SPEAKER_01 0:01

Welcome back to the Fertility Suite Podcast Series 3, where we're bringing the fertility experts to you so you can make the most informed, educated choices about your fertility. Hi everybody, and welcome back to another episode of the Fertility Suite Podcast. And today joining me is the lovely Kate Elizabeth, who is also known as the Cheshire Acupuncturist. So some of you may already know Kate, and Kate is a fellow acupuncturist, and today we're going to be talking all about how acupuncture can support your fertility and going a little bit more in depth into that. So hi Kate, welcome.

SPEAKER_00 0:34

Hello, thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_01 0:36

No, thanks for coming. Do you want to tell our listeners a little bit more about yourself, like and and how you came to become an acupuncturist and what you specialise in? Yeah, and then we'll crack on.

SPEAKER_00 0:45

Yeah, sure. So I've only really told this story over the last couple of years, and I've never really told it in the years prior to that. But I got into acupuncture initially, not through my own health challenges, but my grandma was diagnosed with breast cancer and she was extremely poorly. She was going through conventional medicine, she was having a lot of side effects. And I had always been someone that was interested in health. I used to read about it. I wasn't in that field of work, but it was just a hobby of mine. And when she was diagnosed with cancer, it was just a bit of a shock to the system because I had a little bit of health anxiety, I would say, when I was younger. I feel like I've got on top of that now. But when I was younger, I really had health anxiety. So when I heard someone that's so close to home had that, and I was really close to my grandma, it just kind of sent my nervous system into a bit of a shock. So my first couple of thoughts were, you know, is this genetic? Am I gonna get this? And secondly, is there anything that I can do to kind of help her? So I just started to kind of research and I came across acupuncture, and I just really resonated with it. It was like I just found, I just kind of honed in and zoned it, and I was like, this is amazing. And I really, even though it's a completely different way of thinking, I really understood the way they explain the body in a more poetic way. And long story short, is I took my grandma for acupuncture. She really, really benefit benefited from it, and I thought, right, I just I've got to train in this. So I actually I was in a job that I hated anyway, and I was I was in my very early 20s, and I just thought, I need to, I need to do, I need to do this. This is the time, and I actually found somewhere where I could train that was five minutes away from my house that I never knew existed. So it's just kind of like the stars aligned, and that was it. My life was acupuncture from that thought, to be honest with you. It just opened up a whole new world. So um, yeah, I I then went on to train for three years, and even from day one in practice, I was seeing 10 patients a day because I was kind of thrown in at the deep end, and that was so nerve-wracking in the beginning, as someone that was so young as well. However, it's probably the best thing that I could have ever done because I learned very, very quickly. I was treating a lot of digestive stuff, I was actually treating a lot of men with PTSD, which was quite funny for a little old 20-year-old me. I remember getting someone their driving license back after having seizures for so many years, and then I worked in so many different practices over the years, and the managers in the practices kept saying to me, Kate, will you treat fertility? Will you treat fertility? And I declined it for a good couple of years because I didn't feel like I was the right person. I was quite young, I didn't have children myself, and then one day the manager just kind of threw me at the deep end again, and I was kind of used to this deep end by now, so I thought, right, I've got to go with it. And um I realized very, very quickly that even though the the patients were coming in wanting to conceive, it was all about the elements that kind of brought that together. And I got results very quickly and helped a lot of people very quickly, and then it it just kind of spread like wildfire, and that's how it all started.

SPEAKER_01 4:04

And it's snowballed, and here you are. I think that really resonate with that story as well. And I love the fact that you know, everything it's timing, isn't it? Like, you know, there was somewhere around the corner where you could train, like everything just kind of fell into place.

SPEAKER_00 4:15

Yeah. Yeah, it's very surreal back in the day, but it was the best thing that could have happened.

SPEAKER_01 4:20

Yeah, and you have a really, really busy practice now, don't you? So obviously it was the right thing because people love you. So yeah. So you touched a little bit about with your with your health anxiety. I think this is like really common nowadays, health anxiety, right? And it of anxieties in life come from an experience with something. So, like you talked about with your grandmother, you know, you had that worry that something was going to happen to you. And this kind of puts our nervous system into that like fight or flight, doesn't it? And so, do you want to talk a little bit about how acupuncture can really help support the nervous system? Like explain that a little bit more to our listeners. Obviously, I know how it can help, but I think unless you've had acupuncture, for a lot of people it's a bit weird, right? And that's why I wanted to get you on to come and talk a little bit more about it in a depth.

SPEAKER_00 5:06

So I think it's really important to explain what the nervous system actually is, because that phrase is thrown around a lot in this world, and I think context really matters. So your nervous system is essentially your body's communication network, it's the wiring between your brain, every organ, including your ovaries, your uterus, thyroid, adrenal glands, and it decides whether your body is in survival mode or whether it's in safe mode. So you have two branches of the nervous system. So we have the sympathetic nervous system, which is your fight and flight, and your parasympathetic nervous system, which is your rest, repair, and reproduction. And reproduction falls in the second category, essentially. So it falls into being in a parasympathetic nervous system. So an example of a nervous system in action may be your brain senses of stress, emotional, physical, could be blood sugar, overtraining, lack of sleep. It shifts you into a fight and flight. And in that state, your your fertility essentially can come become non-essential. So the body prioritizes survival over ovulation or over a healthy ovulation. So in this sense, the body is not against you, and that's just your biology, and it's a protective mechanism for your safety. And then from a Chinese medicine perspective, we don't really use the phrase nervous system in the way that Western medicine does. However, we do absolutely treat it. So when someone is chronically stressed, we often see what we would call liver cheese stagnation, you know, heart disturbances, kidney depletion. So these show up in symptoms like irritability, tension, specifically head and neck tension, palpitations, lower back pain, and it's just kind of your embod your body's internal energy, which is either stuck, it's exhausted, is overheated. And that's a Chinese medicine way of describing the nervous system dysregulation. So acupuncture helps because we place the needles into our patients, we stimulate the sensory nerves in the skin and the tissues, and those signals travel up to the brain, and then they influence the areas that control stress, hormones, your heart rate, inflammation. So cortisol then begins to regulate, your blood vessels dilate, the body shifts out of that mode, and then acupuncture gives your body chance for you to reset and recalibrate you essentially. So if you've had it, you'll know what I mean. I always explain it to my patients like having a glass of wine. And that sells them straight away. That first sip of wine after you stressed, I kind of explained that's the feeling that you get in acupuncture. So when your nervous system shifts into safety and your blood flow improves and your reproductive organs improve, and hormone signaling strengthens, ovulation then becomes more consistent and then you become more fertile. So fertility is not just about the ovaries in isolation, it's about you know how the brain feels enough to let the ovaries do the job and your nervous system.

SPEAKER_01 8:05

Yeah, something that's not talked about enough, right, is the effect of the nervous system on not just fertility, but our overall health and well-being. And I love that analogy. It's like the first sip of wine, it's so true.

SPEAKER_00 8:14

Yeah, it's so, so true. People think I'm lying and then they have it, they're like, oh my god, yeah, that's so true.

SPEAKER_01 8:20

Yeah. And I think always think it's interesting when people like fall asleep literally within minutes of the first needle going in, or you can actually visibly, as practitioners, you can see the body relax, can't you? And you can see the body start to let go. It is fascinating. From you know, obviously, if you're laying on the couch enjoying it, it's amazing. But from a practitioner perspective as well, I find it really fascinating that you can visibly. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. And that links into hormone regulation as well, doesn't it, right? Because cortisol is really important for our hormones. So, do you want to talk a little bit more about how acupuncture specifically supports hormones, you know, in context?

SPEAKER_00 8:52

Yeah, sure. So acupuncture helps to regulate parts of the brain that are involved in your reproductive hormone signaling. So things like FSH, LH, oestro germ, progesterone, and it helps your cycle to become more coordinated and better timed. And again, it all comes back to your nervous system. So your brain, specifically a part called the hypothalamus, is constantly checking and scanning your environment. So it's thinking, you know, am I safe? Am I stressed? Is there enough? Am I sleeping? And all these things sound very, very simple. And essentially it is quite simple. So it gathers information through your nervous system, which is like your internal wiring, and then your brain sends messages to the pituitary. The pituitary then sends messages to the ovaries, and then the ovaries release the hormones that prepare the uterus. So if that is slightly off, then you may still have a regular period, but things just aren't quite optimal. So you might know of you an egg, but it's not fully matured, or you'll make progesterone, but it's not enough to sustain implantation, or you might just have generally normal cycles that don't lead to pregnancy. And this is kind of where acupuncture can really come in because it improves that communication loop between the brain and the ovaries and calms your nervous system to allow the brain to actually do its job better. So it's a bit like tuning tuning a radio in, like it's it's a bit fuzzy, but then put the needles in and then the signal becomes clearer. Um, so you know, depending on how strong that signal is from the brain to the ovaries will depend on how, you know, the strength of the follicle. Um so when people come in for a consistent regular treatment, we do often notice that they have a more consistent ovulation, they'll have better follicle development, they'll have stronger progesterone, they'll notice things like reduced PMS or you know, longer lose heal phase, and generally more predictable cycles, especially for those that have irregular cycles, we do notice quite a shift with those because going from a regular to more regular is a bit more you can see the changes better than if you just have a regular cycle, and noticing that shortening of uh the overall length of your cycle. So essentially it helps your body regulate on its own. We're not injecting any anything into anyone. I have been asked that before. I'm just like, no, we're not doing that, and it doesn't add hormones. People have asked me, does it add hormones? I'm like, no, it doesn't. It's a completely safe way to regulate your body's own internal system. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:28

We're just nudging the body, aren't we, as an acupuncturist? Your body's doing the work. We're nudging your body to do what it should do naturally and just get it back into that like state of balance, right?

SPEAKER_00 11:39

Yeah, yeah, definitely.

unknown 11:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:42

And you talked a little bit about like regular ovulation. There was also a study done within the last year that showed that acupuncture had a comparable effect on regulating cycles, as using ovulation induction medication, things like clomidation.

SPEAKER_00 11:56

Yeah, I saw that. It was amazing. It's amazing.

SPEAKER_01 12:01

And it just goes to show actually, yeah, when your body's in that sort of natural state of what we call like Western digest, that things will things will do as they should do. So, in terms of like when we compare this to Western medicine, like how does acupuncture kind of fill that gap between someone who might be going to their doctor and told, well, the reason you're not falling pregnant is unexplained. As acupuncturists, how do we then explain that we can help people to fall pregnant? Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_00 12:33

Yeah, so when someone comes to see me in clinic, because I I work both Western and Chinese medicine, and I try and integrate both so that people have that, you know, Western understanding, but also a holistic understanding as well. So Western medicine is brilliant and it's there to spot you know, diagnosable problems. I always say to people, you wouldn't go and have acupuncture if you'd just been run over in the road. I will not be getting my needles out if you're run over. You know, it's great for these more long-term chronic situations or possible years of unexplained infertility. So Western medicine is often looking at things like blocked tubes, low sperm count, you know, anovulatory recycles, thyroid disease. But when everything comes back in range, that investigation then stops. So you're still not getting pregnant. So the system is designed to find pathology, but not early dysfunction. And this is where, if you're a Chinese medicine practitioner, this is where our training really comes into its own. Because we are trained to look at patterns and the language of the body before it actually manifests in the physical. Like the meridians are energetic meridians. This is where we needle into the pathways with acupuncture. So we're always looking at things that are how the body's communicate, how communicating before you know the sperm count is low, or before there's no ovulation, or before there's a thyroid-related issue. Obviously, for us, we of we often see those things that are already manifested. So we're kind of trying to reverse engineer that process. But if we were to see someone coming in that you know was fairly healthy but they had a few symptoms, then we would do it the other way around. So things like, you know, again, your nervous system being dysfunctional or weak ovulation, low progesterone, obviously, that's a big one we see in clinic, blood sugar, low good inflammation, they don't get much attention because they don't show up as a clear diagnosis unless I say you're a Chinese medicine practitioner and you learn to understand the patterns and the symptoms and the blood work. So that's how people end up with um, you know, you're ovulating, your scans look fine, your bloods are normal, we don't know why you're not pregnant. So hence the label unexplained fertility. So the next step is often IBF. Um because, you know, not because it's always needed, but because there isn't that, there's not the nuance there, there's not the middle ground, and we are very much the middle ground when it comes to these kind of things. And it's kind of getting the patient on board and understanding that because there's been so much brainwashing that if you know if you can't find anything physical, then you need to go for IBF. It's almost like an internal pressure, and I really understand and relate to it as a patient because we've all had that pressure, doesn't necessarily mean in a medical setting, but we've all we've all got those, you know, beliefs and thought patterns that, oh, we must do this because this is this is the norm. But yeah, I really try and help educate my patients that there's a bit of a grey area, and they're very much looking at pathology, and we're we're kind of the other end of that. We're kind of trying to read the body's signs and symptoms so that we can regulate the system so that you you don't need to go for IVF. So, yeah, we we ask a lot of questions.

SPEAKER_01 15:57

Yeah. So many people do with who struggle with fertility fall into that grey area, right? It's actually it's quite rare that you see a patient who is just very clearly needs IVF. Like there's this this huge gap in between. And like you said, uh Western medicine looks at dysfunction and diagnosis in a completely different way.

SPEAKER_00 16:19

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, they do very much. It also leaves the patient, you know, quite vulnerable because they don't they're not getting pregnant, but they don't know what's wrong. And you know, they they might not even work with somebody like us, they might just be at home and left, you know, to Google the symptoms. So, you know, definitely find a practitioner that can help you put those pieces together and just make you realise that the majority of these problems in quotation marks are fixable. Yeah, just the right tools to be able to do that.

SPEAKER_01 16:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:48

Also, I'm not bashing IVF, like it is needed, and for some people, and it's an amazing advancement in in today's world. There's nothing wrong with having IVF, but also we know it's not the answer, the be-all and end all. We need to prepare for IVF just like we'd be preparing for a natural pregnancy as well.

SPEAKER_01 17:05

Yeah, absolutely. And that's something that's really key, right? Like it might be that someone ends up having IVF after trying acupuncture for X amount of time, but you will go into that IVF cycle having a much better regulated nervous system, your hormones will be much better balanced. You'll probably feel a lot better going into that cycle, you know. And if you go in with a more regular cycle, everything's naturally better, you're going to have better follicle development at IVF. And we know that one of the key fertility indicators is good blood flow to the follicles, right? Like you need to have good blood flow, good vascularity in the pelvic region, and acupuncture is amazing for that as well, right?

SPEAKER_00 17:46

Yeah, I don't know about you, but I actually found COVID to be really beneficial for our industry because people were actually trying things that they wouldn't normally try because they couldn't get in with the GP and found, you know, really good benefits from that. So I feel like that was a very good time for us in our in our industry to actually showcase our skills and what acupuncture can actually do.

SPEAKER_01 18:07

Yeah, absolutely. I think actually 2021 was my busiest year ever in terms of the number of patients coming through the door. Yeah. Yeah, which kind of says it all, doesn't it? When we're thinking outside the box a little bit when it comes to our health. And also taking a little bit more responsibility and advocating for ourselves a little bit more.

SPEAKER_00 18:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:27

Healthcare. So you touched on blood sugar, which I want to talk about a little bit more because as Chinese medicine practitioners, we actually use uh like Chinese medicine nutrition and dietetics to guide and advocate for our patients. So are you okay to talk a little bit more about yeah, the sorts of advice we would give someone around fertility and how the food we consume can really our overall health and well being?

SPEAKER_00 18:51

Yeah, definitely. So in clinic, I don't use food as a generic eat healthy kind of plan. I use it as a personalized medicine for that individual. So in Western medicine, we often look at fats, we look at carbs, we look at proteins, and there's nothing inherently wrong with that, but Chinese medicine looks at food completely differently. So, for example, what your body is actually showing us in terms of your cycle, your symptoms, your blood work, your energy, your digestion, your stress levels, from a Chinese medicine lens, we are looking at, you know, how balanced your qi is, which essentially is your energy, your blood, which nourishes the follicles, your yin, which you can think of like your cervical mucus, and your yang, which is like your warming element, which can correlate with progesterone. So fertility needs all four of those. So we kind of look at the person like a weather map, and we're trying to balance your internal environment with conception. So we naturally do that ourselves when we put ourselves in certain environments. So I will always say to my patients, when you go to a very cold country, we will naturally crave more warming drinks and meals. And if we go to a hot country, we may crave more cooling and nourishing foods inherently. So you know what to do to stay in the homeostasis. But when we're at home, it's like we tune out of that. It's like we don't know what to do for our body. So, in theory, what I'll do in clinic is if someone has low chi, so low energy, so that can show up in terms of you know, feeling tired, bloated, irregular cycles. We will generally focus on regular warming meals with enough protein so that the body actually has the energy to ovulate properly. The the chi is the fundamental, like we need enough energy in the first place to for our body to carry out these actions and these functions. So that usually looks like things like chicken, turkey soups, stews, oats, quinoa, you know, root vegetables, those kind of things, warm breakfasts, over smoothies. And you've probably seen this a lot on Instagram that there's lots of trending reels, but it's kind of annoying to us acupuncturists because we've known this for a very long time through our training. But of course, someone might have, you know, intolerant to oats or whatever it might be. So it's not that you have to have those, but we're looking at the energetic property of that food and what that food does. So if they're low in blood, they might have light periods, you know, a thin lining, you know, poor follicle development. So again, we prioritize protein because that's a building block and iron-rich foods, healthy fats, slow cooked meals. I recommend slow-cooked meals all the time in clinic because they're so bioavailable. And you know, when we put foods in the air fry air fryer, that essentially it causes a glycation to our food, and it just kind of you know what it's like if you've done something too much in the air fryer, it just comes out really rigid. So it's not exactly nice to eat. So when We're trying to build blood. The kind of foods that we might have are we can have lamb, we can have red meats, chicken thighs, I love chicken thighs, oily fish, salmon, some green leafy vegetables. So we're really tailoring the foods that they eat in accordance with their Chinese medicine diagnosis. And it doesn't mean to say you can't have an ice cream when you're on holiday or whatever it might be, because ice cream is classed as cold and contracting in Chinese medicine. But it just I always kind of reframe it as okay, you're low in qi or you're low in blood, you know, we need to support your follicles, we need to give your body the energy to carry out those actions, focus on these foods and add these foods in. We don't want to take away first because we actually find that's more stressful. So add these foods in. And we're essentially building those four foundations through doing that. And yeah, people always find like the weather map analogy quite interesting with them going on holiday in naturally because people can go, oh yeah, I do crave cooler drinks when I'm on holiday, or if I go to a cold country, I do crave warmer foods. So they understand that element, but like I say, when you're in your home environment, we just kind of lose sense of what do we do? It's kind of we forget.

SPEAKER_01 23:16

Yeah, you forget to tune in a little bit, right? Yeah, it's so true. I tend to drink more water because it's not as damp, right? And you just like, yeah, we're warmer. So if you had to pick like five foods that would be really beneficial for fertility, what foods would you pick just to give you gave a few, but like what would be your top ones?

SPEAKER_00 23:35

Red meats for sure. And I I do get questions you know from vegetarians and vegans. So red meat is preferable. However, if you can't do that, you really need to manage your energy as well. Because when we're stressed, we utilize so many minerals and nutrients to kind of fuel us through that stress. You never get something for nothing. So if you don't eat meat, then really manage your stress levels and your lifestyle because you're not going to be able to repopulate the nutrients in the same way as having, you know, some bioavailable, you know, slow-cooked red meat. So red meat would be one, eggs would be another one, generally speaking, for the majority of people. Again, very standard green leafy vegetables, especially because we find a lot of estrogen dominant related patients now. So we need the cruciferous vegetables to upregulate certain enzymes and make sure that we're breaking down estrogen efficiently. What else would I suggest? Red meat, eggs, leafy greens. I would probably say salmon, oily fish. I know we struggle with things like heavy metals and stuff now, but still, it's still beneficial. So get that in where you can. And lastly, I wouldn't say a food, but I would just try and say make sure that you're having your foods warm.

SPEAKER_01 24:55

Yeah, absolutely. I love the slow cooker. I love that you mentioned the slow cooker. I was a bit a bit old school when I get the slow cooker out, but I love it.

SPEAKER_00 25:01

No, it's so much easier as well. I actually find that you don't, I'm not really a good cook. I don't know why, because my parents are both amazing cooks and I'm horrendous. They can make a meal out of three items on a shelf, and I I can't do it. So I have to really think about it. So I love the slow cooker because you can just throw things in and it tastes amazing because you're kind of leaving it to marinade for over a you know a period of time. Yeah. But yeah, slow cooker meals.

SPEAKER_01 25:28

I like the fact that you talked about eating enough as well, because especially I feel like now we've got a bit more of a skinny culture coming back, right? And like not eating enough really puts your body into that like fight or flight, like it really dysregulates your nervous system. And I think you with all in the best will in the world, you could have acupuncture every week, but if you're not eating enough to fuel your body, that is not affect your fertility.

SPEAKER_00 25:52

It's really easy to to do that, actually. I tracked my own blood sugars about a year ago, and I'm a foodie, I absolutely love food, so I will be eating my three meals a day regardless. But ironically, when I tracked, I wasn't eating enough, even though I was eating three meals a day. Yeah. But I felt like I was, and I noticed this because I was tracking my uh blood sugars. I did that anyway because I have a film history of diabetes. I thought, let's just get on top of all this stuff now while I'm younger. And my blood sugars were dropping overnight religiously. And yeah, I mean, I have a you know high energy demanded lifestyle anyway, with with when in the clinics and everything. So I need to make sure that I keep my energy up. But I found that they were dropping every night. So I just did a little tweak and added, you know, a couple of hundred calories a day, and it stopped overnight, dramatically, just stopped. Really? That's amazing.

SPEAKER_01 26:47

Do you use back your blood sugar overnight?

SPEAKER_00 26:50

So I used the Freestyle Libra CGM monitor. You can get a two-week free trial. Well, you could back then, I'm not sure if you can now, but you could then. And yeah, you you get a two-week free trial. So if patients do that, especially ones that have got like insulin-resistant PTOS, it's just as long as there's got there's no history of eating disorder or anything like that, and they're they feel fine with it, then I encourage them to do that because what you respond to might be differently to what someone else responds to. I can't have coffee whatsoever, even if I have it with a meal after a meal, I cannot have it because it spikes my blood sugar so badly. Um, and I would never have known that if I didn't track.

SPEAKER_01 27:30

So were you drinking it before then?

SPEAKER_00 27:33

I was never really a coffee person, but I got into the habit just doing probably with my friends actually, and it got me into the habit, so I just started to do it. And um yeah, I wasn't really thinking about it, and then I did my CGM on it at a similar time, and then I noticed that I was getting crazy, crazy spikes when I had coffee. And I to be honest, I could I I cut it out because I'm not really overly bothered by it anyway. Like I say, it was just a habit. Yeah, but I know some people really, really love the coffee. Yeah, um, but yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:04

There's so many habits that we do all the time that we don't even realise we're doing, they're a bit mindless, aren't they? Like, oh well, grab you go for a coffee in inverted commas and you grab a coffee whether you really want it or not. And actually, you could have had a healthier alternative or something that didn't spite your blood sugar if you just thought decision a bit more, right?

SPEAKER_00 28:20

I'm a bit of a weirdo that loves green tea, actually. I genuinely really like the taste of it. People are like, Why how do you like that stuff? It's horrible and it's bitter, but I just I don't know, I just love it.

SPEAKER_01 28:30

Well, bitter's good in Chinese medicine, isn't it? Because it moves the heart chi and blood. Yeah. Yeah. So what would be like your top five tips for couples who are struggling to conceive, and maybe they've been told their fertility problems are unexplained, or maybe they don't know where to turn next, or they're in that gray area where you know we talked a little bit about the support from the Western medicine side of things, like there is this huge gap. Like, what would be your top five tips for couples who are kind of in that position right now?

SPEAKER_00 29:00

I would say find somebody to work with because it can get there's so much information out there. We're not we're not limited on information anymore. We're actually, I did a poll recently on my Instagram, and the majority of people were struggling with implementation, like they just don't know where to start because there is so much information out there, it's ridiculous. Um we're never short on information, but that's not always a good thing either. So I would say, you know, find someone that you can work with locally, whether that be an acupuncturist or a nutritionist or whatever kind of holistic practitioner, someone that understands fertility. And if also if you don't find a practitioner straight away that you like, keep looking because you you will find one eventually. I think finding the right practitioner is so important. You know, there's there's good and bad in every industry. So if you don't find the person straight away, just you know, keep looking. So definitely work with somebody if you're able to do so. Really work, like we've talked in the podcast today, on your nervous system, just because it's kind of like the foundation for how everything functions. So, you know, some people aren't into meditation, so go for a nice walk or do more. We forget to do the things that make us happy. I love a bath. You'll find me in the bath most days, have a bath, whatever it is for that person, and do whatever it is that you know makes you feel, you know, calm and reset and go back to that place as much as you need, whether it's a place, a walk, a bath, reading a book, whatever it is for that person. Protect your sleep, I would say. That's a big one. We know in Chinese medicine, ideally we want to be asleep before 10:30. Again, I know these are very, very basic, but they're just fundamental, whether you're going through IVF treatment, whether you're going through IUI, whether you're doing it naturally. So, yeah, really working on your sleep and getting enough sleep. We touched on eating enough. The amount of girls that I work with that have stopped their spotting alone just from upping their calories is unbelievable. You know, it's one of the first things that I'll mention to people before going down the route of doing all these extra things. And it does stop spotting from many people. So if that's a listener, someone's listening that is spotting, try that first because it can make a big, big difference. And I would say not to obsess over timing and maybe start looking more at quality and patterns. So there is a tendency when we really want something to fixate on individual, like BBT charting, I talk about that a lot, to fixate on no individual temperatures. Whereas really we want to zoom out and look at the pattern. And when we kind of focus on the overall pattern, that's going to help the entire system. There's no point in chasing kind of individual problems because it's just kind of adding to your task and to-do list of things that you need to check off for your fertility. So yeah, I would say that, but I would probably say the biggest one is you know, nailing the fundamentals and trying to work with someone that you know you can feel comfortable with.

SPEAKER_01 32:05

Um I love that you touched on like Google and things like that, because this is, you know, with AI, we have so much information at our fingertips now. Like it's really easy for a patient to actually get some really good quality information from the internet. But the issue, like you said, people are having is how you put that into context to your own situation and then what you do with that information. Like you could Google symptoms, you could get the answer to most things facility-related on the internet, but you don't know how you then fix that or how you change that. So, yeah, and it's so relevant, it's never been more relevant right now, right?

SPEAKER_00 32:40

Exactly. I I often will help my patients. I I kind of meet people where they are, but my kind of personality is I will help someone understand maybe why this isn't working. Like I do have a whiteboard and a marker pen in clinic, and I'll often draw like drawings to my patients to help them understand I'm quite a visual learner, so I might draw the communication between the brain and the over is and I'll help them kind of visualize it. Because I feel like when you you have the knowledge and the understanding, the why becomes a little bit easier in the sense that you know it's that intention. So, okay, I'm taking let's just I'm taking COQ ten today because this is gonna really support my echo quality. It's just those little things, so having the understanding and the intention behind why you're doing something can make a massive difference by itself.

SPEAKER_01 33:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:35

So yeah, I love to explain.

SPEAKER_01 33:37

I'm gonna go and buy a whiteboard now. I love that. Yeah, get your whiteboard because a lot of people are visual, right? Like I'm visual like you, and yeah, if you can help explain things to patients. I like that you touched on doing things you enjoy as well, because in Chinese medicine there's a huge link between what we call like the joy of the heart, the heart chi and the connection to the uterus and fertility and doing things you enjoy. Again, it's something that we've lost the art of a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 34:04

Yeah, the Chinese sing, don't they? Even if they're terrible, they will sing. And when I was training, I was in a my college was a Chinese medicine college, so I was quite immersed in the culture, and even I cringed some of the singing, but they loved it, that was their joy, so they didn't care.

SPEAKER_01 34:24

Yeah, yeah. Doing things you love is like so important. And like you said, even if it's like something simple, like having a bath or going for a bite to eat with your girlfriend, something that lifts your soul, and it's also really good for your nervous system, right? Like anything you would try.

SPEAKER_00 34:37

It's very good for pedestrian, very good for pedestrian when we do those things, especially spending time with your girlfriends as well.

SPEAKER_01 34:45

Yeah, there you go. If anyone needed an excuse to go out for lunch with their girlfriends, yeah, they've given you that reason. Thanks so much, Kate. That has been super helpful. And I feel like you've explained how Chinese medicine supports fertility and overall health and well-being, like really eloquently. And hopefully our listeners will really engage with that and understand a little bit more because I'm always on a mission to make acupuncture more understandable. Because, like I said at the beginning, if you've never had it and you don't really know what it is, it it can seem a bit woo-woo, and we're really not, we're very normal.

SPEAKER_00 35:17

I come from the most analytical, logical-minded family, so I'm the black sheep, anyways. I feel like I've had to get good at explaining this because they quiz me at every single moment. So, yeah, it does work.

SPEAKER_01 35:28

Yeah, you did a great job. Thank you. So, if our listeners would like to get in touch with you, whether that's to come and see you for some acupuncture, or come see one of your team, or just to get some general advice and help and support, where can they find you and how can people work with you?

SPEAKER_00 35:42

Yeah, so you can find me personally at the Cheshire Acupuncturist on Instagram, or my website is Cheshoacupuncturist.com. And you can find the clinic and my whole team where we have acupuncturists, nutritionists, functional medicine, CBT therapy, all sorts of other fantastic treatments to support those on their fertility journey. And you can find us at Junip at the Juniper Clinic on Instagram and juniperclinic.co.uk is our website.

SPEAKER_01 36:13

Great. Thank you, Kate. What I'll do is I'll pop for anyone listening, I'll put all those details in the episode notes. So if you would like to get in touch with Kate, you just have a little look in the episode notes and you will find her contact details. But yeah, thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me. That was so good.