Treating infertility with Chinese medicine and acupuncture

Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) has treated infertility for thousands of years.

by Dr. Jing Liu — 

Kim, a 39-year-old woman who is also a medical doctor working at the Mayo Clinic, came to my office two years ago and told me she had been trying to get pregnant for three years. She and her husband were both very healthy, and all her blood tests were normal. She had tried in vitro fertilization (IVF) many times, and had failed each time. As a practicing Western medicine doctor, she did not understand why she could not become pregnant when all the tests were normal.

A Chinese medical diagnosis was done — I checked her pulse and examined her tongue and eyes for outward manifestations of internal energies (of qi). I found Kim’s qi was blocked and out of balance. Her kidney, liver and spleen were also out of balance. Her liver pulse felt wiry, which indicated she was under a lot of stress, even though she appeared calm.

When I told Kim what I had detected, her eyes turned red with tears. She explained to me that she felt extremely stressed trying to get pregnant, especially due to all the hormone shots with IVF. I explained to her how Chinese medicine and acupuncture would work for her. Kim and I became a team. She adjusted her diet according to her menstrual cycle. Also, once she started the acupuncture treatments, her BBT (basal body temperature) chart changed.

Each time she came to the office, she told me she was very relaxed had more energy, and that her sex drive had increased. The quality of her life and relationship significantly improved, and within six months Kim became pregnant.

Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) has treated infertility for thousands of years. The beauty of Eastern medicine is that there is no separation of mind, body, emotion and spirit — it is a holistic approach to healing. TCM focuses on restoring balance to the entire body, not just an isolated symptom or single system.

For example, stress will cause liver qi stagnation, which creates heat and weakens the kidney. The BBT chart will show a sawlike pattern. Acupuncture opens the liver channel stagnations, calms the spirit and, along with herbal formulas to nourish the liver, clears the liver of excess heat. That treatment stabilized Kim’s hormone levels and harmonized her whole body.

Numerous studies have shown that acupuncture has increased the odds of becoming pregnant by 42.5 percent (Landmark studies in 2002).

Dr. Jing Liu is a licensed acupuncturist and herbalist who has been very successful in treating infertility, internal illness, menopause and many other health conditions. Her approach is not to treat the symptoms, but to treat the cause. She is at the Eastern Medicine Center. 480-451-8880 or at www.scottsdaleacu.com.

Reprinted from AzNetNews, Volume 26, Number 6, December 2007/January 2008.