Patient spotlight:  Heartbreaking miscarriage (Berkeley Acupuncture)

Sandrine, a healthy, 41 year old female patient came to us.  She had been trying to conceive for 3 years and had gotten pregnant twice times, but sadly had suffered 2 miscarriages.  Her Western MD team had run many hormone tests, FSH, LH, Estradiol, Prolactin, etc., but they left out one very important group of tests: a thrombophilia panel.  A thrombophilia issue is an abnormality of blood coagulation that increases the risk of thrombosis, thereby causing miscarriage.  Usually a patient will only be tested for this group of tests after their third miscarriage (if they are lucky) and some of the thrombophilia tests will never be tested if a patient has carried to full term in a previous pregnancy.  At Tao to Wellness, we have a seen a handful a patients fall into this category with just one miscarriage and some of the women have had healthy babies and still, when tested, test positive for the genetic mutations.  We don’t wait.  And we didn’t with Sandrine because two months into our care she got pregnant again!  They trick for Sandrine is to help her carry to full term.  Acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine play a huge part in this, but still we need to make sure all her thrombophillia tests check out.  So, we urged her to talk with her doctor (in the state of California, an acupuncturist can order blood labs, but insurance will not reimburse for them).  After much unfortunate back and forth with Sandrine’s Reproductive Endocrinologist, we finally ordered some of the tests ourselves.  Low and behold, she tested positive for the MTHFR/homozygous gene mutation.  Most of this is probably Greek to you, but the point is we discovered the missing piece of the puzzle.  Sandrine was referred to a pernatalogist immediately and put on Heparin for the remainder of her pregnancy, because once discovered it’s an easy fix.  She carried to full term and had a beautiful baby boy, Liam.

Guess what?  We are in your corner, no matter what it takes…

Love,

Your fertility angels

Much love,

Christina “Mei Wen” Martin, L.Ac., Dipl.AC, MTOM, FABORM.

christina@berkeley-acupuncture.com

Christina Martin is the founder of Tao to Wellness. She is an Acupuncturist, Chinese Herbalist and Teacher and has been in practice for fifteen years.  She holds a Master’s Degree in Traditional Chinese Medicine and is a fellow of the American Board of Oriental Reproductive Medicine.  Christina entered Acupuncture school without ever having an Acupuncture treatment. She simply felt it was her calling.