Many of my clients have the diagnosis of unexplained infertility, the big mysterious void of fertility. This common diagnosis causes women to feel helpless and confused – “how can everything be ok but I haven’t gotten pregnant?” Western medicine has made huge leaps in assisting couples in conceiving, but they don’t have explanations for many of the irregularities in the female body. Western medicine is very good at examining the single pieces of the puzzle, such as testing FSH, LH, E2 and thyroid levels. When a woman is tested for all possible single puzzle pieces and everything is normal, she will be diagnosed with unexplained infertility. Unexplained simple means, we don’t know what the problem is.
Chinese medicine on the hand looks at how the pieces of the puzzle are fitting together and how hormones interact with each other. Hormones and the menstrual cycle are similar to dance on Broadway. If you are in the audience of a show, you may not notice a single dancer missing. Yet if you are in the chorus line, you may not be at the top of your performance due to your missing dancer partner. My clients actively BBT chart, which is a wonderful tool to see how hormones work with each other. Hormone levels could be normal (as per Western medicine) but BBT charts will show glitches in the cycle, such as poor LH surges, miss timed cervical mucus, an unstable luteal phase and high temps during the period. From an Eastern view mistimed hormonal queues could be the problem with conception thus the dancer is missing and the chorus line is not in step. Example: high temps at the beginning of or during the period can manifest physically as blood clots, cramps or heavy bleeding. Western medicine does not use this information for diagnosis (remember the view from the audience, the missing dancer is not noticed), but this simple problem of the uterine lining poorly slothing off could impact the next set of hormonal ques (the chorus line can’t keep step with the music without their dancer partner). High temps at the beginning of the period could indicate the corpus luteum is not dissolving correctly and is still secreting progesterone. Low levels of progesterone in the follicular phase could potentially cause the next group of follicles to mature improperly. Thus exploring the overall health of the client gives information about the potential problem and can explain "unexplained infertility".
Don’t let the mystery of unexplained infertility keep you puzzled. Get books like “The Infertility Cure” by Randine Lewis (She is the most amazing person/practitioner and her fertility retreats focus on educating women about their bodies and the beautiful dance going on inside (www.thefertilesoul.com) or “Inconceivable” by Julia Indichova; some of the most amazing books to learn about your health. Reach out to practitioners who can educate you and re-teach the body how to dance.