May
17
Acupuncture for Labor Induction
Posted by admin at 05:30 | Filed In Acupuncture News, Inspired Wellness Center, News you can Use | Add a Comment
Imagine you’ve had a wonderful pregnancy and you’ve done all the right things to keep that baby in your belly so it can grow to be healthy and happy. You’ve thought good thoughts, eaten nutritious food, exercised often… all so you bring your baby to term. Maybe you’ve even had a few sleepless nights worrying about labor and what it will entail? Well, in my experience, something shifts about week 38 and you suddenly can’t wait to get that kid out of your tummy, and often it can’t come soon enough! Personally, I like this think this is Mother Nature’s gift to you, so you don’t care what you have to go thru during labor to get the prize on the other side.
So finally a friend, or even a midwife or OB doctor, says everything looks good and suggests you call an Acupuncturist for labor induction. This is one of my favorite days, when I get the call from one of my fertility patients saying, “you got this baby in there, now you get it out!” Whether you’ve used an Acupuncturist to get pregnant or during pregnancy, or this is your first time… here are a few things to know about using Acupuncture for labor induction:
- It is my opinion that a good Acupuncturist won’t even consider starting the induction process until your doctor clears you. If your baby is breech, which is also something that Acupuncture can help with, but that needs to be addressed before induction can be considered.
- It should be a comfortable, relaxing process! In my office in Arvada, we sit you in a comfortable chair, put some nice music on, turn the lights down low and then begin the Acupuncture. The most common area’s for induction are on the shoulders, hands and ankles. Be sure to dress so we can access these area’s.
- Don’t worry, once you start the induction treatment… you won’t spontaneously go into labor right in our office. It usually takes time! I ask patients to wait 24-36 hours before their next treatment so we can see how things are progressing.
- Chances are good it will take more than one treatment. In my experience 2-3 treatments are necessary to really get the ball rolling.
- In general, using Acupuncture for labor induction, not only starts the whole process but USUALLY makes the labor itself shorter and easier as well. For instance, one patient I recently worked with, her labor was 4 hours and 19 minutes… with only 8 minutes of pushing. WOW!
So there you go! Using Acupuncture for labor induction is an easy way to help “get the party started” and hopefully help to make it as easy as labor can be! And no matter what… the prize on the other end will ALWAYS be worth it!
For more information about Inspired Wellness Center you can join the conversation online on Facebook and Twitter. Inspired Wellness Center services Arvada and the entire Denver Metro Area.
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Mar
13
Inspired By Life: Survivors helping others become survivors
Posted by admin at 05:30 | Filed In Acupuncture News, Inspired Wellness Center | Add a Comment
This week’s edition of Inspired by Life is brought to you by an amazing story between survivors. I’ve recently had the pleasure of working with a new patient at the cancer center, we’ll call her Terri. Terri was diagnosed with Stage II Breast Cancer in December and was told to start her chemo right away and they will be doing surgery afterwards. The reason I met Terri was because of a former patient of mine, we’ll call her Betty. Betty also had Breast Cancer and has been a cancer free survivor for almost two years (YAY you, Betty!). Betty did acupuncture during the end of her chemo treatments and to get ready for her surgery and she feels that it REALLY helped her feel better during treatment and recover faster after surgery. When Terri got her diagnosis she told me that even though she didn’t know Betty very well, she emailed her right away to tell her the news and that since the email, they had become very close…brought together by some of the worse circumstances any of us could imagine.
What Inspired me about this situation is that I can remember talking to Betty while she was still going thru treatment and her asking the question everyone who has been dealt a tough hand asks, “why me?” I can remember thinking that there is no right answer to that question and telling her that hopefully some good could come of this someday. Once I met Terri, I knew the “someday” had come and this was how Betty could squeeze a little good out of what had been a terrible situation. She now had the opportunity to “pay it forward.” She is going to be the one person that Terri will lean on because she is the one person who has actually walked down the path that Terri has in front of her.
I hope that everyone realizes that they have an opportunity to help a “Terri” in their life. We all have a story that we can share with someone who can benefit from hearing it from someone who has been on the same road. Your story could be about living with a difficult disease, trying to get pregnant, growing a business, raising a family, or just being a human being. Even though this story is about cancer survivors, we all are survivors with the opportunity to help others become survivors too.
For more information about Inspired Wellness Center you can join the conversation online on Facebook and Twitter. Inspired Wellness Center services Arvada and the entire Denver Metro Area.
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Mar
10
Let’s Just Get A Few of The Embarrassing Questions Outta The Way…
Posted by admin at 05:30 | Filed In Acupuncture News, Inspired Wellness Center, News you can Use | Add a Comment
Have you been looking into Acupuncture for fertility reasons? I bet the idea of leaning on something like Acupuncture to boost your chances of conceiving brings about all kinds of questions so I thought I’d take a moment and cover a few of the big questions that you might want to ask but were to embarrassed to…
Here are the Top 5 “Uh, I hate to ask this BUT . . . . ” Questions I Get Asked
- “UMMM, Where do the needles go when you are doing Acupuncture for Fertility?” This is THE question so we’ll just tackle this one first. They do NOT go where you think they might… as much as you don’t want me in your “business”, I do not want to be there either. A general rule of thumb in my office is that most needles will go between your elbows and fingers and your knees and toes. There are some times in the cycle that we may do a few pokes on your tummy, below your belly button, but that is as awkward as it’ll get. This goes for you too Boys!!
- “Do you really need to know EVERYTHING?” Yep, eventually you’ll end up spilling all the beans so you might as well get comfortable with it early on. Eventually I will know everything about your sex life, your period, your “bodily fluids” and more. And trust me, nothing you could tell me even phases me anymore, so don’t ever worry about grossing me out or over-sharing.
- “I know you say you help people get pregnant, but you don’t actually mean IN your office, right?!” This question comes up more than I think it would… it’s true, I do have the pleasure of helping people get pregnant, but no… the “work” actually happens at home and not in my office. That would be weird. And hugely inappropriate.
- “If I tell you what’s going on with my husband’s sperm count, do you have to talk to him about it?” Nope! Many a wife has called me and given me all the details of the semen analysis over the phone and when hubby shows up, although we all know what he’s there for, we never need to talk about it if he’s not comfortable. Fact is, a poor semen analysis can have a really negative impact on a guy’s ego and if we often don’t want to add any additional stress to the situation. I am happy to hang out and talk beer and football while doing what I need to do to turn the next semen analysis around.
- “Isn’t it a little forward to say that you can help someone get pregnant?” If I refer back to question #2 where I say nothing phases me anymore, I suppose this question is the exception to that statement. I have met probably 7 or 8 people in my career who believe that it is not up to Medicine (of any kind) to create babies, but a higher power and if I am claiming to be able to help a couple get pregnant then I am in some way comparing myself to that higher power. The simple truth is, I am in the business of fixing things. Hopefully the work we do together helps your body correct whatever issue may be inhibiting your fertility and allows you to become pregnant with a healthy baby. That is all we claim to do, help your body be the healthiest version of itself. End of story.
Alrighty friends… those are a few of the most awkward questions I get asked about Acupuncture and fertility. If you have other questions, please just let us know and we’d be happy to answer them for you!
For more information about Inspired Wellness Center you can join the conversation online on Facebook and Twitter. Inspired Wellness Center services Arvada and the entire Denver Metro Area.
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Mar
6
Inspired by Life: To Those Who Have Been Touched By Cancer
Posted by admin at 05:30 | Filed In Acupuncture News, Inspired Wellness Center, News you can Use | 1 Comment
Dedicated To: my friend & her mother
Hi Friends! Did you miss me?! It’s been almost a month since my weekly edition of Inspired By Life and I promise that I haven’t been so UN-Inspired lately that I’ve nothing to say . . . . I’ve just be so busy that I haven’t had time to get it on paper!
So lets start with what has been keeping me busy… (drum roll please) AIM! AIM is the new cancer center that I have been feverishly working on and AIM stands for AnthioGen Integrative Medicine Center. This new place is the product of mine and Oncologist, Dr.Samir Witta, MD and we want to bring Denver a comprehensive Wellness center that offers the best in specialized integrative care to those who’s lives have been touched by cancer. You’ll hear a lot more about this in the (VERY) near future but let’s move on to why I was so Inspired while creating AIM…
So as the opening of AIM drew closer I realized that I had gotten so lost in the business and admin side of opening a new business that I had forgotten about the creation of the actual space that will be AIM. Thankfully I have one friend in particular who was constantly asking me how things were going and if I needed help with anything. Because I tend to be a hoarder of projects, I had never taken her up on her kind offers of helping until one night. I told her I needed someone who could pull out a comfortable, nice looking space on a shoestring budget and she immediately told me that she and her mother would LOVE to help! And now, it’s weeks later and the three of us have spent many hours moving furniture, cleaning, shopping and decorating and soon we will open the doors to AIM so everyone can see what we’ve been up to.
This in itself is reason to be Inspired by the kindness of those around us when we actually let them in and let them help us. But there is more to this story…. This friend lost her father to cancer just a few short years ago and although many people had approached her and her mother about getting involved in various projects related to cancer, they said nothing ever “felt right” until AIM came along. And so, one night as we were working, and my mind was about to explode with to-do lists and (if I’m being honest) I was very near some kind of mental breakdown… my friend turned to her mother and said, “You know, I wish something like this was around when Dad was going thru treatment. I think it could have really helped him feel better.” Such a simple sentence with such a profound meaning and at that moment I realized that the work, and the little stuff that was stressing me out about the business and admin side of this project… was NOTHING compared to the potential that this project has to help people in our community.
To my friend and her mother . . . .thank you for not giving up on me when I kept telling you I didn’t need help, thank you for all the hours you spent with me helping this dream to be realized, thank you for reminding me to get over myself and my to-do lists and most of all, thank you for Inspiring me when I needed it the very most. The memory of your father will always be with me and always remind me of why I am committed to doing anything I can to help anyone who has ever been touched by cancer.
For more information about Inspired Wellness Center you can join the conversation online on Facebook and Twitter. Inspired Wellness Center services Arvada and the entire Denver Metro Area.
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Mar
1
Cancer and Fertility
Posted by admin at 05:30 | Filed In Acupuncture News, Inspired Wellness Center, News you can Use | 1 Comment
If you know Inspired Wellness Center, you know that our two passions are working with people who want to become pregnant AND people who have been touched by cancer. It’s only natural for us to be a resource then for those people who are wondering about how having cancer now will affect their fertility later! Unfortunately cancer is not an “old person’s” disease and it’s totally possible to receive a cancer diagnosis before you’ve gotten to the part of your life where you are ready to think about children. Using our knowledge and some literature from the good people at fertileHOPE (www.LIVESTRONG.org/
- FOR WOMEN:
- Cancer treatments can affect the reproductive system in many ways. In many cases you will be instructed to avoid getting pregnant for months (or even years) after you complete your treatments.
- If your cancer is hormonally sensitive (such as Breast or Gynecologic cancers) then you may need to look into embryo freezing and/or surrogacy.
- FOR MEN:
- Cancer treatments can have a major effect on your sperm and function so it is important fully discuss with your doctor what the risks are. In most cases you will be instructed to wait 6-12 months after cancer treatments have finished before trying to conceive.
- In general, the good news for men is sperm banking is an easy and affordable way to guarantee you still have options later in life.
- QUESTIONS TO ASK YOUR DOCTOR:
- Will any of my cancer treatments affect my fertility?
- What are my fertility preservation options?
- How will I know if I am fertile after treatment (especially you guys, your fertility can return suddenly!)
- What are my chances of early menopause?
- Do I have a type of cancer that can be inherited by my children? Is there genetic testing available to ensure I don’t pass on the genes?
- How long do I need to wait after cancer treatments end to start a family?
For more information about Inspired Wellness Center you can join the conversation online on Facebook and Twitter. Inspired Wellness Center services Arvada and the entire Denver Metro Area.
Images by: (fertilehope)
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