040 The Case of Frustrating Infertility with Kymberly Kelly

The Case:  Ariella is 32 and has been trying to get pregnant for the last year.  As soon as she stopped taking the pill, she experienced irregular cycles, and headaches and cramps around her period Her family doctor’s only suggestion was to see a fertility specialist who suggested IVF which was too expensive.  She tried tracking her cycle with an app but it wasn’t helping. The Investigation More than 10% of American women struggle to become (or stay) pregnant. Infertility has been on a steady incline over the past few decades and it’s estimated that by 2025, there will be close to 10 million couples struggling to have a baby.  Fertility challenges may be common but in Ariella’s case, I suspected that the root of the problem had been hiding for a long time. My first clue was that she’d started taking birth control pills over a decade ago in order to deal with similar symptoms of her period. The pill may have masked the symptoms, but they didn’t solve the problem. If she wanted to get pregnant, we would have to deal with the root cause.  Kymberly Kelly is a licensed acupuncturist with a practice in New York City. She has a Master’s of Science in Traditional Oriental Medicine from Pacific College of Oriental Medicine in San Diego, California and is a Diplomat with the National Certification Commission for Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine (NCCAOM). She specializes in fertility enhancement and pregnancy support so I knew she would be just the person to discuss Ariella’s case with.  The Chinese Medicine Approach Just like functional medicine, Chinese medicine looks at the individual and knows that there is no one-size-fits-all solution. They know that the entire body constitution must be considered to solve an issue. Kymberly explains that fertility issues are not just about the sex organs. You have to look at the systems and find the pattern constitution. For example, she would look at someone dealing with headaches and consider what happens alongside those headaches. This might be triggers or other symptoms that will give a clearer sense of what treatment is going to solve the problem not just mask it. This is quite true for those suffering from Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) which is a common cause of infertility.  Internal Weather Conditions Chinese medicine describes phenomenon that are happening in the body by likening it to what was happening in the outside world. So, for example, you might talk about the body’s internal environment as windy, dry, damp, hot or cold the same way you would describe the weather. These conditions are apparent to the trained eye of a Chinese medicine practitioner and help tell the story of what is happening with the different bodily systems that could be causing an issue. Plus, your internal body condition will respond to the external conditions. So, if you have a damp constitution, you might feel worse when it’s humid or raining outside. You might also feel worse when you eat ‘damp’ food like tofu or dairy. But, there is a way to balance out these internal conditions.  Diagnosing Body Constitution Patterns There are no diagnostic tests to determine if you are damp, dry, hot, or cold internally; Chinese medicine tests are subjective. Kymberly explains that she has to ask a lot of questions around sleep, digestion, thirst, and temperature to see what the body is experiencing and how all of the systems are functioning together. She feels different pulses, to get a clear picture of what’s going on in the body. And, she will take a look at the tongue. Does it have teeth marks around the edge, thick coating, or really distended veins underneath? Each of these things can be significant to determining the internal state of the body. Chinese Medicine Treatment for Infertility Each patient is going to have their own unique treatment plan based on the assessment of their constitutional patterns and the internal state of their body. However, Kymberly says that 99% of treatments for fertility include acupuncture. Acupuncture works well to adjust the qi in the body and reset certain systems. She often starts with that and then adds herbal treatments one at a time so that she can determine what’s working and not working. It’s a process and it may take some time and some treatment-tweaking to restore fertility.  Stress, Infertility and Acupuncture Stress can dramatically affect fertility, especially if it is chronic. If the body is in a permanent parasympathetic state, the environment is not right for creating new life. When we think of it in terms of fight or flight, a body in this state will not do anything to decrease the chances of survival (as a pregnancy would) so it shuts down fertility. So many of us are dealing with constant low-level stress that it can be hard to believe that this is the cause of infertility. Acupuncture can counter that parasympathetic state and calm the central nervous system down. Reducing stress is often step one in dealing with infertility.  Reproductiv...