I've read about acupuncture and decided after the 2nd month of Letrozole not working, to augment my hormone treatments with 3 times a week acupuncture. I found one place that came recommended from a friend with MS who swears by Dr Liu at Eastern Healing Centre. My friend doesn`t suffer fools gladly and has a BS meter much stronger than I do, so I trust her judgement. Dr Liu is a very compassionate TCM doctor and diagnosed my liver as too hot, my uterus as too cold and my spleen as lacking nourishment. Also, I have a weak pulse and my tongue "film" is sparse. Huh....
Okay, so I have to suspend all my medical education, all my beliefs in conventional medicine, all my pre-conceived notions about what is or might be our fertility problems, and put some trust in Dr Liu's techniques. For placebo effect to kick in, you have to commit mentally that *this will work*. Blue pills are more effective than red ones. Or at least, I had to convince myself (and B) "what's the worst that could happen?" That's why it's called "alternative medicine", but with 1 billion people in China and reproductive restrictions, maybe they're onto something? Besides, if it doesn't work, we're in the same child-less state that we're in now so I didn't see it as potentially harmful....
Okay, so I have to suspend all my medical education, all my beliefs in conventional medicine, all my pre-conceived notions about what is or might be our fertility problems, and put some trust in Dr Liu's techniques. For placebo effect to kick in, you have to commit mentally that *this will work*. Blue pills are more effective than red ones. Or at least, I had to convince myself (and B) "what's the worst that could happen?" That's why it's called "alternative medicine", but with 1 billion people in China and reproductive restrictions, maybe they're onto something? Besides, if it doesn't work, we're in the same child-less state that we're in now so I didn't see it as potentially harmful....
Three times a week for two and a half months, I paid Dr Liu $45 to look like this....
On the upside, I did get a lot of reading done. After getting poked in 13 different locations (the qi spots for my ovaries and anxiety spots couldn't be photographed easily), I would read my Kindle for a half hour as the acupuncture "worked it's magic". Nothing more relaxing that reading a good zombie book while my toes twitched sporadically.
And then there's the pills. Little, stinky, brown mystery pills. 104 pills a day, every day for 21 days. I haven't got the foggiest clue what any of them are or what they do. Unlike the Letrozole, which gave me zero side effects, the combination of these pills left me so depressed and anxious that I spent a lot of time trying not to cry or have panic attacks or go completely bat-shit crazy on poor Brendon. They made me want to crawl in our spare room and curl up into a ball, jam my fingers in my ears and scream. And yeah, there's some irony that I was more anxious and depressed while taking herbal anti-anxiety pills.
Plus the tea. The stinking, rotten concoction that makes the Red River look pristine and potable. "Just" for the days leading up to and including ovulation. It's a mysterious steaming swamp water from 12 different packages of herbs and roots and probably some ground melamine and panda penis for good order. I had to mix it and drink it after breakfast each day. It made me wretch and gag each time I had to take ingest it. My office stunk so badly during those days. The instructions that came with it recommended adding as little or as much boiling water as you can chug in three gulps (because your body will fight you if you attempt a 4th gulp) and that adding honey or sugar won't help it taste any better. It burned all the way through me, and just added to the miserable feeling this whole ordeal was causing.
But with Brendon's recent 'Work Force Adjustment' into the world of the unemployed and my Blue Cross only covering the equivalent to 9 treatments, we don't have the money to continue the acupuncture. It worked out to over $1000 a month when you factor in the cost of herbs. I told Dr Liu how the herbs were affecting me but she just said it's my body normalizing. If this is what "normal" people feel like, I think I'll stick with my abnormal self. I may be weird, but I'm happy and embrace my weirdness.
I took another month's worth of Letrozole but I'll probably stop that as well. It's a bad time for me to get pregnant, if indeed it were possible, since we don't know how long Brendon will be job hunting. And even if he finds something right away, he won't be able to take extended paternity leave and we need my full salary to keep the house. We have an appointment with Heartland Fertility Clinic in June but we're guessing the recommendation will be to move onto IVF, but at $12,000 a month, we don't have the money to even attempt 1 round. Adoption is $10,000 or more so that option is off the table as well.
Thus ends our attempt at becoming parents. Not with a baby, but with a whimper. And if I thought I felt depressed while I was on the herbs, the realization that we can't afford to do anything more that'll make us parents is even worse.
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| The living porcupine |
On the upside, I did get a lot of reading done. After getting poked in 13 different locations (the qi spots for my ovaries and anxiety spots couldn't be photographed easily), I would read my Kindle for a half hour as the acupuncture "worked it's magic". Nothing more relaxing that reading a good zombie book while my toes twitched sporadically.
And then there's the pills. Little, stinky, brown mystery pills. 104 pills a day, every day for 21 days. I haven't got the foggiest clue what any of them are or what they do. Unlike the Letrozole, which gave me zero side effects, the combination of these pills left me so depressed and anxious that I spent a lot of time trying not to cry or have panic attacks or go completely bat-shit crazy on poor Brendon. They made me want to crawl in our spare room and curl up into a ball, jam my fingers in my ears and scream. And yeah, there's some irony that I was more anxious and depressed while taking herbal anti-anxiety pills.
 |
| 40 pills per envelope, 2 envelopes per day |
 |
| 8 pills twice daily |
 |
| 8 pills three times daily |
Plus the tea. The stinking, rotten concoction that makes the Red River look pristine and potable. "Just" for the days leading up to and including ovulation. It's a mysterious steaming swamp water from 12 different packages of herbs and roots and probably some ground melamine and panda penis for good order. I had to mix it and drink it after breakfast each day. It made me wretch and gag each time I had to take ingest it. My office stunk so badly during those days. The instructions that came with it recommended adding as little or as much boiling water as you can chug in three gulps (because your body will fight you if you attempt a 4th gulp) and that adding honey or sugar won't help it taste any better. It burned all the way through me, and just added to the miserable feeling this whole ordeal was causing.
But with Brendon's recent 'Work Force Adjustment' into the world of the unemployed and my Blue Cross only covering the equivalent to 9 treatments, we don't have the money to continue the acupuncture. It worked out to over $1000 a month when you factor in the cost of herbs. I told Dr Liu how the herbs were affecting me but she just said it's my body normalizing. If this is what "normal" people feel like, I think I'll stick with my abnormal self. I may be weird, but I'm happy and embrace my weirdness.
I took another month's worth of Letrozole but I'll probably stop that as well. It's a bad time for me to get pregnant, if indeed it were possible, since we don't know how long Brendon will be job hunting. And even if he finds something right away, he won't be able to take extended paternity leave and we need my full salary to keep the house. We have an appointment with Heartland Fertility Clinic in June but we're guessing the recommendation will be to move onto IVF, but at $12,000 a month, we don't have the money to even attempt 1 round. Adoption is $10,000 or more so that option is off the table as well.
Thus ends our attempt at becoming parents. Not with a baby, but with a whimper. And if I thought I felt depressed while I was on the herbs, the realization that we can't afford to do anything more that'll make us parents is even worse.
1 comment:
:-(
hugs
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