Candace: So when I was a kid and got sick, my mom would naturally take me to a doctor. The furthest thing from her mind was to take me to an acupuncturist, riddle me with needles, light some incense and maybe put a dab of patchouli and lavender oil on my wrist and send me on my way. SUUUURRRRREEEE that will work over the MD that spent 4 years for their first degree and 8 years in med school. That is the common misconception I had, and many others have with holistic and eastern medicine approaches. But oh how your mind changes when after years of that doc with the porche and fancy MD after their name fails to help me get pregnant. Desperation sets in and you start to look at other avenues. I started taking my fertility plan into my own hands, did some research, talked to those who have had success when all doors were closed and started to remove some of that brick wall of skepticism I had developed. I mean Eastern medicine has kinda been around for over 2000+ years so, at best you can’t argue with longevity of the practice and the success of some of the methods we may not be so open to at first. Want further proof that they are onto something? The infertility rate in China is 3%, compared to the US at 17% and rising!
On a recent visit at my acupuncturist, whilst lying on the table looking remarkably like Hell Raiser or that funny red ball pin cushion your grandma always had nearby, I asked her about her view of western medicine. Allow me to preempt this with the fact that she is a licensed MD in China, licensed acupuncturist in the US, her husband is an Anesthesiologist at a nearby hospital and her daughter is currently in med school. I am pretty sure even her pets are ingenious animal prodigies. She said in her hometown in China, the hospitals are split into two sides; Eastern and Western. Most people start with the Eastern/holistic approach first, THEN transition to a western solution if need be. Odd, that is the complete opposite here. The thought is treating the whole body -Holistic- versus treating only the symptoms -Western. Now personally, I truly think balancing both worlds is the key.
Chris: Get this, Candace, who is terrified of needles, tells me that she is going to look into acupuncture as a fertility treatment. I pinched myself, made sure this was not some kind of bizarre dream. It wasn’t! There weren’t any unaffordable sports cars or anything so that should have been my first clue. Candace has been getting acupuncture for quite sometime now and I do enjoy the stories she tells me. She will call me with such gems as, “Chris, you are not going to believe where she stuck me this time!” Real classics. So now, Candace is getting acupuncture from the licensed acupuncturist and less traditional acupuncture from me in the form of medicine-filled syringes. You kind of have to wonder where she found the genie in the bottle and had the epiphany to ask for living such a dream life as that of a person that is getting constantly stabbed with sharp metal objects. What a lucky lady!
In all seriousness though, acupuncture has been proven to be an effective compliment to the Western approaches to treating infertility. Here are a couple of links to speak to this fact.
