Advice for TTC with Femara/Letrazole?

Comment by Chad J. Dupuis, L.Ac.

What advice specifically are you looking for?

Obviously we would be biased on this site for you to continue with acupuncture treatment during the process instead of looking at them as opposing treatments. So I guess without knowing more that would be my recommendation.

Generally speaking (very generally) Chinese Medicine can be a slower process because you are working on truly correcting the underlying imbalances - it can miss due to it’s lack of pushiness so to speak. Generally the western side has lower results because of the strength and pushiness - if your body revolts against being forced hormonally into places that it is uncomfortable with it just won’t work. While clinically I do a little more than 50% of our cases only with Chinese Medicine and the other with a combination, a combination can actually be quite helpful. The better majority of our fertility cases at least are people who have already spent years going the western route first and simply gave up and our seeing us as a last ditch effort.

I’ve answered similar questions before on the site, but it is encouraging that you at least were able to get pregnant previously, that reduces many of the unknowns.

Basically, unless you are asking something else, don’t look at them as mutually exclusive.

I am curious what formulas you were on and what doses though and how frequent you obtained acupuncture treatment. There are many different methods, so it’s good to try to ensure that you received appropriate treatment.

Comment by Archived User

Just to give you some context while 8 months admittedly can seem like a long time especially with your age as a factor you might have simply needed to stick with the acupuncture a little longer.

I’ve worked with patients before who were for all intents and purposes perfectly healthy yet had problems with conceiving. One patient was a year or two younger than you, very active with healthy diet, regular cycles, and no family history of fertility issues. I worked with her for over a year before she got pregnant.

As long as you’re not a vegetarian you should look into eating a small amount of organic red meat each week - a few meatball sized portions should suffice. And I’d recommend making or buying bone broth soup. That is a very common food therapy for infertility in China.

You could also look into Yoga for fertility. I have no experience with that myself but it couldn’t hurt. There are numerous guides and youtube videos so you wouldn’t necessarily even need to pay for classes.

Comment by Archived User

Thanks,
I think the discouraging part was that with no treatments of any sort (TCM or western) I got pregnant quite easily (within two months each time), though they resulted in miscarriage, but I assumed then with TCM treatment it would happen at least almost as quickly as before, yet 8 months has gone by with no luck.
She had me on variations of Liu wei di huang wan, and ginseng-based custom formulas in follicular phases, and variations of gui zhi fu ling wan, and cinnamon-based custom formulas in luteal phases.
She told me were I to continue treatment, she wouldn’t be giving me any herbs while taking the femara/letrozole. Not sure she meant just during the follicular phase, or the whole time.
I guess any advice at all would be good. The next few months I think are the last shots we’re giving TTC before giving up, it’s been too emotionally draining on me…

Comment by Chad J. Dupuis, L.Ac.

I understand how discouraging it can be. Even with all the years I’ve done fertility treatments, even with extremely high success rates, I still can’t say I deeply understand the process. There is a lot happening to our bodies and to women’s bodies in particular right now via diet, environment, societal influences, etc. that is hard to quantify. And, ultimately, conception is still part of the great mystery - west or east we have no really deep understandings of how it even happens.

Now for you specifically it wouldn’t be that uncommon for your body to need a break after a couple miscarriages. I don’t know enough about your case to really comment on the herbal part, but (if you continue treatment) I would ask your practitioner if they would consider some more blood building formulas - which I’m guessing would be a better fit.

If you are going the western medication route, that is entirely fine, but then I would strongly consider continuing (or finding another practitioner and continuing) acupuncture during that process. Research wise, generally, you have a significant improvement timing acupuncture treatments with western interventions, or the western treatments alone.