Chinese Medicine for Infertility

     The subject of infertility is complex.  There are many reasons why men and women can have difficulty conceiving a child, and there is usually more than one problem involved.  In previous articles on infertility, I have discussed male infertility, as well as endometriosis and age-related infertility in women.  This article presents two cases where the problem appears to be rooted in diet and/or stress.

     Western medicine tends to focus primarily on the reproductive organs and sex hormones of the infertile, using surgery and drugs to ?correct? a dysfunction.  Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is holistic by nature, taking every aspect of a patient?s life into consideration.  When there is an internal imbalance, Chinese medicine examines the patient?s diet and lifestyle very seriously.  Any practitioner you see should be concerned with these issues, because they are basic to good health and well-being.

     When I first saw Tina, she was twenty-nine, and had been trying to get pregnant for six years.  She had tried in vitro fertilization many times with no success.  As a teenager, Tina had an eating disorder.  She didn?t get her first period until she was eighteen, and still suffers from irregular periods.  Interruption of the menstrual cycle is almost always a sign of stress.  Complete suspension of normal menstruation indicates a highly stressed body.  For a young woman, Tina had quite a few problems from a TCM point of view.  She was deficient in three fundamental body substances:  Chi, Yin, and Blood; and she also had a condition called Stagnant or Congealed Blood.  This congealed blood was blocking the flow of Chi/energy through the meridians (energy pathways).  In Tina, the Liver, Kidney, and Spleen meridians were affected.  It is a challenge to treat a case like Tina, because there is no one remedy that will treat all of her patterns.

     First, I decided to unblock the congealed blood from the energy meridians, using Chinese herbal formulas and acupuncture.  This is like taking a log jam out of a river so the water can flow easily again.  Once the energy pathways were open, we began to tonify the deficient blood, Chi, and Yin.  If you tried to tonify the deficiencies first, before clearing the obstruction, it would be like pouring more water in behind the log jam ? there would be a flood, or energy would back up and make the problem worse.  This treatment strategy applies to other conditions where there is obstruction, like pain or depression.  Sometimes people will complain of having a bad reaction to acupuncture or Chinese herbs.  This might be because the practitioner tried to correct all the blockages and deficiencies at the same time, instead of taking them in order.

     For Tina?s combined problems, we used six different herbal formulas at various stages of treatment, and changed acupuncture points as needed.  After five months of treatment, Tina?s depleted body was restored enough for her to get pregnant naturally.  Her daughter is a year old now.

     Some infertility specialists believe that 30% of the infertility they see is related to stress.  This may be why infertility rates are higher among well-educated, professional women.  In China, it seems that housewives and women who live in villages are more fertile than urban, professional women.  There are many cases of infertility where there is no medical explanation.  Since I came to the United States I have seen a lot of workaholic women who eat very poorly, and they frequently have problems with infertility, endometriosis, PMS, and menstrual problems in general.

     Chris is a good example of the difficulties that a busy, stressful life can bring.  She is a 35-year-old woman, an attorney?s assistant, with a nine-year-old daughter.  She has been trying unsuccessfully to have another child for the last five or six years.  Her doctor did a lot of tests, but could find nothing wrong with Chris or her husband.  In Chinese medicine terms, Chris had the kind of deficiencies and imbalances that result from being overtired or overworked, and from eating an inadequate diet.  When I asked her to keep a food diary for a week so I could see how she ate, she said she was too embarrassed to write it down.  She generally ate a donut or cold cereal for breakfast, then skipped lunch or grabbed some fast food.  After work, she was too tired to cook, and ate more junk food for dinner.  She couldn?t remember the last time she cooked a meal.

     Acupuncture and herbs can help a lot in nourishing and balancing a woman?s body to increase her chances of getting pregnant, but there are no magic bullets or instant cures.  A woman with this kind of stress in her life also needs to make a lot of changes in her lifestyle, eating habits, exercise routine, etc.  I always tell my patients that I will have a hard time keeping them in good health if they work 80 hours per week, with no time to eat properly, get enough exercise, or even just relax.  Western medicine has also come to see that stress can trigger many health conditions such as heart attacks and ulcers.

     Chris decided it was time to reorganize her priorities, and she made a lot of changes in her lifestyle.  She joined a Tai Chi class, took long walks with her dog, and made a real effort to cook and eat a proper diet. All the efforts that she made to help herself made the acupuncture and herbs more effective to correct her imbalance and deficiency.  Within a year, she got pregnant.
 

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