To restore healthy – ( a state that you may be yet to experience).
As your health improves, all the apparently unrelated problems, will diminish.
Your fertility will return.
So will your ability to stay pregnant . ..
Providing HIS sperm was not just the least possible (especially as that limit has been recently dropped to only 3% normal (yes you read that right – making your precious baby wth 97% rubbish sperm does seem a little silly .. .).
A more likely result will happen if there is at least 50% normal and at least 100 million per ml . . .anything less is why pregnancy naturaly of through artificial means may well not be happening – forget about maternal age and your medical problems – the REAL reproductive problem seems to be the sperm quality.
Read Male Factors in infertility .
Your focus in coming in for treatment may well have been the need to get pregnant. My focus as an acupuncturist is to get your blood energy to a level that it can support a well pregnancy/baby and mother. Hence no false starts.
Blood Energy, Pregnancy And Beyond
The quality of our blood energy dictates the quality of our pregnancies and life beyond this. The appropriate development of the fetus, easy birthing and the post birth ease of mothering are also blood energy indicators. Thus to become a well bleeding woman, with healthy, shining hair, skin and nails, with mental and emotional clarity and stability, and an orderly regular waking/ sleeping cycle, will greatly enhance the chances of desired state of motherhood.
A healthy pregnancy unfolding in its own time to an inner schedule is also an indication of the strength of our jing (loosely constitution/kidney energy). If there are pre conceptual difficulties here (in the QUALITY of either or both sperm and egg), easy conception of a strong, sturdy child may not occur. Getting an egg to unite with a sperm is not a guarantee of the beginning of a family dynasty.
It is all very well to listening to me explain the logic in a return to wellness processes, and waiting more time before starting a baby. It is however, an emotional subject, feeling thwarted by the inability to do what you want, when you planned. HOWEVER, by working to counteract the years of accumulated energy blockages, toxic build-ups, and neglectful exhaustion, you will notice a return of energy, good humour, enthusiasm, clear skin, glowing hair and a normalisation of periods along the way.
If you are not having a healthy period, how is it that you expect that if you conceive a healthy fetus? How is it that you expect your body to magically adjust to create a healthy pregnancy, organising an easy and safe birth, a healthy baby, and a healthy mother to look after it?
Role of The Energy of Blood in the Body
Blood energy within our body is that which allows us to be well nourished, well connected and well integrated. The quality of our blood energy, gives us vibrancy, lusciousness, youthfulness, the overall attractiveness that is sought after in the mating game. It is also that which encourages our skin, nails and hair to grow well, our emotional and mental health to flourish, and our memory, thinking and sleeping to be harmonious and clear, and its unimpeded circulation allows us the ease of transitions from one phase of life into others.
You can not take a shortcut. It always comes back to unblocking the liver energy, and whether there is sufficient blood quality and quantity in circulation to nourish it.
A Normal Period
What is that, you may ask? One which arrives without fanfare, build-up, fuss, and marks its presence by bleeding only. One that gets on with the job, not too heavy, not too scant, and then stops, like a tap turned off, to return 28/9 days after the beginning of the last one. The normal period has no symptoms. You start bleeding. The colour and quantity of the menstrual blood should be red, not watery or clotted. The flow should be even, not stopping and starting. Four or five days later, you stop bleeding. The experience is not supposed to be traumatic, or get in the way of a moderate life. Exhaustion and illness are not part of the well woman blueprint.
If this is not what you have ever experienced, it may sound ridiculous -being a bleeding woman without migraines, back ache, pimples, outrageous clots and flooding, mood swings, constipation, increase in clothes sizes, general debility and railing at the Universe for cursing you with the female form . . ..
All these symptoms are indications that the system is not working properly. An energy explanation borrowed from the acupuncture framework is a common sense, easily grasped account of being a woman -changing levels of blood and energy over the monthly tidal system. Reading my book “Living In It”, especially the normal woman’s monthly changes, and how to work with your body, not against it, will enable you to see what you can do to encourage a more friendly relationship between you and your menstruation.
What Blood Energy Does
Blood energy in the body nourishes. Its quality is seen in the lustre of the skin, the shine of the hair, the strength in the nails, one’s emotional and sleeping stability, and the ease with which the menstrual process proceeds. Blood energy allows the muscles and tendons and ligaments to be well lubricated.
Any states of tension, especially recurrent stiff neck and shoulders may be more an issue of blood circulation and emotional constriction than a straightforward structural problem, explaining why continual trips to the chiropractor/physio/masseur only relieve temporarily.
Blood energy allows mental and emotional harmony to triumph, regardless of circumstance. Sleeping quality issues, especially light and disturbed sleeping, and awakening unable to return to sleep are generally an indication of the quality and free circulation of the allied liver energy, that is itself nourished by the blood.
Treatment with acupuncture and Chinese herbs easily addresses all issues of blood energy quality and its circulation, thus those parts of who you thought made up “you” may be ready for change.
If your nails are flaking, splitting, breaking off and lacking in strength, this is a marker of your blood energy’s quality. If your hair is also dull, lifeless, splitting, losing colour, looking withered and straw-like, or generally not growing properly, and possibly falling out – this is also a blood energy concern, although may indicate a deeper level disorder within the body.
The deeper, more constitutional aspects of self are allied to the kidney energy (jing). Our kidney energy dictates the strength of the ovulation and lubrication issues within the reproductive area, and the state of the head hair is a marker of its health – hence hair and nail problems indicate a deeper quality issue requires attention.
Why We Bleed Regularly
A state of relative excess blood energy should exist in women once they reach the early teens, as the process of menstruation kicks in. When this relative excess blood energy is stored in reserve, for the possibility of growing another being, it is regularly discharged, to be renewed, and shed if unrequired, month after month, giving us regular periods of bleeding, followed by the re-growth of another possible inner baby nest.
For the reproductive life of the woman, her body creates this potential for new life, to tear it down and start again, often for over three decades. Regardless of the wishes of the personality. Regardless of what raw ingredients are being internally manufactured, or available.
Throughout the dating years, the study years, the dieting years, the emotionally fraught times when eating and being kind to self may have become lost in the emotional roller-coaster of relationships, children and interpersonal dramas, the monthly ebb and flow of life currents continues. Unrelentingly creating and destroying potential baby nests
The never-ending biological imperative thwarted in our sexually active years with interventions designed to stop conception. The body always attempts to create the perfect spot for regenerating the species. Do we honour this process? Do we even acknowledge its presence in our lives? Do we respect ourselves as the constant changes create cycles of relative depletion and excess in our blood energy?
Do we pay attention to the blockages and consequences of our life experiences as they have impacted upon our energy fields? Do we moderate our week at the times when we are feeling the call to rest as the inner processes impact upon us? Do we withdraw from sexual union, respecting the need for downward flow? What of tampons?
As we all pretend that we are up to the burdens of daily life, ignoring our inner schedules, and the possible cyclic drain this has upon us, we are encouraging the very problems we wish to be relieved of.
Simple common sense would dictate that in the week leading up to a period, when the body is putting aside extra in case of pregnancy, semi-starving in order to fit into a particular dress will lead to extra inner depletion that must be accounted for, from somewhere. That in the time after bleeding, especially if heavy loss is encountered, extra nourishment and possibly rest would be required to assist in the speedy return to good health.
Is The Blood Energy Moving?
Is the blood energy able to move as designed to, or is it distorted by our structural, emotional, and energic blockages? Are there scars locally, from exploratory investigations, surgical procedures, and navel piercings? Is there cold residue from cumulative cold exposure, or at very vulnerable times of periods or birthing? Is sexual orgasm achieved with every sexual encounter?
The Liver Energy
The Liver lines of energy (meridians, or channels), run around, through and into all the internal and external genital regions. As such, any energy flow obstruction, structural misalignment, piercings, scarring, and especially inadequate sexual release, will create an energy blockage.
The resulting energy flow distortions, particularly of dammed up unreleased sexual sensations, will over time can create pockets of blood energy stagnation, leading eventually to actual physical accumulations of extra tissue, sometimes being discharged monthly, and sometimes growing as extra to requirements, throughout the pelvic cavity. (Think of endometriosis, fibroids, cysts, blocked tubes, and tumours of every description).
The introduction of artificial hormones, to ‘regulate’ the cycle, often results in the Liver organ being offended by the extra load in detoxifying the foreign chemicals. A diet rich in all the trappings of a modern life style, coupled with the stressful executive ‘no time’ constraints, does not allow the body/mind /self to process appropriately. The pretence of life’s hits and grievances being “behind us’, as we are ‘over it’, takes a toll in our energy systems, as they become clogged with debris, not visible, yet present.
The pathway of the Liver meridian runs over and through the genital (inner and external), abdomen, and breasts, hence any disruption to our emotional state is likely to impinge upon the normal flow of energy through these tissues, resulting in pain and discomfort, as blockage eventually solidifies into something more solid, and possibly sinister. The Liver energy within our body is that which allows the free flowing of every aspect of self. When we feel thwarted, when we essentially don’t get our own way – in whatever it is, on whatever level, it blocks up the circulation of every aspect of self. Initially this may show as digestive disharmonies – maybe in bowel irregularities, or stress related anythings.
Added to the emotional resentments, disappointments, anger and suppressed rage, it is no wonder that cancers, cysts, fibroids, endometriosis and bleeding disorders plague modern woman. To expect our uterus and set of ovaries to magically respond to an artificially induced ‘normal’ cycle, become pregnant, and follow the blueprint to normal delivery of healthy baby from a healthy mother, may be asking a little much. Especially if you start from where your blood energy is deficient in quality or amount, and/or is not flowing well.
Post Birth
Breast milk quality and quantity issues are entirely blood energy related. Thus, if there is a post birth haemorrhage, breastfeeding may be compromised.
The quantity may be there, but the quality for nourishment may be lacking. The mother’s ability to stay on top of things, to not become vulnerable and wounded, to stay out of postnatal depression, is also a function of the strength of the blood energy. This is the argument for transfusions, if there is any doubt after a post birth haemorrhage.
The ability to replenish in sleep is also dependent on the blood quality. Our blood quality anchors our consciousness in sleep. If we have depleted or weakened blood energy, our sleep will become disturbed. If the mother has taken pride in being a natural worrier, (a symptom of disordered blood energy), the extra demands of birthing and lactation may give rise to a viscous circle of sleep deprivation and illogical fears and behaviours.
Checklist
To ensure once pregnant everything sails through,
- Are your fingernails strong and flexible?
- Is your hair healthy, staying rooted to your scalp, vibrant and alive?
- Is your menstrual blood flow lustrous and easy, a bright red colour, not gushing or dribbling out, always on time, and never a bother?
- Is sleeping a pleasure and easy to achieve?
- Are you emotionally stable and happy?
(If not, the blood energy that nourishes all these aspects of self may be absent, partially explaining why, as yet, successful conception is lacking. Your body is wise enough to recognise that there is not enough to nourish you, hence not enough for a healthy junior).
BY TAKING RESPONSIBILTY OF YOUR INNER GARDEN, YOU TAKE CHARGE OF YOUR FRUITS.
Start looking about your life, and re-prioritising.
Is your life as you have scripted it, allowing you to enjoy your partner, your self and living?
If you have no time, how will you cope with a baby as well?
Will you have the skills to just be – to enjoy stillness, non-action, and being in tune with another?
Will pregnancy really fulfil you and your marriage?
What to Do to Improve Blood Energy Quality
Blood energy is ultimately manufactured from the interaction of the digestive and breathing cycles. These are dependent on being able to function well. Please become acquainted with the information in my two books “Living As Energy“, and “Living in It“. Production of good quality body energy is not possible whilst the emotional energies stored, often from decades past, are still running the show, behind the conscious self.
The liver energy has to be able to move freely. If it is blocked, you may have one, or a number of Stuck Liver Qi symptoms (oterewise called hormonal) – ovulation pain, PMT., breast and/or abdominal swelling, pain and/or swelling or cyclic disturbances pre-period, moodiness, history of abdominal interventions or ectopic pregnancy . . . . . Anything that is felt as obstruction, fullness, and depression. (Blocked energy leads to blocked matter).
The quickest way out of all of this is to allow the blueprint to resurface.
Go back to nature, and simplify everything possible. Work through and remove ALL anger, hatreds, betrayals and deep-seated family feuds. Enjoy loving, fulfilling sexual expression. Enjoy the differences of male and female, rather than wishing they were more the same. They would not be attractive to us if they were. . .
Sign up for life – exercise, fun and laughter, rather than slogging away for supposed future benefits.
Practically
Take Liver Qi moving herbs, build up the blood energy, breathe more, move your body. Polycystic ovaries are very under-diagnosed – if you have trouble losing weight, seem to be getting hairier, more pimply and bleeding less redly, this is possibly occurring.
Being prescribed the pill to regulate periods, control pain and bleeding is a very standard medical tactic. It is very alarming to see the energy blockages and weaknesses ignored, as they are warnings of future physical problems, if not rebalanced..
The pill compounds the original situation, and by the time a woman has ‘tried’ everything’ and seeks help at the natural level, there is vast energy mismanagement to be undone. It is reversible, but not through further hormonal wars. Rebalancing the factors that lead to its development will.