After her first IVF cycle, Chelsey stopped taking Chinese herbal medicine as didn’t feel it was helping. However, she continued acupuncture treatment for relaxation and ‘a bit of hope’ it might help her fertility.
Chelsey: I was doing acupuncture and Chinese medicine to try to just get myself as healthy as possible. The Chinese medicine to also help increase my egg release and the production of maturing and things like that. Hubby of course was totally against it, but I was determined to do everything I could, even if that meant natural methods as well.
Interviewer: And did you find that at all helpful?
Chelsey: I had actually, I stopped after the first time. I was continuing it and when I realised that with that first treatment I’d only had three eggs, that maybe the Chinese medicine wasn’t actually helping me at all. So I stopped that side of things, but continued with the acupuncture, and I continued that for the next two times. So whether or not it helped me physically, it certainly helped me psychologically, just getting my body to relax and still with a bit of hope that it would increase either my egg maturity or the attachment part of things as well.
Although Skye had not found naturopathy helpful for her PCOS symptoms previously, she is interested in trying it again while going through IVF.
I did see a naturopath to keep my periods regular when I first moved and because my acne was going crazy and I really didn’t want to go back on the pill. So I tried to see a naturopath to help with my periods and my hormones and all of that sort of thing. I did that for maybe six months but I didn’t see a major improvement in my skin and that was the main thing I was going for.
They just gave me a heap of tablets, a heap of powders to put in drinks and all this. It was a lot of stuff. I couldn’t even tell you what it all was. [laughter] It was a lot of stuff. But – I didn’t see any real change so, that’s why I stopped. But when I do go down to see the IVF clinics I want to try and see a naturopath at the same time, because I just think if I can try and get my body as healthy and ready as possible then it can’t hurt.
Libby describes the detox program she was currently undertaking before possibly trying IVF again.
With the program that I’m in right now, I’m on numerous supplements that try to detox my body.
Getting rid of the plastics which are synthetic oestrogens, filtered water, trying to eat organic food as much as I can, totally changing your dishes, I mean the frying pans, make-up, if I dyed – I don’t dye my hair but if I were, so dyeing products, nail polish. All these have the oestrogen, the fake oestrogen that in my case is detrimental because I already naturally have higher oestrogen.
So, and extending your periods stage, because they tended to get shorter, so ideally, we should be back to 28. I’m almost there so the period should be 20 – 30 days and then ovulation on day 14.
And no drinking, no caffeine… No fried food, that’s about it.
Kate’s shares how her thoughts on complementary and alternative medicines and therapies and dietary changes for fertility have changed over the course of her fertility journey.
Interviewer: How was that for your husband and well and you guys as a couple?
Kate: Yeah very stressful. I feel like in the early days it certainly brought us together. It didn’t put the kind of stress on us that I felt it was going to break us. It’s probably put a lot more pressure on us third time round because of the expense. And the fact that it was unexpected third time – I mean it was unexpected the first time but third time round we feel like we’ve thrown so much at it.
So I definitely feel like it’s put a lot of pressure on us. And we’re busy. You know we’ve got two little kids, we both work. So trying to fit in fertility treatments has even been problematic this time round. Whereas back before I had kids I could just spend all the time I wanted making lovely healthy meals and doing acupuncture and you know, “Ooh we’ve got to try this and we’ve got to take this supplement.” Whereas now I’m probably a bit past that. I’m not interested in changing my diet or trying a different supplement because I tried everything before and it still didn’t really work. I want more solid answers instead of someone telling me a story that they saw this naturopath and took out dairy and next thing they were pregnant.
I think, ‘Well I’ve tried just about everything and it was still a struggle.’ So…
