For many young girls, the arrival of their first menstrual period can be a bewildering and frightening experience which foists upon them a whole range of challenges and changes.

Puberty is a daunting time for any teenager, the way one’s body changes, the awkwardness, the clumsiness, the embarrassment of sexual changes and sexual awakening confuse and challenge their  self image and sense of identity.

The onset of her first menstrual period had been marked by dysfunctional uterine bleeding,  a gynecological condition which had thrown the poor girl and her parents pell mell into a battery of medical tests and gynecological examinations and pharmaceutical and hormonal interventions which, save to mortify and traumatize the young girl and her family, didn’t help.  The doctors were stumped!  Expensive scans and blood tests and examinations revealed nothing abnormal. The family was desperate, the young girl disconsolate.  The ongoing blood loss had lead to anemia , with the concomitant fatigue and the emotional and psychological impact that it brings.

Dr Julie Zhu is one of the sterling team of doctors at Five Branches University clinic, bringing a wealth of knowledge from long years of experience both in China and the United States to what is rated the best acupuncture school in the bay area, teaching students and treating patients with incredibly good results.

After just a couple of sessions the bleeding had stopped, the young girl had begun to recover her strength and energy, the family had hope restored, and within two months thereafter the young patient’s menstrual cycle was normalized and she has since been completely recovered.

Ten months of this nightmare had brought her parents to seek some other approach.  They came, not so much looking for or expecting answers, so much as hoping for something  miraculous, anything, to help their daughter.  They were not disappointed.  The treatment was short, and to the point!

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Hi, welcome to the class. My name is Danling Zhang. I’m a faculty member of Five Branches University. I am very honored to be invited to give you guys a brief talk about traditional Chinese medicine for Infertility.

03:29 Chase: Our professor that we have visiting us today and teaching this lecture for us is Danling Zhang. She received a Bachelor’s and Master’s Degree in Medicine from Liaoning University of Traditional Chinese Medicine in China. Following her graduation, she became an instructor, a supervisor, and a physician at the university’s affiliated hospital there in Liaoning University. Danling then finished her two-year residency at Dandong Women’s and Children’s Hospital, specializing in acupuncture research on thyroid diseases. Danling has published numerous papers on eye acupuncture, muscle channel theory, and thyroid diseases. She received her Doctor in Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine from Five Branches University in 2011. She also teaches in our departments of TCM Acupuncture and TCM Clinical Training here at Five Branches University. So please welcome with me, Danling Zhang, our professor, and we’ll begin this session on infertility.

04:43 Danling Zhang: Hello everyone, this is Danling Zhang, so I will talk about infertility by using TCM.

04:58 DZ: So first, I’ll talk about TCM and then we will talk about some numbers, so the facts about infertility. Right now the infertility becomes more and more common in the modern societies, so you guys can see the PowerPoint. So sometimes you hear from the advertisement, some fertility Western treatments said, “Okay about 10% of the women they are having infertility issue.” I think that number is about true and then in this area, it might be a little bit more. So here is the number, so about 60% of the women aged between 15 to 44 that has, it’s hard to conceive. And then plus some of the women, they have miscarriage, or some other reason that cannot carry the baby to full term, that’s up to about 12%, so that’s relevant. About 10% people, they are having fertility issue.

06:09 DZ: And acupuncture definitely can help. And how we can do it? Normally, we do acupuncture and herb together with the Western doctors so we have a good result. There was one research done in Europe said, “Acupuncture only work together with IVF and then the IVF rate goes double, 50% more.” So that’s why right now, almost every Western doctors will recommend the patient to get acupuncture treatment the same time while they are getting treated by the Western MDs. And so, that’s why we have more and more fertility issue patient. And then we see next slide. So talk about the IVF, this is the last step to conceive. IVF, this according to CDC… CDC is Center for Disease Control. So according to CDC, this is the IVF rate. So, if you go with acupuncture and then this rate can be increased. So also, then another we see through this, you can see age is an important factor for the success and then why because most of the time the Western doctors will say, “Oh, quality of the egg is blah blah blah blah.” So quality of the egg depends on the age. And then, so how acupuncture or the herb can help?

07:57 DZ: Now, we basically, we give the herbs to help, so we said in Chinese medicine we say, “This is tonify kidney.” So we use tonify kidney herbs to help for the quality of the egg, and also we can do the acupuncture to make people relax a bit and then their body goes to perform well than normal, and then they will have better quality of egg. And then, so talk about the… This is the Western. So before we know the Eastern treatment, we need to know the Western part. So Western part, the hypothalamus controls the pituitary and the pituitary has the gland endocrine system that secretes LH, luteinizing hormone, and the FSH. FSH is a follicle-stimulating hormone that controls the secretion of female hormone estrogen and the progesterone.

08:58 DZ: And then these estrogen can direct affect the quality of the egg. And the progesterone, normally we call the pregnancy hormone, and this hormone can keep the woman to conceive and then keep the fetus to the term. And then what we do, this is the picture for the hormone. So, what we do, we use herb or acupuncture to help this, so the black line is the ovulation time. So before ovulation, all those numbers, some numbers are low and then before ovulation, that’s the time that we can get good quality of the egg. How can we get good quality of the egg and then we said, “Okay, we need to make the estrogen number goes high.” The blue line, so the estrogen number to go high, so that can help the good quality of the egg.

09:56 DZ: What we do? We tonify the qi, tonify the blood, and then tonify the kidney and then make the kidney function better, the quality of the egg will be improved. So, this is basically is if you want to monitor the estrogen level, we can affect the estrogen level and then when the estrogen going down and then start to ovulate, after ovulation and the estrogen going down and then goes up again and then the progesterone keep going up steadily. So, the progesterone needs to go up in a high level at least minimum for five days. During these five days, it has the possibility that the embryo can implant in the girl. And then this, we call the second part of the progesterone, we call the kidney yang. So we use 25 kidney yang herb all the points to help the body temperature keep on a high level. So, this basically, before ovulation is we tonify the yin, we tonify the qi, tonify the blood. And then after ovulation, we tonify the yang so make it happen.

11:04 DZ: And the next picture, next slide is about the estrogen, progesterone, and then the inner lining of the uterus. So, all those linings, some people say, “My doctor said my lining is not thick enough.” So, if it’s not thick enough, the embryo cannot implant. If some people, the patient will say, “Oh, my lining is too thick.” Too thick is not good either because it cannot grow. So, if the lining is too thick, normally it’s in the front, the second part, and then cannot ovulate, so that’s the problem. And the acupuncture can help this and the herb, especially the herb. And then according to this phase, we call the period phase, day one to day seven, we use some herb. And then day seven to day 14, we use something else, that’s the phase two. And then after ovulation 14 to 21, that’s the phase three and the phase four is from 21 to 28 days.

12:06 DZ: Yeah, so normally we cope with Western doctors so it depends. If this patient come here and say, “I’m doing IVF and I just need acupuncture support,” then we just do acupuncture. So we try to relax the patient and then that all the hormones secrete normally. If the other patient say, “No I’m young, I’m still… I’m only 30 years old, I don’t want the Western medicine to get involved and I want to use pure TCM,” that’s fine. So we will give the patient herb and plus acupuncture and to make this curve occur. Some people don’t ovulate so there’s no curve.

12:50 DZ: So here this next slide is, you will see the egg, the follicles, grow, grow, and then grow to a certain size and then release. So E2 is the hormone that’s estrogen to help the follicle grow and then E3 to release ovulation after that progesterone keep up. So all those hormone change it’s by the body, by the body either by yourself. So we do acupuncture try to affect, to influence the brain, the pituitary. And then the pituitary control the ovary or either I can just use the herb to just directly tonify the kidney and then make the egg bigger. So that’s normally what we do. So also acupuncture, all Chinese medicine goes according to the cycle, so that’s why we recommend patient comes once per week to get treatment.

13:50 DZ: And then the next slide is the typical one that’s for TCM treatment. So we say, according to TCM theory, there’s… If a woman is having problems to conceive and there are four types of differentiation. So the first one is the normal result we call kidney deficiency. Kidney Yin or Kidney Yang or kidney Qi deficiency, and then this normally is about the H. So the Western doctors say, “Oh you know that your egg quality is not good,” that’s when egg quality goes to the kidney part, so we tonify the kidney. We use herb to tonify the kidney and therefore the patient itself, for the self-care, what can you do? You take some supplement. Food or supplement to tonify the kidney. And for example the food, what kind of food can we take to tonify the kidney? So, anything black. So black sesame is good, black bean is good and the walnut can tonify the kidney, young oyster can tonify the kidney yang. For vegetable, onions can tonify the kidney and the chives and then even egg.

15:08 DZ: I will tell patients that at least you need one egg minimum per day especially before ovulating. That’s gonna help for have the better quality of the egg. So that is due to the kidney part. And then some other patient will say, “Okay, you know, I’m 30 or I’m even 35 but my kidney is good, my egg quality, it’s pretty good, but I still cannot conceive.” Then maybe falls to this one. This is called the liver qi stagnation and is basically, too stressful, too busy. And sometimes, the Western said, “Everything, you are good. Every hormone level test is normal but just I cannot conceive.” And then goes to this category. We make… We need to relax the patient so we give patient some herb.

15:55 DZ: So I give the patient some herb and then also exercise, meditation, and then can make this, because once you’re relaxed, remember the previous slide and then the hypothalamus, the brain will be relaxed, and then the pituitary gonna secrete normally those hormones. So your estrogen, your progesterone, will become normal. So we work on the brain part. And then the third one, we call the spleen deficiency, cause the dampness. In this case, spleen has deficiency so it cannot… Metabolism is a little bit not very well. So normally you will see those patient is overweight. Those kind of patient or some patient clinically is like, “I am diagnosed with PCOS” and is… So in this patient and then we try to use the herb tonify spleen to remove the dampness, dry the dampness and then normally is gonna work.

17:10 DZ: And then the patient maybe ask me, “Do I need to lose weight until the ideal weight so I can conceive?” Not necessary. Just remove the dampness and then you can get conceived. And then the last one, last topic is called blood stasis, blood stagnation. Blood stagnation normally, typically, is some patient come here and say, “I have endometriosis. I have fallopian tube blocked.” And then we just try to invigorate the blood. And if a woman has indication, some people say, “My menses is normal.” And some people say, “My menses is painful.” If it’s painful, falls with this. And then some people say, “My menses has become less and less.” Then that might be the first category, so kidney deficiency. So we use different herbs to do most of this. Like the period become normal. And then…

18:08 DZ: So Chinese were said, “If you want to treat the infertility, then you need to make the menstruation cycle normal.” So we would make that normal and then we treat patient. And then, so Chinese medicine is good at treating infertility. And then also lifestyle also helps. So if you come to an acupuncturist and then maybe we’ll give you herb, maybe we’ll give you acupuncture treatment. Also, they will ask you all questions about what do you eat? How about your sleep? Because they want to make sure everything is alright. So this is the basic things you can think. So the food, first, what do you eat? Because what you eat goes to your body and become the you, you are now.

18:55 DZ: So the food is… First, we talk about what is good, what we should eat. So first I say, especially before ovulation, you need to eat egg because egg has high protein. And then the human follicle also has high protein, so you need to eat those stuff and any kind of dark green veggies, those are good. And also, you eat some whole green food. So not all carb, not all protein. And then some people say, “Oh, I don’t want to eat fat.” No, some of the fat is good. Because the fat is cholesterol. The feminine hormone, estrogen and the progesterone, they are from the estrogen. So if a woman is too slim, not enough fat, this woman won’t have enough female hormone. Can you see the marathon runners, the female marathon runners, sometimes they don’t have period at all because there is no fat in the body. So you now remember female hormone is from cholesterol.

20:11 DZ: And then now we talk about what we cannot eat. So white stuff, they are not good. So white stuff, white rice, white flour, sweet stuff, those are not good. Everyone knows that, right? And the processed food is not good. So that just makes our body weak, we need to make our body strong. And the spicy food is not good either. And the greasy food that’s especially greasy food for some people, a little bit overweight, we call dampness, and then this is not good. And some people like to drink milk. Depends, if only one cup, it’s fine. That’s a good source of protein, but if too much that’s also create dampness, so we don’t recommend that. And the coffee, not too much. Maximum one cup, it’s better not to drink it. And some people they will say, “I’m American, coffee, this is my breakfast.” It’s okay, one cup. Try to use decaf because caffeine can make your short memory improve and also can make you concentrate, that is good. But if a woman too concentrate, cannot relax, those female hormones cannot secrete. The female hormones only can secrete to our body, to the bloodstream when this woman is relaxed.

21:37 DZ: So food, and the eat, and the sleep. So eat and sleep. Sleep is seven to eight hours. And some people say, “I have night shift, I have to work at night.” And then that’s tough. Long time that can become like we call indeficiency. And so essence is not enough, not enough supply so that’s no. And also sleep quality. Some people say, “I sleep. I don’t know I sleep well. But I just have a lot of dream.” And the dream is not good. Dream, we call, we say it is liver qi stagnation. So maybe stress, behind the mind stress, always think too much. So I will ask, “Okay, your dream is related to your daily life or not? And then you feel refreshed after the sleep?” So all those cons.

22:23 DZ: Another thing is, what time we go to sleep? 11. Before 11 PM is good because 11 to one, that’s the liver time, so you don’t want to damage the liver, you don’t want to exhaust the liver so that’s 11 is good. And some people, I have patients say, “I sleep normally one to nine.” It’s pretty good, eight hours. But it’s different. I will say, “Why don’t you just sleep from 11 because that is your body time.” And then so after sleep, exercise. Exercise, you can do exercise. Here I put, moderate exercise. Why? Because you cannot do too much, too much is not good. Too much in Chinese medicine… I used to have a patient that said, “I run about 20 miles per week.” And then this woman cannot get… It’s hard, no it cannot, it’s hard to conceive. Because if you exercise too much, it exhaust the kidney.

23:22 S1: So kidney jing is not enough. It’s harder to get pregnant. And some people say, “I don’t know. Ovulate, after ovulate, fertilization, after fertilization is implantation. And I don’t want to exercise too much because I’m afraid that’s… After implant, the embryo implant to the uterus, I’m afraid it might fall off, so I don’t want to do exercise.” No, still. Because once you exercise, your Qi and the blood move smoothly, it’s easier to conceive. So don’t do too much, not too late or not too less. And yoga is good. Meditation is good. If you like you say, “I like to run,” and then continue to run, that’s fine.

24:05 DZ: And another thing is massage. You can do massage. We call the uterus lifting massage. It’s not physically lifted the uterus, but that’s the energy, that’s the Qi going up. Going up, how do you do that? You can do self, so use your hand and put your hands right above the pubic bone and then press deep and then hold it and then pull up a bit. So you do this at least 10 to 20 minutes every day, and then that helps. And then when you do this, remember you take a deep breath, slow down, so you do like, how to say that, like one minute you do one or two times. So about 10 minutes. So that’s massage. That helps because that’s… Normally, uterus is below our pubic, the normal size, so actually when you go down you can touch the uterus, and inside is the ovaries. So we just try to make the local circulation, blood circulation getting better, so we will have better result. So that’s… And then if you change… Some patient… Some people will ask, “If I do this and then really can change my hormone level?” I say, “Sure. You can try. Definitely, it can change.”

25:25 DZ: And then one month or two months, and then in our lab test, it changes. So if you want to do it yourself, that is good. And it does work. The worst thing is that some woman come to me, say, “My work is really busy and then I just do… I just work and I leave my body to my doctor. My doctor check which number is wrong and then they give me what kind of medication, I just take it.” That’s not right. I help patient to engineer, just put the… After ovulation, put the progesterone tablet to the body, and then she need to go to the bathroom at work and then put it in, and then five minutes go back to work, still sitting. And then the tablet can now be absorbed fully by the body. So you said, I gave you the chart how much successful rate for IVF. Some people are successful, some are not. Why make that difference? Because some people do it seriously, “I use my heart. I really want to get what I want. I do it with my heart,” and then normally this patient will conceive. And some people say, “That’s my doctor’s job and then I just… I don’t care.” And normally that patient cannot get a good result.

26:40 DZ: So that’s for a woman. And if you have any question, the detail, you know exact the question and I can answer those questions. And then we talk about infertility, male and also female. And then some people say, “Female more, male less.” Not really. Just because woman has more jobs, men just produce, provide sperm and that’s it, and the woman has get the egg and then also fertilization, implantation. So those all need to be done in woman’s body, so woman just carry more responsibility.

27:18 DZ: So male infertility, right now I tell patient, I say, male infertility right now is almost nothing. The new technology is very good. You just do stuff and then normally those fertility numbers will keep going up. So that’s once the test is abnormal, don’t worry. You change your lifestyle, get those vitamins, those supplement, and then maybe one month or two months, a couple of months later, and then those numbers gonna change. And then what need to change? What does he need to change to make those numbers better? And then those things that we need to change. What we change? So first, we do the semen analysis. So if the motility, the mobility, and the amount is abnormal, and then we do the rest, diet, and exercise. If the reason is caused by called varicocele, and then that’s one… If it’s very mild, that’s fine. Mostly need surgery, after surgery should be fine. So it’s just a couple of months recovery and then should be fine. And then will produce good quality of the semen.

28:33 DZ: And for male it’s easy. Normally, come here and then we talk, acupuncture and plus herbs. So talk is very important. When we talk, basically ask lifestyle. So what do you eat? And tell the guys the same thing, what you cannot eat. And then very common stuff is coffee, smoke, and alcohol. So those stuff. And then after that, and then you eat healthy and then keep a healthy body weight, and then should be fine. And then the… What is the healthy food? We talk about that before. And then also exercise. What kind of exercise is good? Normally, any kind of exercise, but some exercise, be careful. What exercise be careful is any exercise that can cause high temperature in the local area. That’s not good because sperm, all the semens like low temperature. So like biking is not good, and then we will tell the guy that’s change the jeans to the regular loose pant, soft pant. And then plus supplement, supplement you get, those supplement herbs, vitamins, and normally should be fine. If it’s really a problem, and then the best medication is very helpful. And then after those medication, the number is gonna increase pretty quick, like for example, Clomid.

30:03 DZ: Clomid for woman, also for men too. I have a patient took that and then has good result. So this it is. And then for in general so acupuncture. What acupuncture can help? Acupuncture can help for fertility that is for sure. And then if you do some of the work and then you maybe need to come here less. So what kind of work we do is here. So manage your stress level. Stress level I said goes to the hypothalamus, goes to the brain and then that direct affect the estrogen, the progesterone. So how to reduce your stress and then we talk about that. And then some people said, I just, they think, a lot of women they just, “Oh I want to get pregnant. I will do anything. I just want to get pregnant.” They think about it every day, every day. And then that’s not good. So try not to think too much. So I will suggest to my patient if you are stay at home person, I will say, “Get a job because you don’t need to think, you won’t think a lot.” And another thing I said, the last one I said gave positive energy around you. So you need to have support like your partner will support you, and you just believe that you can conceive.

31:28 DZ: That is very important. Some people come here say at the first visit and say, “I think it’s hard for me.” I say, “Why?” “Because I’m 35 and my egg quality is not good.” I say, “Who said that? You didn’t do test, who said your egg quality is not good?” “Oh, I have painful menstruation, and I guess I’m harder to conceive.” No, a lot of women just put a block in her mind, in their mind that, “I’m hard to conceive.” No, if you get rid of those stress, and then naturally a woman should get pregnant unless you just something just blocks it. So that’s it. So that’s, basically, that’s the information, I talk, and then I can give a couple of minutes more for talk about the Western. Normally, Western is very logical. So the Western protocol for infertility. So you go there, basically what’s the meaning of infertility is if a woman cannot conceive, if it’s under 35, you try it, and then for one year and you cannot conceive and then this is infertility. You go to a doctor, a Western doctor will start to give you treatment. If over 35 years, normally for six months, you try for six months and you cannot conceive and then your doctor will conceive this is infertility and then they will start infertility treatments. Treatment is normally Western in everyone… All the doctor’s pretty much the same.

33:05 DZ: The first one is give you the medication that’s to promote ovulating good eggs. So normally the very common one is Clomid. And sometimes give Femara. Femara normally goes together with PCOS. And then after that Clomid, have those medications for four months, you are still not conceiving, and then they will check the fallopian tube, see if it’s blocked or not. Normally, mostly a woman won’t be blocked unless has a history of miscarriage or abdominal surgery, otherwise no, most of them, but they still they check it. And after they check it and they still cannot conceive and then they will do the so called IUI insemination. Just put the sperm into the uterus and then so shorten the distance for the sperm to get to fertilize with the egg. Insemination can do couple of times, normally three or four times, depends on the age. I have a patient do two times, got conceive, and I have patient do like over 10 times still cannot conceive. But from my experience, this is personal experience, not scientific, younger woman is easier to get conceived by IUI insemination. And then if the insemination, that woman still cannot conceive normally, we will do IVF. IVF is one way of we call assisted reproductive technology. So IVF, so they do that. And then that one, the rate I told you, in general is lower than 50%.

34:54 DZ: So that’s it. And then so that’s why acupuncture, it depends on age, and depends on what do you want. If you want, you say, “I don’t want Western.” And then we do herb and the acupuncture. If you think, “So I just want acupuncture, I want it together with the Western.” Normally, we don’t give a lot of herb. So this is it. If you have any question, you can let me know.

35:24 S1: Thank you so much, Professor. You can stay there, I’ll scoot over closer to you. So, Professor, we do have one question. This is from one of our attendees. She says it’s an herbal question. So she asks, “Professor, will turmeric and capsaicin or black pepper be okay for a woman who will receive IVF in two months?” And she says it’s to supplement her pain she has in her body from her foot injury, and she’s a woman and she’s 41 years old. So she just wants to now if turmeric and capsaicin will be okay for her if she’s gonna receive IVF in two months?

36:05 DZ: I think that’s okay because turmerics normally is help for the inflammation in the body and the black pepper is spicy, so you can use it for short term but you cannot use very long time because spicy food normally is tonify the yang. So it’s gonna be good, but if use long time, this will strain the yin jing, is not very good, so…

36:28 S1: Okay. And there’s one more question. Why is spicy food not good to eat when you’re trying to help with infertility?

36:38 DZ: Okay. [chuckle] That’s a really, [chuckle] really… Spicy food, huh? Spicy food normally is we call the spicy food make the… Make our body temperatures high, and also make the Qi, we call “exhausted Qi,” make the Qi move too much. So during the conservative time, that is not good, which is conservative time is the time that’s post-ovulation.

37:09 S1: Okay.

37:14 DZ: So spicy food means like I said pepper, chili, those stuff. You can eat small amount, but not a lot. If a lot, then that’s gonna drain the Qi, the Qi gonna be gone.

37:28 S1: And we have one more question. How does coffee hurt becoming pregnant or trying to conceive?

37:35 DZ: Oh, I think I talk about that. Coffee. [chuckle] Yeah. Coffee has caffeine. Caffeine just make you really, really active, so it basically is like yang energy goes to your body, you become really active. And then also make you, I said, make you concentrate. It’s basically is like a help for the adrenal gland, make you concentrate, to make you tight up, make you more productive. And short term memory is increased. But once the adrenal gland is working and then all the blood circulation, all the energies goes on the focus on the work, and then reproductive system is not shut down but it just maintain a minimum level, just let it work, but won’t be very productive, so that’s not good for conceive. Conceive means you are not stressed, you are not focused on some other things and then in this case, you are relaxed and then the hormone start to secrete, the uterus is soft, and then the fallopian tube is soft. Once it’s soft, it’s relaxed, so the egg moving through the fallopian tube and the embryo implant to the uterus lining is much easier. If it tensed up, there is no way to implant, so that’s why coffee is not preferred.

[chuckle]

39:06 S1: Alright, Professor. This gentleman asks, “What will be the treatment in the case of the previous tubal ligation?”

39:15 DZ: Oh, what’s the treatment? If it’s diagnosed that, because the tube is the place that egg and the sperm fertilize and they travel back, so if the tube is not… Is blocked, is not smooth, or it’s narrow, that’s cannot… It’s smaller than the embryo, and then the embryo cannot pass through that, go back to the uterus, so that’s gonna be a problem. This is one of the main reason for infertility and then this one need IVF basically. We can try to use TCM to treat that, for example, acupuncture won’t work on that, and then there’s… What can we work is the herb. Herb we use, we call the… This belong to the blastocyst category. So we immigrate Qi in the blood, and then remove the stagnation hopefully it can help. In China, we do that. But here, depends on the individual, and also the age. If it’s age 40, I think infertility may end, IVF may be the right choice.

40:19 S1: Alright. And we have another question. He asks, “What is the general thinking on supplementing with herbs for a woman who has not been diagnosed as infertile but plans to become pregnant and wishes to tonify and balance for optimal health for mother and baby?”

40:37 DZ: This is very good. I like this question and I like to see patient like this. Not like I have problem, and then I tried and come here. That is not good. [chuckle] This is good, so I like this. So supplement basically, if you want to have a baby you take a prenatal vitamin. If you said, “I don’t want to… ” In a couple of months, in three months, then you take a regular vitamin, and then you take some folic acid because that’s gonna help prevent for abnormal stuff. And then also herb, it depends, I recommend this person come to acupuncturist at least once. So you do a pulse and tongue and ask some general information and then we say, “Okay, your body is in the yang whatever is a little bit… I call it “unbalanced” is not a problem. And then give some herb to take it. Herb take it normally, one to three months, and their body… That’s a good word, “optimize” the body, and then it’s gonna be much easier to get conceive and then this is good. And it is easier to treat this way. And then you know you have problem and then we have to do a whole bunch of work.

41:47 DZ: So yes, I like to see this. So go to acupuncturist for once, and then talk about the herb because herb is… The herb, normally, we don’t like patient take for more than three months. So take this one for one month and then come back and they see how is it and then you can change a little bit, maybe one month later it’s good.

42:09 S1: And then this person asks, Danling, would you like to mention key formulas to benefit each phase, blood tonifiers, Si Wu Tang for phase 1, Liu Wei Di Huang phase 2, You Gui Wan for phase 3?

42:24 DZ: Okay, okay, yes this is according to the Western, I think this is someone who knows TCM.

42:32 S1: Yeah.

[laughter]

42:37 DZ: Yes, would you like to mention the key formula? Okay. So, formula is maybe a little bit different but the herb will be… Once we modify, it’s pretty much similar. So, the first phase is day one to seven, so we want the period to flow normal, so we use Tao Hong Siwu Tang so, Tao ren Hong hua, that’s invigorate the blood and the plus Si Wu Tang is tonify the blood, so that’s day one to the seven. And then after day seven and then the bleeding is gone, period is gone, and then that phase two is very important especially for the person who wants good quality of egg is here. So, start from day four to day 14, that’s the only frame that you can make good quality of the egg. So, in this one we tonify Qi, tonify blood. So, tonify Qi, tonify blood. Now phase 2 we use Ba Zhen Wan, modify. So, Ba Zhen Wan is Si Wu Tang plus Si Jun Zi Tang tonify Qi, tonify blood.

43:43 DZ: And the phase 3 is… And also after phase 2 on day 14 if you take herb, add a tiny bit to invigorate blood. Not Tao ren Hong hua, it’s Dan send to invigorate blood and then because why that’s a help for release of the egg, so help for the ovulation. That’s only for like, the frame is about two days, the timeframe is two days. And after that, day 14 to day 21, or day 14 to 28, that’s two weeks, we call the tonify the kidney. Tonify kidney, you can use Liu Wei Di Huang Wan or you can use You Gui Wan, the one is tonify kidney yin is tonify kidney yang. I will use something else, but the principle is the same is tonify kidney. So, I will use, there is one formula called shou tai wanlongevity of the fetus and plus some other herb to tonify kidney, mild tonify kidney herbs, so make it, goes through. So basically, it’s tonify kidney herb, so keep the body temperature high and then that is help for the progesterone. And then also, if this patient has any possibility to cause miscarriage during this time, I will tell the patient to go to Whole Food to buy the progesterone cream in the Whole Food and then use it, rub it on the lower abdomen inner side, so the same function of the herb.

45:13 S1: And on the other side of the spectrum, Professor, another person asks, “What is your perspective of birth control contraceptives?”

45:22 DZ: Okay, good. Not, the other one. Okay. [laughter]

45:27 S1: On the other side.

45:30 DZ: On the other side, okay. Birth control pill basically is a mix, is a female hormone. So basically, the female hormone that’s you take something, something for 21 days and then take something, something… You stop taking that one and then because you take that and then it controls the body, the hormone. And then after you stop that and then it’s just like a release and then so the blood will come. So, we call it, in Chinese we call it “Tu Po Liu Xue” is period but that period is not naturally formed by our body. It’s just because of the medication. The hormone is gone. So, your uterus lining just start bleeding. And a small amount is good and then you can take it, the only thing is you cannot take it for too long. If you take it for too long… I had a patient take it for seven years, 10 years, and later on become infertile. Why? Because that hormone is not released by the ovary, ovary release estrogen and progesterone, is just also I take, so the ovary become lazy. It doesn’t produce hormone for so many years and then once you stop the birth control pill and then the ovary is like a rock, you do ultrasound, it’s hardening, so that ovary is not working, so that’s not good.

46:50 DZ: And the contraception, that is good, it depends on the age, it depends on age. But there is one thing I need to say, some people check the safety time. Ovulation is between day nine to day 19, so during this window and if I’m before day nine from first day of period and after day 19, I’m safe, that’s not safe. That’s the only thing I want to tell young people. Don’t try that. If you get one… Because ovulation sometimes can be affected by other factors. So typically, it’s day 14, you ovulate, but if something happens, I fight with my boyfriend, kidding, [laughter] and then I might ovulate early.

47:36 S1: Okay.

47:39 DZ: So, it’s not safe enough.

47:41 S1: Alright.

47:42 DZ: Okay, thank you.

47:42 S1: Alright, thank you so much, Professor.

47:44 DZ: You’re welcome.

47:47 S1: And thank you guys for your questions. Alright, thank you guys so much for joining us. I hope we got all your questions asked. It looks like we did.

48:01 S1: I’d just like to go over, our next webinar will be in February, and that day is February 15th. And it will be TCM for Herbology, and that will be with another professor of ours. So we hope you join us. And just really quick, if you haven’t already and you’d like to, please just go to our website, www.fivebranches.edu. You can see it here on my screen. And you can click “reserve your seat in our free webinar and events,” and that will take you to this page with a form on it. And you can click “Live webinar: TCM for Herbology” is our next one. I also encourage you to sign up for an enrollment info session, which is coming up also in February on the 18th, and that’s cool because we have two sessions, one in English and one in Chinese. The English one will be done at 5 PM and in Chinese at 6 PM. So, we look forward to having you guys join us again for our next webinar or enrollment session. We look forward to seeing you guys. Thank you so much. Alright, bye.

00:00 Speaker 1: Today, we will have a little introduction by myself in the webinar series, and then we’ll have an introduction by Chase, our Admissions Director here at San Jose, then we will begin the TCM For Infertility lecture, and after that the Professor will have a time to answer all those questions. And I’d like to take a moment to encourage you, if you have any questions for the Professor, please ask them in the chat box on your GoToWebinar control panel on the side of your screen. So just a little bit about this webinar series, this is the fourth webinar of our TCM webinar series. In this series, we look into how TCM can help many of the common diseases that Americans face today. So please, I encourage you to enroll in more of our webinars, we have another webinar coming up in February, on February 15th. It’s going to be TCM for Herbology where we’ll look into TCM for Chinese herbs and their functions. And in March, our topic will be TCM for Diabetes.

01:14 S1: So just so everyone knows, our webinars start at five and they go ’til 6 PM. And again, I’d like to just remind everyone if you have any questions, please ask them in the chat box on your GoToWebinar control panel. So right now, I’d like to introduce Chase, our Admissions Director here at San Jose, and he’ll be giving you a little bit of information about our new program here at Five Branches University.

01:49 Chase: Hello. Good evening, everyone. Thank you for joining us here today. So I wanted to talk just a little bit about Five Branches University and some of the great things that we have to offer our prospective students and students that participate in our programs. One thing that we’re really excited about right now is our new dual-degree Doctor of Traditional Chinese Medicine and Master of Traditional Chinese Medicine program. For those of you that are new to the profession of acupuncture and oriental medicine, this is a large step within the development of the profession. Right now, we’re one of only three schools in the country that have been approved to offer this new dual-degree program, so we’re very excited to do that.

02:32 Chase: If you have any more information and have any questions regarding the specifics of that degree, feel free to give us a call. Like they had mentioned already, you can write a little question on the right side of the screen there, and then we can answer some more of those questions at the end of the webinar today. So today, we get an opportunity to get a glimpse into the subtleties of traditional Chinese medicine and this will be brought to you by one of our experienced faculty members here at Five Branches. We’re very lucky at Five Branches to have such a strong and high level of quality professors, and we have a great amount of them as well too. That’s one of the main reasons why I chose to attend this university. I just recently graduated in December. So without further ado, I guess we’ll go ahead and go ahead and start this.