I went in for my weekly u/s scan with Dr.NeverGiveUp today, and he confirmed that my eggs had not matured. So yup! There's the proof~those lazy eggs of mine are definitely having a vacation. They're there, but just idling around-not growing or doing much. He believes that my high testosterone levels are suppressing the development of my eggs. That's why I am still having my periods but not ovulating. I told him that I was ovulating regularly last year but it seemed that turning a year older has really affected my fertility. However he thinks that my ovaries look OK and that the bigger concern was the condition of my uterus. He assured me that the medicine I am taking will help to rebalance my hormones and improve the quality of my eggs. And that we will start to see the effects in 3-4 months.
I also brought up my concern about my high CA-125 results which indicate an infection and inflammation in the ovaries. I read recently on a fertility doctor's blog that,
"Endometriosis is a pelvic disease that causes the pelvis to be inflamed. It is thought that this inflammation attacks and kills the egg at the time of ovulation."
That got me into a bit of a panic! Like, "What? Now my own body is killing my eggs too?" How many more disasters could I possibly be brewing in my uterus?!!!
Being his usual never-say-die self, he said that it's not a very significant problem because the cells in our body are very, very good at adapting to their environment. My eggs will also adapt and find a way to survive. So I stopped freaking out. What I really like about Dr.NeverGiveUp is his unassuming confidence and optimism.
As I was the last patient in the clinic today, I had the opportunity to talk with him a little longer. I brought up the issue about doing acupuncture for me, cos frankly, I'm a walking disaster and I need all the help that I can get! But he told me-again-that I shouldn't worry about that. I can't believe that a TCM doc is not pro-acupuncture! What about all the stuff I've read about acupuncture improving success rates in IVF by 30% and the latest news about Celine Dion conceiving twins via IVF with the help of acupuncture? He explained that statistics are sometimes exaggerated or manipulated, even in the medical profession. He said he attended a world medical seminar on IVF and when it was reported that some clinic claimed a 50% rate in IVF success, the whole room cracked up like it was the biggest joke. Even the most respected and advanced clinics in IVF research could only realistically claim a 30% success rate. Some clinics were also practising the unethical transfer of very high numbers of embryos to increase success rates. Well, I don't know how honest clinics really are about their success rates, but in regards to acupuncture and IVF, he told me that the professor he studied under in China specialized in IVF, and in his hospital, patients who initially failed to get pregnant through IVF would be treated with acupuncture. And even then, they found that the success rate for IVF after acupuncture increased only by 10%, which was minimal. That was quite a startling revelation to me! I was under the impression that the odds were better than that! That conclusion was formed from his own experience anyway, and I guess it must be true because nobody lies about underperforming!
However he made it a point to assure me that TCM herbal medicine itself (as opposed to acupuncture) really helps to improve egg (and sperm) quality. And this is something that Western Medicine does not/cannot address. He made that very clear: At the university hospital he's lecturing at, out of the 5 couples who underwent IVF recently, only one couple succeeded and it was the one that had undergone TCM treatment with him. Their IVF specialist was very impressed with her egg quality. He also told me about another IVF specialist who now refers many of her patients to him. She was astonished at the egg quality she retrieved from patients who had undertaken his treatment. She claimed that the egg quality was "beautiful"! And guess who this IVF specialist is? Dr.Crap! Yes, the fertility specialist I first consulted whom I didn't like at all. I blogged about her here. She's quite prominent in her field and Dr.NeverGiveUp's patients seem to like her a lot! Now that's astonishing to me!
So I am really counting on Dr.NeverGiveUp's TCM pills to make me ovulate beautiful eggs. Although I am not going for IVF, I really feel for you girls who are going through it and are devastated when you find that you have issues with egg quality, even with all the drug stimulation. From what I've read/heard and what Dr.NeverGiveUp has told me, Western medicine has no treatment for improving egg quality which greatly impacts success rates for IVF. But do not despair and do not give up yet. There is this avenue down TCM that you can try before resorting to donor eggs or adoption. It appears that women have been getting promising results with TCM treatment. I personally have a friend whose doctor said the same thing about her eggs after she underwent TCM. Her first two rounds produced crappy eggs but her third round produced very good eggs after TCM. She finally managed to get pregnant at age 40 with her third IVF.
Now, I don't really know what Dr.NeverGiveUp puts inside his pills. I never really cared to find out because he has rattled off a whole bunch of names before to me and it still left me clueless anyway. But I did wonder about the efficacy of pills as opposed to boiling the raw herbs like I did before with my previous TCM doc. I always thought that the pills contained herbs that were ground into powder form. Well, silly me! Apparently they're not that low tech! The essence of an herb is extracted by a very high tech process to preserve its medicinal properties, and is sourced from China. Dr.NeverGiveUp has visited the lab and commissioned them to make a blend of his different formulae. I am very happy to hear that I'm not paying high prices for low-tech medicine! And I don't have to extract them the old-fashioned way myself by boiling them for an hour, which inevitably end up in disaster sometimes! So, yay! My days of burning my herbs dry into carbon and having my own smoking Icelandic volcano in my kitchen are over!
And here's another piece of good news. I am not diabetic! I've been feeling thirstier than usual over the past month and Dr.NeverGiveUp said there was a possibility of me getting diabetes "because you are FAT!" Yup! Those are his exact words! Yes, cut straight to the point why don't cha! Well, I never said he was charming! Even though I had a blood test last month I could become diabetic anytime, so he tested me. So that's one less disaster in my body to deal with! Phew! He did tell me that one thing I could do though to help lower my testosterone levels was to lose some weight. OK! Got it! Lose the fat!
