“What is acupuncture purported to do for infertility? And what is the mechanism by which it is done?”
Better explanations of how acupuncture and herbs work can be found in Dr.Liang’s book “Acupuncture & IVF: Increase IVF Success by 40-60% ”
According to German Dr.Paulus’s research in 2002, patients received acupuncture treatments had 42% clinic pregnancy rate than the control group(IVF only) 26%. However, Dr.Lifang Liang(an MD trained both with traditional Chinese medicine and western medicine) in her book had achieved 60% through a combination of acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine. Even it is great news for patients. But how come that they are that different? That might because the Dr.Paulus study is only for acupuncture intervention during IVF cycle. And Dr. Liang’s work was based on the results from 3 to 4 months acupuncture and herbs treatment before IVF. Fertility treatment with TCM is a combination of protocols and syndrome differentiation. It is individualized treatment, highly dependant on the individual conditions at the different stage of cycles. Combining Acupuncture/herbs for IVF situation might be the beauty of integration of West and East, or Ying/Yang, having Chinese medicine preparing the body(pituitary, ovary, uterus)/mind to support IVF. Because of its high acumination of knowledge/expertise of Chinese Medicine and knowledge of Western medicine, it is hard to have acupuncture clinic setups like ShadyGrove Fertility (SGF) model which has many locations or franchised acupuncture which operate on the fixed menu. Remembering in many positive kinds of research like Dr. Paulus, Dr.Smith’s work, the selection of acupuncturist and selection of acupuncture effect was very specific. Otherwise, the result can be very confusing.
IVF/IUI currently are still very expensive. Most insurance does not cover. Likewise, Acupuncture alone for fertility is not covered by any insurance. Only pain management is covered by some insurance. Acupuncture/Customized Chinese herbs are much cheaper either as a form of addon or working independently (nature pregnancy). Still, infertility patient’s burden is still heavy. We have discounted rate for patient’s who has financial difficulties. We try to make every patient affordable for acupuncture and herbs treatment. Other practitioners around Washington DC area, I believe, also has discounted rate. Each practitioner working in this field, he/she shares the same joy and sadness as their patients. We hope all patients, especially those who are thinking of ART(IVF/IUI) consider acupuncture plus Chinese herbs to enhance their chance of success.
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