general info – Barb was 40 years old and had been trying to conceive for over 4 years without success. They got married when she was 35 and began the journey of making babies almost immediately after they were married.
history – Medical testing showed that her ovarian reserve was diminished and she was told that her egg quality was most likely poor. Semen analysis also showed low motility, morphology, and borderline low concentration.
presentations – She had a bright pale complexion, slightly overweight and always complained about being cold. Her libido was very low. She loved running but had to stop due to pain in her knees. She reported that her menses were very heavy, watery in consistency, and contained many large purple clots.
pattern(s) – According to TCM, Barb is very clearly displaying Yang deficient Cold patterns.
goals – From a TCM perspective, optimizing her reproductive health and fertility was accomplished by improving her watery clotted heavy menses, losing weight, improving libido, and increasing her subjective body warmth.
recommendations & treatment – Her treatment plan consisted of weekly acupuncture treatments, Chinese herbal medicine daily, making sleep a priority, 4 – ½ hour aerobic (fat burning) jogging sessions each week, drinking only warm water, a major focus on nutrition while drastically limiting raw and cold food intake, creating boundaries on taking work home with her, scheduling regular quality time with her girlfriends, cleaning her house and life of all toxic substances, and taking high doses of CoQ10.
outcome – She reported that her key to being able to stick to the plan was that she wanted to be an example of a healthy mother to her child. This resulted in an overall improvement with her menstrual imbalances, losing 21 pounds, and a definite increase in sexual interest.
Barb fell pregnant in just over 7 months of TCM treatments. She carried to full term and gave birth to a healthy baby boy.
