Zen Living

Episode “Acupuncture for Fertility”

 

Nicole Tomlinson: For millions of Americans having a baby and starting a family is as natural as life itself. However, when if hit roadblocks and found themselves unable to conceive, many turn to IBF and many other not so natural solutions. What if there was a more natural way to help Mother Nature along? We are here today with Kirsten Karchmer who is going to guide us through the process of acupuncture for fertility.

This is Kirsten, and she is going to tell us how acupuncture can assist in the treatment of infertility. Hi Kirsten.

Kirsten Karchmer: Hi, how are you?

Nicole Tomlinson: Very good. Now in regards to fertility, who is a prime candidate to undergo treatment for infertility?

Kirsten Karchmer: That is a good question. We divide it into three categories. In our practice we specialize in infertility, and ovulation disorders, and miscarriage prevention. There are very few patients who are not a good candidate for infertility treatments in general. A lot of times we find that patients who have the least success rates are patients who have very large uterine fibroids. Or who have some kind of blockage of the fallopian tunes. Those things need to be surgically removed. Acupuncture is not going to remove those tings.

Nicole Tomlinson: Right. Once we decide ok, I am a good candidate. How do we start?

Kirsten Karchmer: Well what happens is first you come for a consultation with a licensed acupuncturist. In that consultation the acupuncturist should take about an hour or hour and a half first of all to explain what he or she does and answer all your questions, and then do a comprehensive health history.

When we are treating infertility our goal is to understand why do you have what you have. Why does this person have infertility who is thirty four years old versus this person who doesn’t have infertility who is the same age and has similar health.

Nicole Tomlinson: I see.

Kirsten Karchmer: Many problems can sauce infertility; it can be the blood not moving in the uterus. There can be an inability to make enough blood, so the uterine lining doesn’t build up thick enough for implantation to occur. So there are many, many reasons why somebody may have a hard time either getting pregnant, or ovulating, or staying pregnant. And we are trying to decide that on the first appointment.

Alyssa: My husbands and I tried on our own for close to six months and had no success then went to a doctor and I had problems with all sorts of hormonal imbalances and things so I started taking Clomid and doing iui’s which are intra-uterine inseminations for several months and none of that worked. I was found to have mild to moderate endometriosis so I had a lot of that cleared out with the surgery and that could have been a factor that was keeping us from getting pregnant.

Marla: Over a year’s time I wasn’t menstruating regularly, they didn’t believe I was ovulation. I didn’t believe I was ovulation. For a year or a few months they prescribed a drug called Clomid, and still taking ovulation productive kits it wasn’t coming out positive. So again I wasn’t believing I was ovulating, and the medicine was having a negative impact. So I decided I wasn’t going to do any kind of medication. If I couldn’t get pregnant naturally in some way then maybe that wasn’t the path for us.

Nicole Tomlinson: So once we have the consultation and all of those things are worked out. Then what do we do? Do we go in on the table and start getting the pins?

Kirsten Karchmer: On the second appointment, that’s when we start doing acupuncture.

Nicole Tomlinson: Is it instantaneous? Like I can go home and get pregnant?

Kirsten Karchmer: Actually it takes quite a bit of time. What we are trying to do is regulate your menstrual cycle. So the goal of the treatment for infertility is not to get someone pregnant. Because just getting pregnant doesn’t finish the job. What our goal is to help people to first get as healthy as possible, to get there body functioning at the highest capacity possible. After there body is functioning at full capacity we regulate the menstrual cycle. When somebody is really healthy and there menstrual cycle is regular the side effects should be they can get pregnant easily, and stay pregnant.

Nicole Tomlinson: Ah, I see.

Kirsten Karchmer: The end goal is a happy healthy baby.

Nicole Tomlinson: So what we are really doing is not focusing on getting pregnant. We are focusing on getting healthy.

Kirsten Karchmer: Exactly.

Marla: I had a friend who told me several years back that she had tried for at least two years to get pregnant and nothing had worked in terms of medication. I think she went and tried IVF. One of the things she did was acupuncture. So that kind of just stuck in my mind I remembered it and so then I looked around here. And within two moths of regular treatments twice a week, with the herbs the had prescribed as well, my cycle started regulating. And I started ovulating, which was a big deal for us. And then within a two month period of time I got pregnant.

Alyssa: I started coming about three to four months before we did our second in vitro twice a week. And it relaxed me so much and it sort of made me calmer about the whole thing as well as it was a very stressful medical procedure to go through. I just sort I had a very different outlook at it and I felt that the doctor s and medicine would do their part and the acupuncture helped me stay very calm and relaxed on my part. Which I would joke to think was a really big help in having it all work and keeping me in good health for having a pregnancy and have a baby. And it worked and I now have a eight month old baby.

Nicole Tomlinson: So we are looking at a lot of unusual things in here. Do any of these herbs assist in the treatment of infertility?

Kirsten Karchmer: In our clinic we use acupuncture and herbal medicine and nutritional consulting and lifestyle consulting. The goal of herbal medicine in Chinese medicine is to try to make a formula for patients that meets them exactly where they are currently today in there menstrual cycle. During each week in the menstrual cycle, something different is occurring.

Nicole Tomlinson: So take us two someone who is maybe at day 14 in their cycle who is coming in to seek treatment for infertility. What herbs would you use?

Kirsten Karchmer: This is a problem because when somebody is coming in for ovulation problems when they say oh I am having ovulation sores, I have polycystic ovarian disease or I am not ovulating. Or I am ovulating to early or too late. The cause of each one of those individual problems are different.

Nicole Tomlinson: Once the whole process has gone through, we have gotten the acupuncture for awhile, how long do you say it takes to conceive?

Kirsten Karchmer:  Once the patients who come to us are feeling very healthy and their health has been restored and their menstrual cycle is regulated and their basal body temperature falls within the parameters we are looking for people are getting very close to pregnancy.

Nicole Tomlinson:  Do you recommend that they not try while you’re trying to remedy the problem. While you’re trying to really get our menstrual cycle back on track?

Kirsten Karchmer: We do recommend that they wait three moths before they try to conceive. Probably acupuncture can get a persons body strong enough to conceive within five or sic or seven weeks, but it’s really just putting a band aid. Like getting things shored up as best as possible but it’s not strong enough to necessarily sustain the pregnancy and carry the baby term. So we really want people to deliver a healthy baby.

Marla: I cant say for sure, I mean I cant say that is exactly the variable that caused the pregnancy, but I did see quite a bit of impact that it did have on my body as compared to any kind of medicine I have been taking and any kind of other doctors appointments that I had and so acupuncture is the only thing that I saw that started to regulate my cycle. And the I was also very hopeful that this is hopeful I can feel positive things in my body. I was having less aches and pains I was sleeping better at night. So I saw other things in addition to just the menstrual cycle changing.

Nicole Tomlinson: When Mother Nature needs just a pinch to get started, acupuncture might be the solution. Its not high science, just common sense. With all we do today to disrupt the flow of nature, it takes old world know how to get us back to basics. I am Nicole Tomlinson, and form all of us at Zen living thank you so much for watching and we will catch you next time. Peace.