I don't know why it took me this long to try acupuncture. I mean, I've been studying Making Babies as though it were a holy screed for the last two and a half years, and the book clearly says acupuncture and Chinese herbs would be beneficial for me.
Timeliness is not my strong suit, I guess.
Anyway, I decided on Friday to just go ahead and do it. I called the office to make an appointment and they were like: Would you like to come in today? And I was like: Sure.
So I went in and met my acupuncturist, K. She asked a lot of questions about my medical history. She is officially the first person I've sought fertility help from who's asked me how I have dealt with my miscarriages emotionally. Just her caring enough to ask made me a little teary. She confirmed that Paleo is the best diet I can be on right now in order to minimize insulin surges.
I asked for her thoughts on the crinone gel I'd recently been prescribed and she said it can certainly help, but that her take on my condition is that my eggs need to be nourished and built up so they'll be strong. When I produce a strong egg, my body will react in accordance with the proper hormones. I'm not totally sure I agree, but I do agree that I'd like strong, nourished eggs.
For the treatment portion of my visit, she felt my pulse, palpated my stomach, and felt my cold hands and feet, at which point she declared that my yang is stuck. Although she pronounced it "yong." My qi is deficient and needs to get ... efficient. This information totally jibes with what Making Babies has told me.
She popped some needles in my forehead, lower abdomen, legs, and feet. Then she did this moxibustion thing I'd never heard of, where they heat some kind of dried Chinese plant and touch it to the needles. I think the theory is that it stimulates circulation. She placed a heat lamp over my belly and a heating pad at my feet. I was instructed to let my heart grow with unconditional love and send that love down my right arm, into my hand (which was resting on my lower stomach), and into my ovaries. I began to picture my ovaries as purple mirror balls. It was involuntary, what can I say.
I was left to relax for ... I don't know. Half an hour? I laid there and listened to the hippie music and got nice and deliciously toasty, and once I got bored of sending love to my glittering ovaries, I let my mind wander wherever it wanted to. I didn't fall asleep -- I'm simply not that chill of a person. Perhaps on a future visit I'll be able to relax that deeply.
When the session was over, K asked if I'm familiar with basal body temperature charting. Um. YES. She wants to see my charts. She is the first person I've sought fertility help from who's expressed the slightest interest in my charts. My personal belief on this subject is that most doctors have no clue what the temperatures mean.
K also wants to see my most recent blood work, so I got that for her as well. She prescribed some herbs and gave me a moxibustion stick to light and hold over my stomach. I told her I will try anything. Why not?
When I got home, there was an email waiting for me with my treatment plan inside. I'm to go for weekly sessions for one full cycle, and then reevaluate. She also strongly suggested I buy a certain book ... you guessed it! Making Babies! I believe I've stumbled upon the holy grail of acupuncture practices.
Because I had such a positive experience, I'm seriously considering not taking the crinone gel when I ovulate this cycle. Is that insane? I just kind of want to see how my body responds to acupuncture first ... maybe give it a couple cycles. We'll see how I feel after the next session on Friday.
To top it all off, I got a card in the mail today from K, just welcoming me to the practice and wishing me a happy weekend. Which is way more than I can say for the multitude of doctors I've seen and paid wayyyy more money to. Now, if it works? I'll be completely sold.
Showing posts with label Making Babies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Making Babies. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 27, 2013
Thursday, February 7, 2013
some thoughts about the luteal phase
... or as it is known by those in the know: The Two Week Wait.
- Is it just me, or are you always starving during the 2WW, too? I find dieting so much easier during the first two weeks of my cycles. But as soon as I ovulate, it's like I need all the food, NOW.
- my temperatures are still really low, with no thermal shift. This would seem to indicate my body is not responding to the increase in progesterone. As I mentioned a couple weeks ago, my progesterone numbers are considered normal. Perhaps on the low end of normal, but normal enough to indicate I am ovulating. Should I just ask for progesterone?
- I asked Dr. Google how I could naturally bump up my BBT numbers, thereby hopefully increasing progesterone, and wow. Talk about mixed messages. Never trust Dr. Google.
- For example, there's one dude who says you should eat more sugar, and eat lots of whole foods, to the point that you are overeating, and you shouldn't exercise. I'm like: Hey. I am a living example of why that particular "method" doesn't work. Also, it's a little scary when people who aren't doctors dispense medical advice on the internet.
- The rest of the internet thinks I have a thyroid problem. Multiple tests have shown that, clinically, I do not.
- Plenty of internet geniuses think I should cut out gluten. I don't even know, you guys.
- Making Babies is not helping me the way I want to be helped right now. It alludes to a possible luteal phase defect. And the book and my doctor seem to disagree about what adequate levels of progesterone are ... I'm leaning toward simply asking for the progesterone supplement once this cycle is over.
- Mostly I just want to stop thinking about this forever.
- Is it just me, or are you always starving during the 2WW, too? I find dieting so much easier during the first two weeks of my cycles. But as soon as I ovulate, it's like I need all the food, NOW.
- my temperatures are still really low, with no thermal shift. This would seem to indicate my body is not responding to the increase in progesterone. As I mentioned a couple weeks ago, my progesterone numbers are considered normal. Perhaps on the low end of normal, but normal enough to indicate I am ovulating. Should I just ask for progesterone?
- I asked Dr. Google how I could naturally bump up my BBT numbers, thereby hopefully increasing progesterone, and wow. Talk about mixed messages. Never trust Dr. Google.
- For example, there's one dude who says you should eat more sugar, and eat lots of whole foods, to the point that you are overeating, and you shouldn't exercise. I'm like: Hey. I am a living example of why that particular "method" doesn't work. Also, it's a little scary when people who aren't doctors dispense medical advice on the internet.
- The rest of the internet thinks I have a thyroid problem. Multiple tests have shown that, clinically, I do not.
- Plenty of internet geniuses think I should cut out gluten. I don't even know, you guys.
- Making Babies is not helping me the way I want to be helped right now. It alludes to a possible luteal phase defect. And the book and my doctor seem to disagree about what adequate levels of progesterone are ... I'm leaning toward simply asking for the progesterone supplement once this cycle is over.
- Mostly I just want to stop thinking about this forever.
Wednesday, July 25, 2012
please hold
Hurry up and wait is the order of the hour. It's a good news/weird news week.
For starters, my OB (the bitch with a capital C) is leaving the medical group I go to so she can be a full time mommy. How nice for her. That sentence wasn't dripping with acidic sarcasm. In opposite land.
Anyway, it's fine, because as I say, she's a total cuntwozzle and I am just gonna pick a different OB in the same practice. Probably.
Probably, because yesterday my husband's old company acquired his new company, and our insurance is going to change. Things can only get better in that department -- nothing can be worse than "We're sorry your vagina doesn't work, now here is zero dollars to help with that."
So in anticipation of better coverage, I canceled a physical I'd scheduled at the fertility clinic on Tuesday, along with a round of blood tests that would have cost a couple grand. I'm OK with waiting another month or so.
In other fertility clinic news, they keep having this ignoramous call me and tell me things, when she clearly has no idea what she's talking about. It's becoming grating. She called Monday to tell me one of the doctors says two miscarriages in a row does not equal "a pattern of miscarriages." In their world, perhaps. Anyway, because of that, they do not feel any additional testing is warranted. I didn't argue with her because as I said, she knows nothing. I'd planned to attack the NP doing my physical for information yesterday, but that'll have to wait.
Finally, I pored over Making Babies and upped my vitamin intake to the level the book recommends. I will probably ovulate this cycle, despite the miscarriage, if the CM I'm seeing is any indication. I'm seeing more than normal, and I can only attribute this to the vitamins. I'm taking a lot more folic acid, and I've added vitamin C, NAC, and coQ10 to the mix.
The ignoramous on the phone says they don't generally recommend trying to conceive again directly following a miscarriage blah blah I've heard it all before. I wonder if three miscarriages equals a pattern? Hm. I'm not interested in finding out but I also wonder if it's possible two miscarriages in a row really isn't a pattern and there's maybe nothing wrong with me. I can clearly get pregnant; staying pregnant is the trick. I'm still losing tiny bits of weight at a time and am down about ten pounds, so hopefully that helps whatever might be jacking me up.
In any case, that's what's up right now. There probably won't be much to report until we get the insurance thing worked out. Til then!
For starters, my OB (the bitch with a capital C) is leaving the medical group I go to so she can be a full time mommy. How nice for her. That sentence wasn't dripping with acidic sarcasm. In opposite land.
Anyway, it's fine, because as I say, she's a total cuntwozzle and I am just gonna pick a different OB in the same practice. Probably.
Probably, because yesterday my husband's old company acquired his new company, and our insurance is going to change. Things can only get better in that department -- nothing can be worse than "We're sorry your vagina doesn't work, now here is zero dollars to help with that."
So in anticipation of better coverage, I canceled a physical I'd scheduled at the fertility clinic on Tuesday, along with a round of blood tests that would have cost a couple grand. I'm OK with waiting another month or so.
In other fertility clinic news, they keep having this ignoramous call me and tell me things, when she clearly has no idea what she's talking about. It's becoming grating. She called Monday to tell me one of the doctors says two miscarriages in a row does not equal "a pattern of miscarriages." In their world, perhaps. Anyway, because of that, they do not feel any additional testing is warranted. I didn't argue with her because as I said, she knows nothing. I'd planned to attack the NP doing my physical for information yesterday, but that'll have to wait.
Finally, I pored over Making Babies and upped my vitamin intake to the level the book recommends. I will probably ovulate this cycle, despite the miscarriage, if the CM I'm seeing is any indication. I'm seeing more than normal, and I can only attribute this to the vitamins. I'm taking a lot more folic acid, and I've added vitamin C, NAC, and coQ10 to the mix.
The ignoramous on the phone says they don't generally recommend trying to conceive again directly following a miscarriage blah blah I've heard it all before. I wonder if three miscarriages equals a pattern? Hm. I'm not interested in finding out but I also wonder if it's possible two miscarriages in a row really isn't a pattern and there's maybe nothing wrong with me. I can clearly get pregnant; staying pregnant is the trick. I'm still losing tiny bits of weight at a time and am down about ten pounds, so hopefully that helps whatever might be jacking me up.
In any case, that's what's up right now. There probably won't be much to report until we get the insurance thing worked out. Til then!
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
Ovulation ... ?
Because my life follows Murphy's Law, I became rather ill during what The Machine told me were my most fertile days. We managed to get some good "work" done before I turned into the walking dead, and then I waited for ovulation.
And waited. And waited.
And then my temperature spiked on a morning after I'd slept fitfully. This was three days after my last peak fertile day, according to the fertility monitor. The previous night I'd slept two hours. I can't be sure if the temperature spike can be attributed to illness, or actual ovulation.
The next day the temperature dropped back down to pre-ovulation numbers. In case you're not familiar with how tracking basal temps works: Your temperature is supposed to spike when you ovulate, and then basically stay high for the rest of that cycle. If the temperatures drop back down, that's usually an indication of low progesterone, according to Making Babies. That's something I've suspected for a while.
But I gotta say, I am suspicious of that temperature spike. I don't think it's genuine. Next cycle's temperature chart will be more telling, as long as I don't come down with The Crud again. But honestly, I don't think I ovulated.
MB says the most common anovulatory condition is PCOS, and that 10 percent of women have it. I've never been diagnosed. Post-miscarriage the ultrasound showed only one unruptured cyst, but that's been seven months now. Who knows what my ovaries have been up to since then.
Most women with PCOS have weight issues (yes), hair in unwanted places (hello mustache), and insulin resistance. I've been tested for insulin issues a number of times -- my sister has Type 1 diabetes and I'm overweight, so doctors probably assume I'm a ticking time bomb. But the results have always come back normal.
However, there are actually two faces of PCOS; one that involves insulin resistance, and another that involves hyperandrogenism -- elevated androgen levels result from unruptured cysts. I don't know if I've ever been tested for that, but you can bet I'll be asking for it.
MB says the best at-home remedies for PCOS are eating well and exercising. Unfortunately, "eating well" for PCOS means something close to the Atkins diet. The disease responds well to it. And the book says, encouragingly, that the majority of women with PCOS can get pregnant naturally.
So, as usual, I'm basically self-diagnosing. Something else entirely could be causing my temperatures to be off. In any case, I'm still planning to give it one more cycle, and then it's off to the doctor. I'll reluctantly give low-carb eating a shot for the next month and keep trying to knock off the pounds. Diet, exercise, and The Crud helped me lose another few pounds since last week, so I'm on the right track.
And waited. And waited.
And then my temperature spiked on a morning after I'd slept fitfully. This was three days after my last peak fertile day, according to the fertility monitor. The previous night I'd slept two hours. I can't be sure if the temperature spike can be attributed to illness, or actual ovulation.
The next day the temperature dropped back down to pre-ovulation numbers. In case you're not familiar with how tracking basal temps works: Your temperature is supposed to spike when you ovulate, and then basically stay high for the rest of that cycle. If the temperatures drop back down, that's usually an indication of low progesterone, according to Making Babies. That's something I've suspected for a while.
But I gotta say, I am suspicious of that temperature spike. I don't think it's genuine. Next cycle's temperature chart will be more telling, as long as I don't come down with The Crud again. But honestly, I don't think I ovulated.
MB says the most common anovulatory condition is PCOS, and that 10 percent of women have it. I've never been diagnosed. Post-miscarriage the ultrasound showed only one unruptured cyst, but that's been seven months now. Who knows what my ovaries have been up to since then.
Most women with PCOS have weight issues (yes), hair in unwanted places (hello mustache), and insulin resistance. I've been tested for insulin issues a number of times -- my sister has Type 1 diabetes and I'm overweight, so doctors probably assume I'm a ticking time bomb. But the results have always come back normal.
However, there are actually two faces of PCOS; one that involves insulin resistance, and another that involves hyperandrogenism -- elevated androgen levels result from unruptured cysts. I don't know if I've ever been tested for that, but you can bet I'll be asking for it.
MB says the best at-home remedies for PCOS are eating well and exercising. Unfortunately, "eating well" for PCOS means something close to the Atkins diet. The disease responds well to it. And the book says, encouragingly, that the majority of women with PCOS can get pregnant naturally.
So, as usual, I'm basically self-diagnosing. Something else entirely could be causing my temperatures to be off. In any case, I'm still planning to give it one more cycle, and then it's off to the doctor. I'll reluctantly give low-carb eating a shot for the next month and keep trying to knock off the pounds. Diet, exercise, and The Crud helped me lose another few pounds since last week, so I'm on the right track.
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
Anovulation
Through a series of observations, like:
1. Ovulation tests
2. Monitoring of cervical mucus
3. Observance of non-pregnant status
... I have determined I am not ovulating.
I've also diagnosed myself with Lotsa Fatitude with Extreme Estrogen, which I believe is causing my anovulation. Making Babies says fat releases lots of estrogen. If there's too much fat on your body, you might as well be taking a birth control pill.
I've given myself til July to rectify the issue. If it's not solved by then, I'll be seeing a doctor again.
Plans are:
1. Walking 5 miles a day
2. Drinking buttloads of raspberry leaf tea
3. Taking buttloads of B vitamins, among other supplements
4. Abdominal massage, as recommended by Making Babies
5. Dust off The Machine (my very fancy ovulation predictor)
6. Track basal temps
I've quit coffee and am slowly cutting out "acidic" foods. I've removed gluten, sugar (although I've flubbed here and there) and most starches from my diet. Next up is dairy, then alcohol (*sob*).
So, two months. We'll see what happens. It's frustrating, and I'm getting anxious, and I don't want to be anxious.
1. Ovulation tests
2. Monitoring of cervical mucus
3. Observance of non-pregnant status
... I have determined I am not ovulating.
I've also diagnosed myself with Lotsa Fatitude with Extreme Estrogen, which I believe is causing my anovulation. Making Babies says fat releases lots of estrogen. If there's too much fat on your body, you might as well be taking a birth control pill.
I've given myself til July to rectify the issue. If it's not solved by then, I'll be seeing a doctor again.
Plans are:
1. Walking 5 miles a day
2. Drinking buttloads of raspberry leaf tea
3. Taking buttloads of B vitamins, among other supplements
4. Abdominal massage, as recommended by Making Babies
5. Dust off The Machine (my very fancy ovulation predictor)
6. Track basal temps
I've quit coffee and am slowly cutting out "acidic" foods. I've removed gluten, sugar (although I've flubbed here and there) and most starches from my diet. Next up is dairy, then alcohol (*sob*).
So, two months. We'll see what happens. It's frustrating, and I'm getting anxious, and I don't want to be anxious.
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