne: Honestly, I had seen colostrum as I was browsing those supplement accounts, and I became interested in who else made colostrum. So then I searched it on Google and before I knew it, my Facebook feed had colostrum everywhere. I went down the rabbit hole and came across WonderCow. You had a realistic number of reviews, and double the amount for the same amount of money as other brands. So that’s what I ended up trying and talking to my patients about. 
WonderCow: What has your personal experience with colostrum been like?
Erik Osborne: It’s been great for me. So there was a distinct point in my life where I got sick, and then I developed quite a few gut issues and a lot of stomach pain. I spent years in the medical world, but I felt like conventional medicine failed me in a way. They just weren’t offering solutions that would help with my specific situation. I had to take it upon myself to figure out what kind of treatment would work, and how to put my body in the best position to be able to heal itself.
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Now, I really don’t have any issues anymore! My diet was extremely narrow and through the temporary lifestyle changes that I made, it is a more permanent basis now. I use colostrum to continue that kind of support to focus on the preventative side of things, rather than being reactive. Being reactive was prophylactic for me.
WonderCow: What are a few things you’ve heard from patients after using WonderCow?
Erik Osborne: I have seen how WonderCow helps both patients and myself with hair loss. For me, I had months and months of constant hair just falling out, but within 3.5 weeks of starting WonderCow, that just ceased. With our Covid patients, we check their inflammatory markers and they are just through the roof. It seems like Covid has caused a strange condition called mass cell activation syndrome. This affects the interleukin pathways, which regulate inflammation in the body. We’re working to find ways to regulate inflammation and bring it down in the body. What I’ve noticed personally as a PA, is when people have an infection, the foods that we eat start to create bodies against things when it’s already in a battle. So if your body is already fighting something, it can mistake things that are not harmful as being harmful. And the first line of defense would be exposure within the GI tract. That’s why it is so important to focus on gut health and regulating inflammatory markers within the body. That’s what introduced me to colostrum. 
WonderCow: How would you explain what immunoglobulins do in our bodies?
Erik Osborne: If we are supplying our bodies with IgG, your body doesn’t have to necessarily produce that on a regular basis to fight whatever it’s viewing to be harmful. I have already seen it in some of the food allergies that we’ve seen over time too.
“From checking up on my patients taking colostrum, we repeat the food sensitivity tests only six months later – and a lot of the food allergies and sensitivities are starting to abate. The gut health has improved and the body does not have to create an immune response – it just makes sense.”
I think the concept WonderCow has is amazing. I love it. And this is only the starting point. I think it’s going to continue to get better! Like I said, I’m a believer in the product.
WonderCow: If you could sum it up, what’s your approach when it comes to longevity?
Erik Osborne: I am a believer in aging with vitality. So I think that anything we can do to age gracefully in a way where we’re able to maximize our output and the quality of our life, then that’s what we should do.
Find Erik Osborne at his healthcare clinic: HealthCoin Exchange
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