Click here to download the transcript.

Disclaimer: The following is an actual transcript. We do our best to make sure the transcript is as accurate as possible, however, it may contain spelling or grammatical errors.  Due to the unique language of acupuncture, there will be errors, so we suggest you watch the video while reading the transcript.

Hi, I’m Dr. Martha Lucas. I’ve been practicing Chinese medicine for more than 20 years. I have practices in Denver, Colorado, which is my private practice, and then I practice in a Western medicine clinic two days a week in Littleton, Colorado. And my Teaching site is lucas teachings.com, and then my private practice site is acupuncture woman.com.

Today I’m going to present fertility and the importance of the Earth element part two, and I wanna thank the American Acupuncture Council for allowing me to present this information to you. So let’s go to the slides.

in part one. We talked a lot about the importance of earth or the importance of good gut health for when people are having fertility challenges, both the men and the women. Having good digestion, as we know, is super important in Chinese medicine. It’s how we make our energy and One of the things we need to do with our couples is make sure that their guts are working well or all our patients.

We probably all focus on the gut for our patients, and I’m saying trust your gut is not a silly thing to do. Our guts were our first brains before the conscious . Brain came around before the conscious mind came around and made us start to not trust our gut. How many times have you heard people say that, oh, I should’ve listened to my gut.

It was telling me not to do that thing, and it didn’t work out exactly how I wanted. That’s because our gut is still giving us advice, but our conscious brain sometimes says no, that looks pretty good. I’m just gonna over, I’m not gonna listen to what my gut is saying. Turns out that our gut has millions of nerve cells that respond.

To stimulate and send signals to us. Think about how anxious you get before you do something new or forget. Have to give your first presentation at work. Those butterflies in your stomach are signals, your brain sends to your body indicating that something is up, something is different, something’s gonna happen.

Because your gut is so in tune with the rest of your body, it is important to take good care of it, especially when trying to conceive. In addition to the millions of nerve cells, your gut is lined with bacterial microbes that produce serotonin. That allows us to convert the food we eat into energy for our body to use, and that would partly be creating a warm, fertile environment where conception can occur.

There are three to 500 different kinds of bacteria, as well as more than 2 million genes in the gut. All of that is matched up with viruses, fungi, and other microscopic organisms that make up the microbiome that is affected by genetics, stress, lifestyle, diet, et cetera. Your microbiome affects everything from your metabolism to your propensity to certain illnesses, to your ability to conceive.

Gut health is a major concern for those trying to conceive, especially for those that have one of the following conditions. Crohn’s disease. Ulcerative colitis celiac disease. In my last presentation, I talked about the relationship between celiac disease and some fertility challenges. Inflammatory bowel disease, I B D, irritable Bowel syndrome, I B S, and those conditions can make it difficult to conceive for both men and women.

As I always say in my classes about fertility. Don’t forget about the man’s health. It’s yin and yang. It takes two, however you wanna say it. Sometimes just opening the man’s dai. Can improve conception success and also those conditions just mentioned can cause a decrease in libido. And so many of our couples, and I’m sure you’ve heard it again and again, the intercourse just becomes a chore.

The, I’ve treated so many men who are like, yeah, I do it, but it’s not the most pleasant thing. I’m tired of hearing about . Mucus and hormones and days of the month. I wish we could just be natural. It’s hard to be natural when natural isn’t working so well for you. So looking back at the gut health of both the male and the female can sometimes lead to an answer.

Other symptoms to look for that indicate gut issues include stomach pain, craving sweetss. We know that means the digestion is out of balance, gaining or losing weight unintentionally. The onset of anxiety or depression, rashes, . Or that they have an autoimmune condition that is getting worse, and that can all be because of an imbalance in gut bacteria that can cause inflammation, which may lead to a flare up in their autoimmune issue.

So now the blah, blah, blah part about how to change your diet, to improve your gut. But the good news is that I will talk about some specific food recommendations, some pulses and some treatment ideas. So what’s some general advice? Eliminate processed food for one thing. Processed foods have a lot of heat in them.

They use heat to process it, right? They use heat to take a nice fruit or whatever that’s nice and full of juice and liquid and turn it into something that’s processed that you can. Get out of a bag or a box. That’s toxic in our medicine. So trying to eliminate as many processed foods as we can.

Eat a diet with a blend of protein, fiber, fruits and vegetables include specific foods that improve gut health, which could be bananas. Oats, pistachios and give your patients a, an a good, interesting list, not just two or three things. Quinoa, chia, kombucha. ’cause some people don’t like certain things on the list.

Remember, kimchi, kafi, yogurt sauerkraut. All can improve gut health. Olive oil is a healthy, stable, it’s one of the. Things we have as a health stable in our kitchens. Its fatty acid content is well received by the gut bacteria, which is why it’s such a healthy oil. And so you can make your own or your patients can make their own simple vinegarette.

They can use extra virgin olive oil. A little vinegar. Avoid the plain white vinegar, salt, pepper, some citrus juice, Dijon mustard and herbs of their choice. Throw in a sprig of basil is really nice, or throw in dill or change it up a little bit with some herbs, some fresh herb of your choice.

believe it or not, because of its high fiber content. Popcorn is good for your gut, but not the prepackaged microwave kind. Again, toxic heat in there and the chemical lining of the bag is not good for your gut and the microwave popcorn is high in sodium. A little too high in sodium, you can make popcorn naturally yourself and dress it up with, make it.

You can make it sweet, you can make it savory. Ground cinnamon, curry powder, sea salt. Again, Italian herbs, any herbs, maple syrup, cocoa powder, or paprika to get some extra fiber. For a sweeter snack, you can make your own trail mix with walnuts and almonds for the omega threes. Blueberries, which have folate and vitamin C in them.

Good for the gut and for fertility and banana chips for some fiber. You can also add dark chocolate, coconut plates and sunflower seeds. So again, looking at foods that improve the gut and also can help with the relationship between the gut and hormones and fertility. Raspberry leaf tea is another thing that can help with irregular periods.

Or hormone imbalance. It also helps reduce swelling. Also, chamomile tea is particularly good. I don’t have that in the list. I think for digestion because it reduces inflammation. It actually has nice properties that can help both . Things like anxiety and depression and gut health because it reduces inflammation and it’s also calming.

So chamomile tea is another raspberry leaf is a middle, little more specific for hormone imbalance, but chamomile tea is really good to reduce, especially inflammation in the gut. And then you can try to. Eliminate as much sugar as you can. I keep saying you, but your patients, your fertility patients well, and these are actually probably good advice for everybody’s gut health.

Eating too many refined carbohydrates and sugary foods can cause imbalances in blood sugar and exacerbate conditions like P C O S and insulin resistance. So too much sugar also are kidneys. Can only process so much sugar. So if you’re eating too much sugar and you get, for example, an acne breakout, that can be your body telling you Uhoh, too much sugar for the kidneys.

They can’t process it. And so they use your skin as an exit. They use your skin as a detox organ because remember, our skin is an organ. Cutting down on sugar B. Vitamin rich foods help support energy levels blood cell production, and reduce the risk of neural tube defects like spina bifida and other brain defects in the fetus.

B rich foods include grass fed red meat, pasture raised chicken and eggs, and sustain sustainably sourced fish, avocados and leafy greens. Proper iron intake can help prevent low birth weight of the baby and increase hemoglobin for the mom. Hema iron is the form of iron that is most readily absorbed by the body and it can be found in grass fed red meat, pasture raised chicken and eggs, and sustainably sourced fish.

Foods high in folate, and we’re focusing here on folate, not folic acid can help reduce the risk of neural tube defects that we just talked about and include . How you can get it, folate, pasture raised chicken, lentils, spinach, strawberries, and a spice.

And remember what I call the burden of conception is not only on the woman, so how can the male conception partner change his diet in order to burst? Boost fertility well optimally. The male would also reduce eating highly processed foods. He will hopefully reduce the number of sugars he is eating, the amount of sugar he is eating.

Nutrients like zinc, folate, and omega three fatty acids can all improve sperm quality. It’s not only about the number, it’s about the quality. And men would also take care to avoid excess alcohol, excess caffeine, and phytoestrogenic foods like soy and meats that contain antibiotics and hormones. I’ve had a little theory in my mind working for years that some of the.

40% of male infertility that we’re seeing is due to them growing up eating foods with estrogen in them, and so their hormones can get way outta balance because it’s only been in the last decade or so I think, that we’re learning about meat and dairy that has estrogen in it, which would not only affect women, but would affect men as well.

So some meal ideas that include some of those foods I just went over and are gonna help the gut and . Fertility success includes something like a salmon stir fry with vegetables, slow cooking, beef and vegetables, right? Getting the warmth in there with the slow cooking, a spring salad with chicken or salmon to warm up the coolness of the salad, make.

A chicken and sweet potato dish, right earth food, warm or salmon and sweet potatoes, Turkey burgers if you want a low fat burger option. Egg salad, hard boiled eggs, deviled eggs, the ones that are pasture raised, a wild rice salad. Or add that to a dish with protein like salmon. Now, food advice specifically from a Chinese medicine perspective.

Would be one of the issues to avoid is dampness. When you’re trying to conceive, we wanna avoid creating any dampness because dampness causes blockages or stagnations in the body, right? So foods that create dampness. Or for which stamp ness is a side effect, include cheese. I just tell my patients dairy in general, white flour and sugar.

I had a patient, in fact, who was starting to have little like clear skin tags, flat skin tags, and this guy ate so much. Dairy, ice cream almost every day. Frozen dairy, pretty much the worst thing you can put in your body according to the theory of Chinese medicine and drank a ton of milk. And again, not that there’s anything wrong with that, if your body is tolerating that well, but I just suggested to him, can you just give up dairy or cut way, way down.

I’d love it to be zero for two weeks and just see what’s happens to your skin. And sure enough, he turns out he, those skin tags went away and he got tested for lactose intolerance and was lactose intolerance. So our body, his body was telling him, look, I’m creating dampness. This, Daryl, this dairy you’re eating is creating a symptom.

So when your digestion is working well, you won’t create dampness, right? That’s the whole key. Getting the digestion to work well, according to the theory, you should be able to eat anything, and it’s not going to create any symptoms or dampness or heat if your digestion works well, but if your metabolism is off or your calories don’t burn clean, then the leftover residue

Is considered dampness, accumulated dampness, clogs, organs like lungs, causing asthma or digestion or digestive organs causing indigestion, high cholesterol, and sometimes constipation or diarrhea. Vegetables can play a major role in reducing dampness, so this can include lightly cooked vegetables, lightly steamed vegetables, and then leafy greens in the diet.

You can interchange white and brown rice to reduce dampness. White is said to be more cleansing and brown rice is more nourishing. Millet and quinoa also are clean burning and they will help drain damp. Of course our advice would be to limit cold and raw foods because we believe they form dampness and they’re difficult to process because they use too much energy to warm up as I, I think, like I said about ice cream, I think of all the energy that our gut is having to use to just warm that up to body temperature is huge.

Limiting cold ice, cold especially, and raw foods. If you need to eliminate dairy, that’s just what has to happen. Then get calcium from foods like almonds, leafy greens, and broccoli. You can get calcium from other foods besides dairy. Eliminate sugar, but eat Chinese medicine sweet foods like rice, meat, and some vegetables.

As I said, you can give your patient a list if you can eat according to the seasons. Eat warming foods in winter in summer. Cooler foods like lightly cooked vegetables, those are still cooler. Steam them rather than bake them or fry them. Of course. And if you can eat what grows in your region, that’s great.

I’m in Colorado, so when I, it’s wintertime and we’re eating, according to our region, what grows in our region. We’re eating an awful lot of potatoes and onions, occasionally throw in some beets and other root vegetables. So in pulse diagnosis for the earth. Besides the usual and customary pulse positions that we all learned in school, my system shows the uterus and the prostate in the left chair or the, what’s traditionally the kidney position.

So when you’re working with fertility issues, you may wanna pay more attention to that left kidney position. You can see I have it written down, left side uterus and prostate so you can feel if there are fibroids in the uterus so you can feel if there’s inflammation in the prostate and. When conception happens after the fetus, after the cells are a certain size, you’ll be able to feel and follow the pregnancy.

That’s where you’re gonna look over there in the left side, the right side, of course, middle pulse middle position is spleen and stomach, where you’re gonna be looking at digestion. Now, here’s a drawing of what the might look like. Poor digestion, that arrow going down in the spleen, stomach. Okay. . If you’re not feeling a nice flow of energy from the kidneys through the spleen and stomach into the lung large intestine, that means there’s a digestive issue.

This particular picture would mean that old trauma is preventing the person’s earth element from nourishing them, just like the early trauma prevented them from being nourished emotionally and maybe physically, unfortunately. That pattern stays in and their digestion doesn’t work very well. So whenever you feel an imbalance in the digestion with your fertility patients, I advise you talk to them strongly about their digestion, be and explain to them, in order to make good blood flow to the uterus, we need to have good spleen and stomach.

We need to have good earth. We need to have a balanced digestion. And then obviously you can use all the other information in this presentation in part one, to talk to them about food, to talk to them about their gut microbiome, et cetera. Because what we wanna get to is this balance, yin and yang.

Sine waves is the perfect pulse, the good healthy pulse, sine wave yang and yin sine wave yang and yin and all. As you can see in this picture, all of the organ systems communicating with each other. This is what we’re trying to get with every treatment. Our goal of every single treatment is balance in the pulses.

At least that’s the way I teach Pulse diagnosis, and that’s the way I do my practice. Honestly, after more than 20 years, it’s pulse diagnosis, the excitement of feeling things in people’s pulses. That keeps me interested in Chinese medicine. If I did prescription Chinese medicine and oh, somebody came in with infertility or fertility challenge and I did this, I would’ve been bored years and years ago.

So you can see every presentation I’m going to . Impress upon you the importance of the pulses for not only diagnosis, but for treatment. So you can reach me@lucasteachings.com. That has a contact Dr. Lucas button. My pr private practice website is acupuncture woman.com has a contact button also on lucas teachings.com.

There is some food advice. There is a A P D F that you could print out and give to your patients. I just want to. Thank you for watching. I hope you learned a lot as if you have any questions at all, feel free to contact me at one of those websites. I also wanna thank the American Acupuncture Council for sponsoring this webinar and allowing me to present this information to you.

And so I hope you have a great and enjoy treating your fertility patients. .

Click here to download the transcript.

Disclaimer: The following is an actual transcript. We do our best to make sure the transcript is as accurate as possible, however, it may contain spelling or grammatical errors.  Due to the unique language of acupuncture, there will be errors, so we suggest you watch the video while reading the transcript.

Hi, I am Dr. Martha Lucas, and I am here to talk to you about the fertility and importance of the earth element. This is part one of a presentation. I would like to thank the American Acupuncture Council for allowing me to present this information to you. I have. More than 20 years of experience in Chinese medicine.

I have a private practice in Denver and also work in a western medicine clinic in Littleton, Colorado. So let’s go to the slides.

We all know the importance of good digestive health for good overall health. Digestion is how we make our energy, and that’s why I am sure that we all focus on all of our patients having good digestion. It turns out that gut health is very important for couples who are trying to conceive, because poor gut health can cause hormonal imbalance.

And when I’m talking about the earth element, of course I’m talking about spleen and stomach or digestion. And again, we know that. For example, earth and Metal, make up the immune system and earth and water make up the hormonal system. So we’re gonna be talking in these two presentations about the importance of Earth.

But again, and you all know this, we never just treat that standing alone, right? We’re always gonna treat all of the channels, all the organ systems, but hormonal imbalance would be Earth and . Kidneys, earth and water together and hormonal imbalances is one of the leading causes of infertility in both men and women.

And if you’ve heard me talk about fertility treatments before, you know that I treat the man and the woman. It’s yin and yang coming together, right? 40% of the time the fertility issue is the male’s issue. So it is very important that we also treat the male. And it is very important that we treat all the organ systems.

For example, if all you do is tonify the kidneys in water, but the dmai is blocked, then you’re, you could potentially be creating some toxic heat with all your ification. So that’s why in these presentations, I express the need to treat more than one organ system, and we are gonna be focusing on Earth in this part one and next time, part two.

When the gut microbiota is out of balance, it can lead to low grade inflammation throughout the body, including the product reproductive organs. So this is another reason why it’s so important to have the gut or the earth and Chinese medicine working well in, in western medicine, they call it the gut brain axis and the microbiome and the microbiota.

We call it earth or spleen and stomach. , that kind of inflammation, that kind of low grade inflammation can interfere with hormone production and signaling activity leading to irregular menstrual cycles, ovulation problems, and reductions in sperm quality. So you can see those are three causes, if you will, of.

Infertility or having a fertility challenge. I don’t like to use the word infertility because I feel like it’s a damning diagnosis. You’re infertile, oh, where do I go from there? So that’s why I tend to say fertility challenges. Changes or imbalances in the gut. Microbiome diversity or the gut microbiota can cause reduction or an increase in the levels of estrogen.

So either a reduction or an increase in levels of estrogen. In other words, an imbalance in estrogen, which also can lead to irregular menstrual cycles, irregular periods in terms of the bleeding part, impaired ovulation, P C O S, endometriosis. And again, all of those will ultimately or can ultimately affect fertility success.

So again, we see the importance of a balanced digestion. Unexplained infertility has been linked to systemic inflammation. Which I just said can be caused by gut imbalance and oxidative stress caused by imbalance in the gut microbiome.

Gut inflammation has been linked to decreased progesterone again. Leading to what looked like fertility challenges. Progesterone is responsible for healthy endometrial lining and implantation. So when it is low, and believe it or not, experts still aren’t really certain what too low is but when it is too low because of chronic inflammation, it can lead to implantation failure or recurrent miscarriages.

Immune system failure, sometimes caused by inflammation can lead to anti sperm antibodies, which attack the sperm and prevent implantation. Now, immune system failure would be autoimmune, right? And remember I said earlier, earth and metal, so spleen, stomach, lung, large intestine are our immune system, . We would need to, in that case, be treating, making certain, we’re getting the digestion balance, treating the immune system organ systems, and also the water.

Now the terrain is everything. This means I’m referring back to a very old argument that Pastore and Bernard had about . Is it the pathogen or is it the body’s ability to fight? And the story goes that Bernard was the one, the scientist who said, it’s so important to have important di good digestion, a good body.

And when you have a good healthy body, you can fight off germs. And of course, pastor was like, no, it’s the germ. It’s the germ. And the story goes that on his deathbed pastor said Claude Nar. Claude was right. The terrain is everything. And in Chinese medicine, that’s what we think, right?

Chinese medicine is . Primarily a preventive medicine. We’re always in our symptom mind, right? How often does a patient come in and say, I feel great, and I just wanna continue to feel great, so give me a treatment. We never do that with Western Medicine. We can’t even imagine it, right? We go in once a year for our annual exam, we feel great we make sure everything’s.

All our numbers are good, but we can’t imagine going in once a month and saying, Hey, Dr. Stroll, how you doing? But that’s how our medicine works. We get people healthy. I always tell people when they wanna know, how often should they come in? I always say how soon do you wanna get better? If this symptom is really bothering you, then I need to see you three times a week for just

Two weeks maybe, and then two times a week and one time a week. And we’ll get you to the point where I see you once a month. That’s because I believe the terrain is everything I have to get their digestion working well get their body working well again, get everything balanced and then we’ll move on to don’t let your symptom come back.

And if it does, the caveat is see you in a month. But if you need to come in earlier, then you need to come in earlier. The human gut is home to trillions of bacteria, viruses, fungi, and other microorganisms that are collectively known as the microbiome. This complex ecosystem plays a crucial role in various aspects of health, including digestion, immune function, and even mental wellbeing.

The gut brain axis is very important to keep in balance. For issues like anxiety and depression. So all of those are related to the gut. The composition of the gut microbiome is influenced by a multitude of factors including diet, lifestyle, medication use, and of course stress levels. By nurturing the gut, women may be able to support their fertility journey and improve their chances of conceiving a healthy gut may just be the unexpected key to unlocking the door to parenthood.

So let’s go into some of the specifics about the gut brainin axis, and their impact on fertility. First of all, there’s nutrient absorption and metabolism. The gut microbiome aids in the breakdown and absorption of nutrients from our diet. Of course, balanced good digestion, . We’re going to be able to successfully absorb nutrients.

Certain gut bacteria are responsible for producing essential vitamins and metabolizing hormones. There we go with the hormone, the hormonal aspect or the hormonal connection imbalances in the gut microbiota can impair nutrient absorption leading to deficiencies in key nutrients that are required for reproductive health like folate, iron, and vitamin D.

Estrogen metabolism is another important thing about the gut estrogen. A hormone that we know is crucial for female fertility undergoes a process called metabolism in the gut. Imbalances in the gut microbiota can alter the process leading to imbalances in estrogen levels. Excessive levels of estrogen or the accumulation of certain estrogen metabolites can disrupt the delicate hormonal balance that is necessary for conception and successful pregnancy.

Remember, we have to carry it through from successful conception through successful normal natural birth. A normal, healthy birth, rather normal, healthy birth. Healthy mom is the ultimate goal. Continuing with estrogen metabolism in the gut, estrogen is needed for proper ovulation and thickening of the uterine wall for pregnancy Balanced estrogen, but excess estrogen can cause irregular periods and prevent ovulation, thereby causing

Infertility or fertility challenge. Further, estrogen dominance has been linked to endometriosis and P C O S. Estrogen deficiency, on the other hand, can cause. Amenorrhea, which is absence of periods, which leads to anovulation, disorders of ovulation, actually account for 30% of female for infertility. So here we go again with the importance of the gut and hormones.

Estrogen has an important role in male fertility as well. It affects multiple organs and tissue in the male. A deficit or a surplus of estrogen can hinder the male libido and spermatogenesis, which is an inappropriate increase in extra diol, which is an estrogen steroid hormone that has been shown to lead to a decrease in sperm production.

And also too little estrogen in males has shown to have a causative effect on erectile dysfunction. Stress and mental health. As I said earlier, the gut brain axis, the gut is a bidirectional communication pathway between the gut and the brain, and it plays a vital role in mental health and also in stress regulation that can lead to things like anxiety and depression.

Stress can influence the gut microbiota composition, which in turn can affect fertility, high levels of stress, can disrupt hormone production, interfere with ovulation and reduce sperm quality. It’s why I would love to have the time to do a retrospective study of when couples give up or decide to adopt how many get pregnant, and it’s, I

Think it’s a, seems in my fertility practice like it’s a fairly large number, and I’ve always surmised that it’s because their level of stress goes down, their level of struggle goes down. Gut health and the thyroid. When there is an imbalance in the microbiome, it impacts immunologic and metabolic functions.

A study in 2015 found that hypo and hyperthyroidism were associated with small intestinal bacteria overgrowth, or what’s called sibo. And other studies have found a relationship between dysbiosis, which is an in general name for imbalance or inflammation in the . Gut and thyroid nodules. Underactive thyroid can affect fertility in a variety of ways.

It causes decreased cellular energy, meaning less mitochondria on ovarian cells leading to irregular or absent periods. It may increase prolactin, which suppresses ovulation, and it may lead to a decrease insulin sensitivity, which means more insulin in the blood. Increases androgens, which then disrupt ovulation and is especially detrimental to women who have P C O S.

Fortunately, there are steps that individuals and couples can take to optimize their gut health and enhance their fertility. Eat a balanced diet, okay? Blah, blah, blah. We hear that all the time, right? Modern medicine suggests eating a diverse range of whole foods, including fruits, vegetables, whole grains, lean proteins, and fermented foods to promote a healthy gut microbiome.

these foods provide essential nutrients and promote the growth of beneficial gut bacteria. Chinese medicine recommends eating what we call earth foods, right? Ones that are sweet in nature or taste sweet according to the theory of Chinese medicine, not . Cakes and cookies and are earth colored, so yellows, oranges, browns, and also warm in temperature.

Again, either warm physically, like we’ve actually warmed it up or warm in nature according to the theory of Chinese medicine. Now prebiotics and probiotics. Probiotics are live bacteria that can be found in certain foods like yogurt, or they can be taken as supplements. They can help restore the balance of the gut Bacteria.

Prebiotics, on the other hand, are non-digestible fibers found in certain fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, and they nourish the gut bacteria. Also, there’s stress reduction to help couples engaging in some stress. Reducing activities such as exercise, meditation, and mindfulness can positively impact both gut health and subsequently fertility.

These practices do help regulate the gut brain axis and promote a healthier gut microbiota.

Research has found that women with recurrent pregnancy loss, A number of miscarriages show a higher prevalence of undiagnosed gut disorders. In particular, women with recurrent pregnancy loss were found to have abnormal gut permeability, which was found to contribute to the inflammatory reactions in the body that we talked about are earlier.

The researchers hypothesize that the inflammatory reaction caused by dysbiosis may be contributing to miscarriage pathogenesis. And they recommend that proper diagnosis and treatment of intestinal disorders in order to improve pregnancy outcomes. Very important for those particular women. Further, the gut microbiome is responsible for converting bound estrogen to free active estrogen according to a recent review.

Without a healthy microbiome, estrogen metabolism and function becomes impaired and can lead to a number of health consequences, including endometriosis, P C O S, hyperplasia and infertility or fertility challenge. It seems that we are finding out that treating the gut microbiome to modulate estrogen levels should be considered as a future treatment or a current treatment for estrogen mediated diseases, including infertility.

An interesting meta-analysis found that women with unexplained infertility, so that’s. The problem when your doctor says, oh, sorry, you’re infertile, and we don’t know why. They have a three and a half, 3.5 times higher odds of having celiac disease. In fact, it’s estimated that an Good percentage of women struggling with unexplained infertility actually have undiagnosed celiac disease, and it’s been suggested that unexplained infertility may actually be the first sign of celiac disease in some women.

Now, as I mentioned earlier, chronic inflammation may impact recurrent pregnancy loss. It also may cause decreased progesterone, which leads to implantation failure and the development of autoimmune processes that impact fertility. Now, women may think that this doesn’t pertain to them because they don’t have any gut symptoms.

Unfortunately, the absence of gas, bloating, stomach pain, Does not necessarily indicate good gut health, although the token symptoms of gut dysfunction do indicate something is wrong. A complete absence of symptoms does not indicate that you have a properly functioning digestive tract. They might be having regular bowel movements, no cramping, no gas, but it by no means guarantees that their gut is in good shape.

In fact, you can feel pretty good. It turns out, as I’ve seen in with people’s pulses for years and years, they tell me they don’t have any digestive issues and it turns out that they actually do. So some non digestive symptoms that may be a red flag with your fertility patients include . Constant hunger or cravings.

Now that would be earth and stomach, maybe stomach, heat, brain fog and diminished memory, kidney and earth, joint and muscle pain. Again, kidneys and earth or chronic fatigue, kidneys and earth or signs of estrogen deficiency or dominance, kidney and earth. So you can see all of these non digestive symptoms include Earth in our medicine.

So food allergies are another thing, as well as seasonal allergies. Those are earth and metal. Those can be an early red flag. Frequent colds and flu, earth and metal skin issues like eczema, acne, rosacea. Earth and metal or autoimmune issues, earth and metal. So again, you can see earth involved in these maybe red flags for fertility issues.

And as you can see in the bottom, there’s my pulse diagnosis diagram. And you can see that infinity symbol, which is literally the attachment of sign waves this way, sign waves that way, which is yang and yin. You can see that all of the organ systems need to be balanced and communicating with each other.

If we are going to create a warm, fertile environment for proper conception, successful conception, and a healthy birth, healthy mother. All right, so next time we are going to talk in part two about fertility and the importance of earth and a little more specifics about particular foods, ideas for combinations of foods.

Again, we’ll probably talk about the importance of pulse diagnosis and some ideas. In that realm. And so I wanna thank you for listening and also thank the American Acupuncture Council for allowing me to present this information. You can see my teaching website, which is lucas teachings.com, or contact me@acupuncturewoman.com, which is my private practice site.

So I’ll see you next time. .

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The diagnosis of infertility or being infertile is very damning for people. It’s scary. It’s like the doctor says, you’re infertile so well, what do I, what am I even trying for?

Click here to download the transcript.

Disclaimer: The following is an actual transcript. We do our best to make sure the transcript is as accurate as possible, however, it may contain spelling or grammatical errors.  Due to the unique language of acupuncture, there will be errors, so we suggest you watch the video while reading the transcript.

Hi, this is Dr. Martha Lucas here with you today. I am a research psychologist and practitioner of Chinese medicine in Denver and Littleton Colorado. In Littleton, I work in a western medicine clinic so that’s a cool way for Chinese medicine to be integrated with Western medicine. Also, in my private practice, I treat mainly internal medicine. My specialty is the diagnosis but I also teach Chinese medicine topics including Mei Zen cosmetic acupuncture, pulse diagnosis and balancing, and a number of other practice building topics.

Let’s go to the slides. You may notice that I say fertility, I don’t say infertility. I call it a fertility challenge. It means that you as the patient have some issues with fertility, with conceiving. The diagnosis of infertility or being infertile is very damning for people. It’s scary; when a doctor says you’re infertile, you’re never going to have a baby, why would you even keep trying. When we call it a fertility challenge, we know that we are working on a goal that may actually happen, rather than just saying you are infertile.

Parenthood is one of the most desired and valued goals of adulthood. Issues with fertility is a very common diagnosis. That’s why we have so many fertility clinics or I guess some call them infertility clinics. Parenthood is a very much desired goal for women and men.

Fear, is an expectation of negative outcomes right? And fear can be constructed from a very complex interplay of different factors – cultural, psychological, social, physical – and this fear actually has a name. It is called Fear of Infertility. It impacts us globally, it is not something that is just in the United States.  Basically, it is the fear of inability to achieve pregnancy or father a child.

Some Fear of Infertility is born out of misinformation. And as you can guess, there is a lot of misinformation out there. Years ago, a book called Everything you need to know when you are pregnant came out and I told my patients not to read it. I told them that it’s a natural process to be pregnant, just go with it. For one thing, you are coming for treatment. We will keep good track of it. I actually had a pregnant young lady come in once, who told me that she was a nervous wreck all night because she had slept on her left side for a while and she had read in some book that if you sleep on your left side when you’re pregnant, the fetus is not going to get any blood flow. Naturally, I told her to stop reading that book. Pregnancy is a natural process. You are coming to see me, you are getting medical care, everything is fine.

Some of this misinformation includes things like that though. Some say that the oral contraceptive pills stay in the womb and accumulate. Some of the information is very crazy sounding but it is something that women hear and sometimes believe. Some people believe that birth control blocked their ability to get pregnant and makes them infertile. There is the idea that the HPV vaccine is something that will make you infertile. Or just the idea that if you use any kind of contraception, your womb is going to get weak.

So all of these fears and misinformation can impact behavior. For example, people may not do family planning anymore. They might just try going for getting pregnant without any help or advice. One of my patients was having intercourse every day and not getting pregnant. I told her to stop that, you don’t need to have intercourse that frequently because the sperm needs to regenerate and all the energies need to rebuild in between intercourse. Studies show that if you have intercourse once every three days, eventually you are going to hit ovulation. Within a three month period, you are likely going to hit the best time to conceive. And sure enough, after they stopped having intercourse every day, she was pregnant the next month. So again, misinformation keeps women from going to the doctor and trying some other crazy stuff rather than getting information that is bona fide and true. The idea that the male is harmed if you have an IUD is another piece of misinformation.

What all of that does is construct fear. It constructs expectations of negative outcomes. And there is the famous misinformation that you cannot get pregnant after you are 35 years old. That is one of my favorites, and believe me, I have had plenty of women and probably so have you, say I’m over 35 and I can’t get pregnant now. That is a distortion of the truth. So is if you try for a year and don’t get pregnant you will never get pregnant – another one. Some women tell me their periods have been so irregular that they must be infertile. All that is misinformation and they also get interesting advice like you just have to try harder. It really does not work that way.

And there is the big issue that fertility is a female problem. That is absolutely not true. 40% of the time it’s the male’s issue. So this is why in my practice, I see both the man and the woman. I am happy to see the woman and get her periods in order before we move to my fertility protocol, but I insist on seeing the male part of the conception team because if his Dai Mai is blocked, his reproduction is not getting appropriate energy – the kind of energy it should be getting. So I really do work hard on making sure that the male comes in for treatment because for another thing, he is suffering from fear of infertility and dealing with the female’s emotions; they’re both lumped into this big worry thing, in a fear experience. Therefore I strongly recommend that you also treat the male, that you treat couples with fertility challenges, not just the woman. The male has an impact on conception.

In traditional Chinese medicine, the kidney system is a powerhouse right? The fire in the belly is one of our most important energetics systems. It is the root of pre-heaven and post heaven qi and kidney essence is a combination of those. It is very important for growth and development and sexual maturation after puberty. It more focuses on reproductive function and fertility in adulthood. And, as it declines with age, we get things like loss of teeth, hair loss, the symptoms of menopause. We do eventually become unable to conceive and then of course we have impairment of cognitive functions. So maintaining good quality kidney qi is important for us and as practitioners, understanding the relationship of fear, kidneys, and fertility is important.

It is the kidneys that fund all of the pulse positions. So if kidney qi is scattered, if it is not well formed and weak and scattered, then how is it going to support all of the other systems? So if it looks like this, all those little scattered points, then it is going to be hard to fund all the rest of the organ systems. In addition to regulating the body fluids and growth, the kidneys also keep yin and yang in balance. That is partly why it is so important to balance, to make sure that the kidney pulses are balanced and strong, because as I just said, they fund all of the other organ systems and keep yin and yang balanced. They also govern body fluids so tears, saliva, perspiration, and fluids that lubricate all of our joints are regulated by the kidneys. They store the life force and are associated with the healthy transitions through life stages.

So from childhood, early adulthood, all the way through the aging process and then separating as we get closer to death is how they work. It makes sense that we need kidney energy to live so it also makes sense that we need it to procreate. But that energy, kidney energy can become lost and scattered as a result of fear that men and women have about the possibility that they cannot conceive. I know you see more women and they are the ones who almost always make the phone call/appointment about being infertile or having fertility challenges. But I can tell you from experience that when the male of the partnership is involved and treated, everyone is a little more calm. They understand the situation a little better instead of it all being a woman’s problem, just a woman’s problem.

We know that stress can negatively affect the ability to conceive as well. So does fear. The fear that people have that they are not going to be able to get pregnant and carry a healthy pregnancy through a healthy birth, can and does negatively affect fertility. Just like we know that stress can make irregular periods it can also cause lack of ovulation. Fear also can negatively affect sperm quality and motility. So there again, we have information about fear and stress. We also need to treat the male partner to manage hormonal imbalances. Stress can wreck the hormones which can also have a negative effect on someone’s ability to conceive.

Besides the usual and customary pulse positions, we all know what they are, my system also includes on the left kidney side the uterus and the prostate. So the left kidney side is where you are looking for uterus and prostate. And it is on the left side where you are going to follow the pregnancy. In the beginning it feels like a little blip, a little knot upward hitting your finger. But as the pregnancy goes on, that knottiness gets bigger and feels stronger in the pulse.

So let’s go on to what does a scattered kidney pulse feel like. First of all, you feel the kidneys with deep pressure. So there’s a lot of pressure with your fingers down on the pulses, and you should be able to find the kidneys there. But when there is fear in the system, the kidney pulse feels what I called diffused or scattered. That means that it is scattering under your fingers instead of feeling like a flow. A flow between the organ systems is what we want to feel. We want to feel a flow like a river. But fear makes it feel more scattered. I describe it as – you know how fireworks start out strong right? There’s a boom, they go up in the air, and then they fall down in the air like this – like little points of light. I like to say that’s how the kidney pulse feels when fear is involved. It feels like little points of information on your finger, like little fragments of the pulse. If it’s that scattered, there is no ability for it to move forward and fund the rest of the pulse positions. That is the main problem with fear.

We need to get the kidneys open and flowing in order to make the rest of the positions work correctly. One of the things we need to remember is that fear is going on and that it is damaging the source qi. It does not allow the kidneys to have regular pulse form. In other words, the sine wave, yang and yin, yang and yin – it doesn’t allow the flow to the rest of the meridians systems.

So here’s a picture of it. As you can see, this is the left side, kidneys, gallbladder, liver, small intestine, heart, and then those little dots in the kidney position. That is how the kidney pulse feels under your fingertips when it is scattered. When you are feeling the pulse and the person has fear, it is scattered. You might not say the words to them, do you have any fear in your life? Sometimes you need to just ask about stress or ask about the period, ask about their digestion, the things that are funded by the kidneys and you can then move onto a more specific question about fear.

I have a case study of a woman who I felt fear in her pulses. She was only 34 years old, no reason for her to be infertile, but of course the fertility clinic told her when do you want your IVF? She said she knew an acupuncturist who helped her daughter, who happens to have lupus, get pregnant and have a successful pregnancy so she was going to do that first. Of course, they told her we will see you in three months, we’ll go over your blood work and your hormones again, and then we will schedule your IVF. But she was determined that she was going to get pregnant naturally. So I was feeling her pulses, and could feel some fear but from the outside her life looked wonderful. She did not have any health problems, both of the couple had good jobs, they were happy for all intents and purposes. So I asked her about her childhood. She said it was perfect but then as we talked about it more and I told her about the fear I felt, she remembered that she grew up in a small European country during war time. I asked her if any of her brothers or her father were involved in the war. Did they get hurt? She said no, it was just normal life but there was a war going on and when that sort of history is with the patient, we need to study the pulse is the kidney pulse is a little bit more.

As I said earlier there are a number of big issues when the kidney qi is scattered because all of the organ systems are funded by that. When I show my patients their pulse picture, I always show them that, that these kidneys, the section right here in the middle, is what’s funding everything else. It is funding all of the other organ systems. So it’s really important that the kidney qi be secure and have a flow, have a movement instead of there just being little pieces of it.

As you can see, because the person probably has some anxiety along with their fear, the liver energy is using up the little bit of the scattered kidney qi and attacking the heart small intestine position, and making the person even more anxious and more fearful. So this is the importance of knowing how to feel the scattered kidney pulse so that you can consolidate it and it can work with the other systems.

That is a perverse movement in the liver right? We want all of the organ systems to be nice, smooth, sine waves. So that is for me probably the biggest issue of the kidney qi being scattered, it cannot fund the rest of the positions for good health. So all of the positions are going to suffer. And when you get a perverse movement like that here in the middle jiao, the problem with that is that it’s using whatever kidney energy is in there to fund that perverse movement rather than fund healthy movements.

As I said, the arrow at the top is where the liver is attacking the heart and small intestine. Now you will notice it goes into kind of a block. Because our systems are all made to protect the spirit. We are not going to let any perverse energy into the spirit. That’s what our body is always trying to do. So this is why we need to resolve issues like that, in the liver, that frustration, because when the  heart is blocked, when the spirit part is blocked, not only does the person not feel any sadness but they don’t feel any joy either.

And as you can see, the scattered kidney pulse can lead to the other organ systems getting out of balance. Also remember, heart blood goes to the uterus. That means the heart manages blood. So if it’s blocked like in this picture, then it’s not helping the uterus at all. So again, putting together all of the functions of all of the organs, letting the kidneys fund everything is the key. They need to be in order, if they are not, then they are going to let the other organ systems get out of balance.

If the liver is attacking the heart and small intestine position, it is unable to do the blood flow to the uterus. The patient is even more anxious and sad. And it is partly because the fear is in the scattered kidney qi.

If you look at the right side where it is kidneys, stomach, spleen, lung, large intestine, you would see perhaps a dip in the digestion, a dip in the Earth spleen stomach sector, because again, the kidney qi on that side is scattered and cannot fund digestion. And we know that digestion is involved in blood flow also. So if the person’s digestion is not working well, then they are not making good quality qi or good quality blood either. And that’s what we need for the uterus. We need a nice, warm, blood-filled organ in order to be able to conceive and carry through a pregnancy, a good strong pregnancy. Because remember, the completely healthy childbirth – everybody is healthy – is still a small percentage of what happens. Many times there is some sort of complication like preeclampsia, high blood pressure, something going on so the healthy live birth and healthy pregnancy is still not 100% of the time. So this is why it is important to see your patients during their pregnancy, not only to help them get pregnant. They come to see us, they get pregnant and they think, OK, I’m good. My treatment is over. No, not really. For one thing the Dai Mai is probably blocked during the whole pregnancy. This means come for treatment, let me open the Dai Mai, let me get all the blood and oxygen flowing again instead of being stuck.

In the beginning when we help them get pregnant, they always want to say hey Dr. Martha I’m pregnant. But your treatment isn’t over. Don’t let things get to having headaches every day, or back pain every day, or morning sickness every day. Don’t let it go there before the person comes in and gets treated during their pregnancy. Keeping everything open and flowing is important. We will keep their digestion moving. If they wake up tired in the morning, it’s not because they’re pregnant, it’s because the digestion isn’t working well.

So realizing and remembering how important it is for all of the organ systems to work well, even during pregnancy or especially during pregnancy, is an important thing.

Now what treatment can you do for somebody who has fertility challenges that are related to fear? As I said, you need to get healthy kidney qi going. You need to get it bound together with the other organ systems. I say here, remember, a blocked Dai Mai is going to prevent that. So even if you don’t know how to feel a blocked Dai Mai in the pulses, open it anyway. There’s nothing wrong with using that extraordinary channel. You see a pregnant woman, you open it, then you know that it’s going to keep flowing through that area. In fact, a blocked Dai Mai may be part of the problem because it is affecting ovulation, menstruation, and in men affecting men’s ability to be a conception partner. So it is always important to remember about the Dai Mai.

And the Ren and the Chong, they help reinvigorate kidney qi and also the Chong helps with emotions and digestion. The Ren Mai of course, helps with any kind of fertility or menstruation issue even libido. For example, some women get dryer. They get symptoms of dry vagina and they say that they lose their libido and really do not want to have intercourse. They want to because they want to get pregnant, but it doesn’t feel very good. So knowing all of that and the ways that we can help that with acupuncture and herbs, will help the person.

I sometimes just do channel work also, I don’t do particular points. I just want to make sure that the meridians are all flowing. So needling the channels like kidney, bladder which is water, so moisture, get the kidney qi flowing, get it built up through the bladder channel. So it doesn’t necessarily mean certain acupuncture points or that I have a specific protocol or scattered kidney qi point formula because everyone’s pulse is different every time you see them and so it’s important to deal with what is in front of you at that moment.

And then there is lifestyle advice for people. We know that the kidneys are traditionally sensitive to cold, so we would like the person maybe to put a hot water pack on their back just to help warm up the kidneys. Eat warm foods, your water – drink it at room temperature instead of from the refrigerator. Some people say keep alcohol and things like coffee to a minimum. It depends on what their lifestyle is. If you are yin deficient, obviously you don’t want to be drinking three pots of coffee a day. So it is all about being aware of the patient’s lifestyle. We know that a little salt is beneficial to the kidneys. It is why when you crave salt, you know that our kidneys are a little out of balance. The color is traditionally black or blue so black or blue foods to strengthen and nourish the kidneys. Things like eggplant, black sesame seeds, and other foods that can nourish the kidneys including walnuts, figs, brown rice and other grains. Asking your patients to change their lifestyle is completely acceptable. One of the ways you can help them is by giving them food ideas that are going to help the kidneys.

And then there are other ways – meditation or at home Qigong. Try to control their emotions that are leading to the fear response in the kidneys. You can show them Qigong circles on their belly to help their digestion, do them clockwise. It’s a little Qigong massage; it doesn’t have to be a hard massage. It can be barely touching the belly. Meditation is just focus. Studies on meditation don’t even like to call it meditation, they call it focus. So find five minutes a day to focus. Focus on a bird singing, focus on a candle, focus on a chant. Five minutes of that a day will change your brain to be more calm. It literally changes your brain to reduce fear and anxiety. Have them do some sort of at homework to work along with your treatments to help them boost up their fertility chances.

With all that, I want to thank you very much for attending and I want to again thank the American Acupuncture Council for sponsoring this webinar.

Next time we are going to talk about worry and fertility, so I hope you’ll be able to tune in for that. This is Dr. Martha Lucas, my website for teaching is lucasteachings.com and my private practice one is acupuncturewoman.com; feel free to contact me.

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