Have you and your significant other been trying to have a baby with discouraging results? Have you tried IVF, or Invitro Fertilization and are becoming overwhelmed with the cost of the procedures and still having no success? Do you wonder what factors you can control that can affect your ability to have a baby? Is there a cheaper and more effective solution?
Did you know that Acupuncture and Asian Herbal Therapy is famous for its ability to treat fertility for women and men?
Here is the scoop on Fertility Treatments through Acupuncture and Herbal Therapy:
1. Acupuncture and Herbal Therapy Is a Medical System of its own and treats Fertility from a different perspective than Western Fertility Specialists.
What does fertility mean for the Acupuncturist? Fertility for an Acupuncturist means that the Uterus of a woman is a healthy, fertile environment for a baby to grow. It is without excess dampness, excess cold, excess heat, and sufficiently supplied with Yin and Yang from the mother and father. In this way one can understand that excess dampness, heat, or cold are considered pathogenic for a uterus. Dampness would be described as a cloying substance that clogs the uterus and blocks the channels making the success of the fetus unlikely. What causes dampness in the uterus are things like excess damp foods (dairy, sugar), excess alcohol consumption, greasy rich foods, eating too quickly with inadequate digestion, and other factors that would be determined based on the individual being assessed. Excess heat can be caused by the above factors listed for dampness, as well as eating spicy foods or foods that are hot in nature such as cheeses, fatty foods, peppers, onions, and certain meats. Excess heat can also result from poor digestion or eating too fast without chewing the food properly or binge eating large amounts frequently. Though many of these factors cause dampness in the spleen and stomach, they still affect the uterus because they impair the transformation and transportation of food into energy within the body.
Also, factors such as excessive sexual indulgence can create these pathogens within a uterus. If a woman is Yin deficient, (what would look like estrogen and progesterone deficiency), this can create excess heat as well. In the case of cold in the uterus, it can be caused by a deficiency in Yang Energy that creates coldness, or coldness in the body can impact the uterus because a person over consumes cold, damp, and nutritionally deficient foods that can create cold. These factors and more is what an Acupuncturist looks at when determining the fertility of a woman. But the Acupuncturist will also look at the fertility of the male. Though the male can have all of the factors listed above as pathological conditions, even Yin deficiency (though it does not show like estrogen and progesterone deficiency), they manifest in different ways and relate more to the male organ. For example, a male may have excess dampness creating pathogenic factors in his sperm count and motility, and it may show in yellow excess sweat on the genitals or abdomen. If a male’s genitals are kept too warm, cold, or constricted, this can affect his fertility also. Acupuncture can help balance the male reproductive system to help improve his fertility.
2. How does the Acupuncturist view the age of the person trying to conceive?
From the perspective of an Acupuncturist, our goal is to help the uterus of the woman, or the sperm of a man, be young enough to carry/fertilize a baby. How can we make a uterus or sperm younger you may ask? Well, that is an analogy of the Acupuncturists’ goal and not a literal clinical description. The Acupuncturist wants to make the uterus/sperm function as if it is a younger persons uterus/sperm. We can describe this process like we would describe the nurturing of a garden that has barren soil. The soil itself cannot support life because it is nutrient deficient and the nutrients it has are not in balance in the way required to sustain life. The soil may be too damp, too cold, too warm or too deficient. So a gardener would condition the soil, nurture the soil, drain out the dampness and make sure the temperature is amiable within the soil. The original soil is modified and made healthier. So using this analogy, we can say that Acupuncture and Asian Herbal Therapy can help the uterus/sperm itself be a healthier, younger, more fertile environment to increase potential for carrying a child. Acupuncture can, to use the analogy, make the uterus and sperm more vital and without pathology creating fertility. If the uterus and sperm are more fertile and healthy, they are more like a younger uterus and sperm; healthy and vital.
This is a short explanation of a very complex system of medicine that Acupuncturists use to determine how they can best treat a patient with fertility issues. This is an example of the diagnostic mind of an Acupuncturist. If you want help with your fertility issues, give us the opportunity to diagnose you and find out the root of your infertility so that we can help you. Since the diagnostic portion of fertility treatments with Acupuncture is so important, the consultation is imperative to its success.
3. How does the Acupuncturist treat a fertility patient that has an irregular menstrual cycle?
A very important factor to the success of fertility treatments is the state of the woman’s reproductive system. What happens if a woman’s menstruation is irregular making it hard to determine cycles of ovulation? If a woman has a history of irregular periods, it is likely that fertility will be decreased. From the Acupuncturists perspective, this is a main concern when trying to conceive a child. If the cycle is off, success in pregnancy is unlikely. So, before the treatments on the conception of the child can actually begin, the Acupuncturist must treat the menstrual cycle first. The good news is that Acupuncture is famous for treating gynecological issues. Sometimes, a corrected menstrual cycle is a positive side effect of regular acupuncture treatments. Once the menstrual cycle is regulated, then the Acupuncturist can start working on helping the uterus be more vital for carrying a baby. This is an essential thing to remember when talking to your Acupuncturist about fertility treatments, because it can lengthen the typical treatment duration for fertility patients. However, success can still be achieved, and your Acupuncturist can still help you.
Though this is informative, you may still be wondering why not just use IVF and skip all of that? Well here is a very good comparison of the cost and effectiveness of Western Treatments for fertility and Eastern treatments for fertility to help you understand from our perspective the difference.
Though IVF and other Western style fertility treatments are effective, relatively safe, and usually work after the 6th attempt for women younger than 42, is it cost effective? One “Cycle” of IVF usually costs $12000 or more and the medications that help produce excess eggs for them to harvest cost $4000-5000. One Cycle can be described as one harvest of eggs from the female, and sperm from the male, and at least one injection of a fertilized egg into the uterus. Possibly, if enough have been harvested from the first cycle, they can be injected into the uterus 1-2 at a time until it attaches and grows. However, most people have a 20-40% (42 years of age or younger) chance of success before the 6th fertilization attempt. So, to sum it up, the cost of IVF for impregnation is, at the bare minimum, $16000, and it is only 20-40% successful before the 6th attempt. It could cost as much as $96000 to conceive a child with IVF. Though the success rates of IVF are higher than the chances a couple has to conceive naturally, if a couple is getting fertility treatments in the first place, it is likely that the usual percentage doesn’t apply and that they have tried to conceive naturally.
For fertility, treatments with Acupuncture and Herbal therapy are effective, free of side effects, and at a much lower cost than IVF. It is the experience of Jun’s Acupuncture that we can confidently gauge our success rate at 80% for woman 42 and under. During a typical course of fertility treatment, a patient is treated from 1-3 months 2-3 times a week with that percentage of success. One month of the herbal formulas is usually sufficient in combination with Acupuncture treatments to produce pregnancy. This means that on average, a patient would spend less than 10% of the cost of IVF. The difference is staggering, and the results from Acupuncture would appear higher than that of IVF naturally.
In closing, we should look at a very important factor in how Acupuncture treatments for fertility can be very successful; Acupuncture reduces stress significantly, and this can be very beneficial to the conception of a child. When stress levels are lower, a person’s body is in better condition to conceive a child. Acupuncture is well known for its stress relieving functions, and is reputed for its ability to treat stress related illness such as headaches, lowered immune function, Irritable Bowel Syndrome and premenstrual conditions.
If your are interested in how Jun’s Acupuncture can help you and your significant other have a baby, don’t hesitate to call us at any time or schedule a consultation. We are confident that we can improve your fertility and that your experience at Jun’s Acupuncture will be comfortable as well as peaceful.
“A Healthy and Stress Free Life is Our Ultimate Goal!’
Jun’s Acupuncture
For more information on Fertility Treatments, please visit our website:
https://drjunsacu.com/services/gynecology