The Wholesome Fertility Podcast Michelle | Fertility Wellness - Chinese Medicine, Acupuncture, Lifestyle

On tomorrow’s episode of The Wholesome Fertility Podcast, Alana McGlashan of @thenurturedwomban_ shares her personal fertility challenge story and experience with Asherman's syndrome. She discusses the complications she faced after a miscarriage and the diagnosis of severe Asherman's syndrome. Alana shares her journey of healing and preparing her body for conception, as well as her experiences with pregnancy and loss. She emphasizes the importance of connecting with the heart and womb, and the power of self-trust in the healing process. I was deeply moved by her story of hope and how she found strength to listen deeply to her soul’s calling and knowing that she was meant to have her children. Be sure to tune in!
 
Description:
 
Alana experienced miscarriage, Ashermans Syndrome & infertility on her journey to conceive. Navigating Asherman's Syndrome was one of the hardest times of her life as she was told due to the severity she may not be able to have children. Sending her on a healing journey that although may have taken 2 years, she now has 2 children later. The medicine she found on her journey she now shares with women in her 1:1 energetic womb explorations, helping women to rewrite the story they have been told on their own fertility journey & setting the foundations for profound healing. You can find her on Instagram @thenurturedwomban_
 
 
For more information about Michelle, visitwww.michelleoravitz.com
 
Click here to find out how to get the first chapter of "The Way of Fertility" for free.
 
The Wholesome FertilityFacebook group is where you can find free resources and support: 
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2149554308396504/
 
Instagram: @thewholesomelotusfertility
 
Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/thewholesomelotus/
 
 
Transcript:
 
 
[00:00:00]
Michelle: Welcome to the podcast, Alana.
Alana: Hi, how are you going?
Michelle: Good. So I'd love for you to share your story. I know that it's been a very personal fertility challenge story and definitely defied the odds from what you were told. And I love stories of hope. So I'm very excited to have you on and share your story and your experience with Asherman's syndrome, which I think a lot of people aren't really aware or may not even be aware that they actually have.
Alana: Yeah, absolutely. And at the time, you know, I had no idea what it was and it was something I was searching for in the hopes to hear hope, because I was just hearing a lot of stats and a lot of Let's say stories that I didn't, I didn't want to hear at the time. So I felt pregnant and lost that little baby at 10 weeks.
Alana: And I was a scientist working in Sydney, which is from [00:01:00] where I live, two hours travel away. And I went to the early early pregnancy. room, and they gave me all these options of what you can do next. And. At the time, everything, I would say I was heavily in my masculine energy. Like all just do the things, list out the steps and we will follow them to become parents.
Alana: And because I traveled so far away, I took the option of a DNC, which is a dilation and curette. I'm not sure if that's called anything else anywhere else. And it's just basically the surgical removal. Yeah. Okay, cool. And yeah, and I woke up to complications after that. And, you know, after being told like, it's so routine and I just thought, you know, it would be simple.
Alana: We do this and then I have a bleed and we can start trying again. And I woke up to, yes, as I said, complications. And [00:02:00] feeling really disorientated and I just felt really in my gut like wow what what just happened and they kind of just brushed me off and My doctor, then later, just was like, okay, well it's been six weeks, you haven't got your bleed back.
Alana: Sometimes women need a little bit longer. And I just knew in my gut things weren't right. And for me, I had no period. So 12 weeks, post that surgery. I still had no

In today’s episode of The Wholesome Fertility Podcast, Mike Berkley shares his personal journey with acupuncture and herbal medicine in fertility treatment. He highlights the value of integrative medicine in fertility enhancement. Mike explains how acupuncture and herbal medicine improve fertility by increasing blood flow to the ovaries and testes, enhancing egg and sperm quality. He also discusses the importance of preparing for IVF and the timing of treatment. 
 
Mike Berkley, LAc, FABORM, is a licensed and board-certified acupuncturist and a board-certified herbalist. He is a fertility specialist at The Berkley Center for Reproductive Wellness in the Midtown East neighborhood of Manhattan, New York. Infertility can be a daunting journey for couples longing to start a family, which is a reality Mike faced with his wife. Luckily, she sought the guidance of an acupuncturist and herbalist who possessed some knowledge of reproductive issues. Despite initial disappointments, after undergoing acupuncture and herbal medicine treatments for seven months, the couple became pregnant and carried the child to term without any complications. Their once seemingly elusive dream had become a beautiful reality thanks to the remarkable effects of acupuncture and herbal medicine. This experience led Mike to obtain his degree in acupuncture from the Pacific College of Oriental Medicine's New York campus and his National Board Certification in herbal medicine. Equipped with the necessary license and fueled by an insatiable thirst for knowledge, Mike studied Western medical approaches and the ancient wisdom of Chinese medicine about infertility treatment. Through rigorous study and invaluable clinical experience, he developed unique acupuncture protocols and proprietary herbal formulas, tailoring them to each individual or couple seeking his assistance. Mike is also a member of several organizations, including the Acupuncture Society of New York and the American Infertility Association. He is writing a book on reproductive disorders and Chinese medicine and hosts his groundbreaking seminars nationwide. Mike has witnessed firsthand the life-changing potential these ancient practices hold for couples struggling with infertility. Together, he can help transform your dreams into reality and create a world where the joy of parenthood knows no bounds.
 
Website: www.berkleycenter.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mikeberkley56/
 
For more information about Michelle, visitwww.michelleoravitz.com
 
Click here to find out how to get the first chapter of "The Way of Fertility" for free. 
 
The Wholesome FertilityFacebook group is where you can find free resources and support: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2149554308396504/
 
Instagram: @thewholesomelotusfertility
Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/thewholesomelotus/
 
 
 
 
Transcript:
 
Chapters
 
00:00 Introduction and Personal Journey
00:30 Discovering Acupuncture and Herbal Medicine
05:16 The Limitations of Western Reproductive Medicine
06:33 The Value of Integrative Medicine in Fertility Treatment
08:59 How Acupuncture and Herbal Medicine Improve Fertility
20:16 Living in Accordance with Nature and the Impact on Fertility
26:11 The Mind-Body Connection and the Importance of Mental and Emotional Health
28:48 The Impact of Acupuncture on Blood Flow
32:35 The Heart and Uterus Connection
33:49 Contact Information
 
 
Michelle (00:00)
Welcome to the podcast, Mike. Yeah, I'm actually really happy to have you. And
mike berkley (00:02)
I'm thrilled to be here. Thank you for having me.
 
Michelle (00:07)
read about your story and I find it fascinating that you guys started out as patients, kind of like how I was. I was working in New York, really close to you, for doing architecture. So completely different life, completely different world. So I went in for my menstrual irregularities and then everything starte

Dr. Katie Lee is a dentist, speaker, author, and coach who lives in Aurora, Colorado. Dr. Lee graduated from University of Illinois at Chicago in 2010 and was an owner-partner in over 80 DSO supported dental practices throughout the US and served as Clinical Partner overseeing 5 states. Currently, she consults for health technology companies and provides implant education for general dentists. Dr. Lee has two passions in her profession: dentistry itself and making other dentists successful. Her passion about the oral systemic health link comes from personal experience. Dr. Lee was involved in an ATV accident as a teenager, which left her without many teeth and rendered her jaw immobile. Dr. Lee experienced how oral health affects systemic health and the benefits of dental implants. Her first-hand journey in recovering from the effects of dental trauma led her to specialize her career on the mouth-body connection® and dental implants. Dr. Lee searches for proven technologies that improve clinical outcomes and the patient experience and loves to educate her peers on those technologies. Dr. Lee authored a book entitled Saved By the Mouth to educate patients and clinicians on the importance of oral health. Dr. Lee has won many accolades, including Top 40 under 40 Dentists in America, and International Woman of the Year in Dentistry. She has been featured on local Fox and NBC news stations discussing the importance of oral health.
 
 
https://www.instagram.com/katieleedds/
 
https://www.facebook.com/katieleedds
 
For more information about Michelle, visit www.michelleoravitz.com
 
The Wholesome FertilityFacebook group is where you can find free resources and support:
 
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2149554308396504/
 
Instagram: @thewholesomelotusfertility
 
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thewholesomelotus/
 
 
 
 
 
Transcript:
 
Michelle
Michelle: [00:00:00] Welcome to the podcast, Dr. Lee.
Katie: Thanks. I'm really excited to be here.
Michelle: I'm so excited to have you on actually, this is a first, I have never spoken to a dentist on this podcast, but it is such an important topic because there's such a correlation between inflammation in the mouth and also unexplained infertility. And I'm very excited to get started before we get started. I would love for you to give us a little bit of a background on yourself, how you got into the work that you do.
Katie: Sure. Absolutely. Thanks for having me on. I feel honored that I'm, I'm the first. Hopefully, I don't mess it up for the rest of us dentists out there. My journey into dentistry was. Of tragedy. So when I was in high school, about 14 years old, I was involved in a ATV four wheeler accident where I crashed into a telephone pole headfirst without a helmet on, broke every bone in my face from my eyebrows down and naturally, or I [00:01:00] guess as expected, lost a ton of teeth and my jaws were wired shut immediately, even though I had lots of teeth that were displaced and broken.
Katie: And, they were wired shut for two months. I'm I couldn't eat and so I was on a liquid diet and My family didn't really know anything about nutrition. So I was Having pudding jello ice cream, you know with Hershey's syrup box mashed potatoes You know all the things that you should not eat to be healthy or maintain your teeth And so I just started developing a ton of dental infection And, , that combined with not being able to eat nutritious foods, you know, my body really started shutting down.
Katie: , I lost a ton of weight, my liver enzymes spiked, my kidneys started shutting down. And so I learned from a very early age just how much your oral health affects. Not only your mental and emotional health, but your, your physical health as well. And, you know, it was nine surgeries in four years, , that it [00:02:00] took to reconstruct my face and my jaw.
Katie: And then once that was done and only then was I able

Dr. Catherine Clinton, a licensed naturopathic physician, has spent over 16 years helping people overcome their health issues. Diagnosed with two autoimmune conditions and Lyme disease while in medical school, she began the long and difficult journey of healing- a path that led to the commitment to help others to not only heal physically but to return to the relationships we evolved over millennia with for a deeper sense of health and belonging. By healing herself and patients like her, she discovered that true health comes from our relationships. Dr. Catherine has learned how our quantum biological system is intimately and inseparably connected to the world around us. Our relationship with the dirt beneath our feet, the sun, the wind, the water, the plants, the seasons, each other- that is the real medicine.
Her mission is to empower as many people as she can with this knowledge to encourage the paradigm shift we so desperately need.
 
Website & Social media links (Facebook, instagram, twitter):
 
Instagram: @dr.catherineclinton
 
Facebook: www.dr.catherineclintonnd
 
YouTube @dr.catherineclinton
 
Website: www.drcatherineclinton.com
 
The Way of Fertility is here! Be sure to check it out here www.michelleoravitz.com/thewayoffertility
 
For more information about Michelle, visitwww.michelleoravitz.com
 
The Wholesome FertilityFacebook group is where you can find free resources and support:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2149554308396504/
 
Instagram: @thewholesomelotusfertility
 
Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/thewholesomelotus/
 
 
Transcript:
Michelle (00:01)
Welcome to the podcast, Dr. Clinton.
Catherine (00:04)
Thank you so much for having me. I know we've been trying to get together to do this for a while and I'm just really excited to talk with you today.
Michelle (00:14)
I am so excited. I've been actually looking forward to this call for like a while just because I found you on Instagram and I was like, oh my God, this lady gets it. Like your work is so fascinating to me. I'm really into quantum physics in general. And then I'm like quantum biology, like the whole idea and just there's so many things that we're uncovering. It's kind of like the future of medicine.
But also, I feel like you're very intuitive in your work. I feel like you're sort of channeling a lot of really fascinating intelligence through your work. So, yeah, that was my initial thing when I started looking at your work and the things that you're posting and sharing. And I would love it if you can share your background and how you got into this field and also how you got into it in the way that you're getting into it.
 
Catherine (01:10)
Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah, it definitely feels like I've been talking about this for years and now the energy around it is just like so much momentum, right? It kind of used to feel like I was talking in an empty room, sort of talking to myself, right? And what happened was I was in naturopathic medical school. I was in my second year and it was that initiation year where... they really want to weed people out, right? So it's like, get there at 7 a .m. If you're a couple minutes late, you can't sign the attendance sheet. You have to wait another year to take the class, you know, that kind of like med school initiation, really long clinic hours. And it was the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back. And I was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis and Hashimoto's thyroiditis, two autoimmune conditions and I was diagnosed with Lyme disease. So I just was like spiraling with my health. And that's when, you know, I was in a great place to put my physical body back together, put the pieces back together. I was in naturopathic medical school. I was across the river from an acupuncture school. I was just down the hill from a very progressive, allopathic teaching hospital. And so I had so many tools to work with, but for anybody wh

In this episode, I'm going to be talking about five things that could be sabotaging your fertility efforts to conceive. And a lot of these things may not be so obvious to a lot of people, 
 
I will be covering:
 
Why too much of a good thing isn’t so great for your fertility health (you’ll find out what I mean!) The importance of sleep and how to regulate it if you’re having trouble. Why many fertility disruptors can be hiding in your kitchen and ones that even fooled me! Important times to eat during the day and why!  
For more information about Michelle, visit www.michelleoravitz.com
 
For more information on fertility diet, you can pick up my free fertility diet ebook in the notes. https://www.michelleoravitz.com/fertility-diet
 
The Wholesome FertilityFacebook group is where you can find free resources and support:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2149554308396504/
 
Instagram: @thewholesomelotusfertility
 
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thewholesomelotus/
 
Links mentioned in this episode:
 
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5457858/
https://www.ewg.org
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4350886/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7400274/
 
[00:00:00] Could these five things be sabotaging your ability to conceive?
In this episode, I'm going to be talking about five things that could be sabotaging your fertility efforts to conceive. And a lot of these things may not be so obvious to a lot of people, So stick around.
 
So number one is over exercise. So while exercise is something that is really good for the body and it can actually improve fertility health. If a person is overweight or if they have not exercised before, it can improve your lymphatic movement, your blood circulation. And increase your overall energy. However, if you over exercise, too much of a good thing is not so good. So while exercise is amazing for the body, in some cases, over exercise has been shown to adversely impact reproductive health. So studies have confirmed that over exercising could [00:01:00] impact menstrual cycle irregularities and ovulation. or, amenorrhea, which is when your period completely stops.
 
There was one study done where women underwent a really intensive training for military camp. And what they found was that 68 to 98 percent of them who started out to have regular periods, ended up becoming irregular after the training.
So what's been observed with over exercise is that it impacts the luteal phase. So it can cause luteal phase defect in the menstrual cycle, which means that the second part of the cycle, which is after ovulation is shorter than it should be. And the reason that is so important not to happen, is because it's a really important time for implantation to occur. And if it's too short, it doesn't allow for that pregnancy to take place. Over exercise can also increase cortisol and cortisol tends to compete with progesterone, [00:02:00] which is why it can impact the luteal phase since progesterone is the main hormone. that increases around the luteal phase.
And it's a really important hormone, not only for pregnancy to occur, but also to support pregnancy, they also found that ovulation hormones such as GNRH, FSH and LH, as well as estradiol were suppressed, and that led to an ovulation, which means that they were not ovulating. And that is why over time it can either make the periods irregular or take away the periods altogether.
 
And as you know, you need to ovulate in order to get pregnant otherwise you're not going to have an egg to fertilize. So that is one of the reasons why overexercising can really impact the body is because it causes a lot of stress on the body. When the body experiences a lot of stress, it also increases cortisol, which is a stress hormone. Cortisol tends to compete with progesterone, which is a really important [00:03:00] hormone, but also the body ove

On today’s episode of The Wholesome Fertility Podcast, Dr. Briguglio, a fertility health expert, shares her passion for empowering patients and addressing the challenges of unexplained infertility and overreliance on IVF. She emphasizes the importance of comprehensive testing and addressing root causes to improve fertility health. Dr. Briguglio also discusses the interconnectedness of physical and mental health and the significance of individualized testing in the initial consultation. Additionally, she highlights the importance of iron and ferritin levels and addresses the challenges of vegan diets and cholesterol.
 
In this conversation, Dr. Samantha Briguglio discusses the role of cholesterol and inflammation in health. She emphasizes that cholesterol is not the villain it is often portrayed to be and that it is needed for hormone production. Dr. Briguglio advocates for a balanced approach to diet and lifestyle, focusing on sleep, diet, and movement. She encourages individuals to find their own natural path to healing and emphasizes the importance of empowering people with information.
 
Takeaways
Comprehensive testing and addressing root causes are crucial for improving fertility health. The physical and mental aspects of health are interconnected, and addressing both is important for fertility. Individualized testing and a holistic approach are key in the initial consultation. Iron and ferritin levels play a significant role in fertility health, and vegan diets may present challenges in obtaining necessary nutrients. Cholesterol is not the villain it is often portrayed to be and is needed for hormone production. Nourishing the liver and eating enough fiber can support healthy cholesterol levels. A balanced approach to diet and lifestyle, focusing on sleep, diet, and movement, is crucial for overall health. Empowering individuals with information allows them to make informed choices about their health.  
 
Dr. Samantha Briguglio is a licensed Naturopathic Medical Doctor and the founder of Walk the Natural Path Hormone Health and Fertility Care.
 
Dr. Briguglio has a passion for helping women achieve their wellness and/or fertility goals, and she treats – and teaches – her patients from a mindset of natural healing that treats the root cause of their symptoms.
 
Website: www.walkthenaturalpath.com
 
Instagram @walkthenaturalpath
 
Facebook: www.facebook.com/walkthenaturalpath
 
For more information about Michelle, visit www.michelleoravitz.com
 
The Wholesome FertilityFacebook group is where you can find free resources and support:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2149554308396504/
 
Instagram: @thewholesomelotusfertility
 
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thewholesomelotus/
 
 
Transcript:
 
Chapters
 
00:00 Introduction and Passion for Fertility Health
04:09 Passion for Empowering Patients
07:07 Challenges with Unexplained Infertility and Overreliance on IVF
11:03 Importance of Comprehensive Testing and Addressing Root Causes
16:35 Interconnectedness of Physical and Mental Health
24:06 Importance of Iron and Ferritin Levels
25:56 Challenges with Vegan Diets and Cholesterol
26:52 The Role of Cholesterol and Inflammation
30:05 Nourishing the Liver and Eating Fiber
35:03 The Importance of Sleep, Diet, and Movement
37:34 Finding Balance in Diet and Lifestyle
43:20 Empowering People with Information
45:30 The Inspiration Behind Walk the Natural Path
 
Michelle (00:00)
Welcome to the podcast, Dr. Brigulio, right? Brigulio is how you pronounce it, or Sammy, right? Awesome. Dr. B, awesome. So first of all, I love your Instagram. I'm going to say that. You guys got to check out her Instagram. It's going to be in the episode notes. I kind of want to lead with that because she has fabulous content, really rich with information and tips.
 
Samantha Briguglio (00:05)
Yes, you did that nicely. Or Dr. Bean. It's easie