Acupressure As A Powerful DIY Fertility Treatment with Heidi Brockmyre, L.Ac – #9

0:02 Charlene Lincoln: Today, I am really excited. We have Heidi Brockmyre and she is an acupuncturist, herbalist, and fertility and pregnancy specialist with a background in Chinese medicine. She has over 10 years of experience helping women grow their families. She has supported hundreds of women in her clinic in San Diego, California and thousands of women around the world in her online community. Heidi focuses on helping women create total fertility wellness by preparing the mind, body and spirit for fertility and pregnancy through her virtual fertility self-acupressure program. Welcome, Heidi.

Heidi Brockmyre: Thanks, Charlene. Thanks for having me here.

0:54 CL: That’s so awesome because I’m a big fan of acupuncture. I’m an acupuncturist as well but often, you know, it’s like people write me and go, “Well, I don’t have an acupuncturist in my area,” unless you live in kind of like a major city. Sometimes there just isn’t that service available and so you’re going to show us today how we can actually benefit from acupuncture by doing acupressure on those same points.

HB: Yeah, exactly. That was something that inspired me to create the program and resources that I’ve created for women on my website because a lot of women don’t have access to an acupuncturist locally. Not only that but, of course, there’s more to Chinese medicine than just acupuncture although most people think of acupuncture when they think of Chinese medicine. But as you know there’s so much more to it and a lot of it is information and tools and resources that people can learn to do on themselves at home and incorporate into their daily lifestyle, which makes all the difference whether you’re getting acupuncture or not, even if you’re getting acupuncture and the more you do at home and your day-to-day life, the better results you’re going to get working with your acupuncturist.

2:16 CL: Oh, absolutely good point to say that you’re seeing. I know that when I was trying to conceive and I’m seeing my acupuncturist, I mean, he recommended two to three times a week, it just wasn’t viable for my schedule. So in the meantime, if you’re going once a week, every day you can spend a little time taking care of yourself and increasing those benefits. Is that what you’re saying?

HB: Absolutely. You touched on a good point too because traditionally, acupuncture was meant to be given on a daily basis when somebody was having a health issue or maybe not even so extreme but for instance trying to conceive and not being able to conceive, it can be pretty extreme. So traditionally, the acupuncture would have been administered on a daily basis, not just once a week or once every other week or once a month. But like you said, that’s just not really feasible for most people’s schedules and possibly their budgets as well. So, the more information people have about Chinese medicine and what they can do in their day-to-day life, the better.

3:20 CL: Thank you. Before we kind of go into what you can do at home to benefit from Chinese medicine, I wanted to ask you, how did you get into the field of fertility with acupuncture?

HB: Well, I was really lucky in that right when I graduated from acupuncture school and passed my licensing board exam, I was invited to join a practice that was already an established fertility specialist practice. It was an acupuncture practice. And I was so excited because one of my favorite specialties was women’s health. That’s where I experienced such amazing relief myself just with cramping during my cycle, PMS symptoms and so forth, and I remember giving myself for the first time my own treatment when I was in acupuncture school. And I was just amazed how horrible I was feeling with PMS symptoms and cramping and so forth and just within a few minutes of the needles being in, I started to feel not only relief from the cramps but I started to feel so relaxed and kind of blissful.

I was just like, “wow, that’s amazing” because we don’t have a lot options in western medicine in terms of relief for women’s health issues. And fertility, obviously, it’s a women’s health issue but a lot of women don’t necessarily realize that their painful periods are related to their fertility. So it’s all one and the same. Taking care of your hormones, taking care of your menstrual cycle, your entire cycle and keeping that healthy, it’s all part of your fertility. Being fertile is being healthy whether you’re trying to conceive or not, that’s our natural healthy state.

So when I was invited to join this practice, at that point I wasn’t sure what I wanted to specialize in. However, I knew that I was especially excited about women’s health and so I was just so excited to be asked to join a fertility practice and it was such a wonderful opportunity as well because I began working with two acupuncturists that each had about 10 years’ experience that mentored me in that first-year practice, so I was able to learn so much, just hit the ground running. And I fell in love with the specialty because there are fewer things more rewarding than a woman coming in with tears in her eyes telling you that she’s pregnant and you get to be the first person that she’s even told. So obviously it’s a really special thing.

6:03 CL: I agree with you. I remember the first time I helped someone. I felt like I was more responsible for it than their husband. No, I’m just kidding. But you’re just like, “Oh my gosh! I have helped them have the greatest joy in their life,” and yeah, it’s an amazing feeling. So cool. So, you really had these great mentors in your life that took you under their wing and then you felt like it just kind of ignited a passion for you and so here you are many years later and you’re helping so many women not just in your local area but all around the world. I was reading on your website, on your Facebook page you have, I guess, a community right just currently of about a thousand women who are kind of working together as a community, working on their fertility together as a community. Right?

HB: Yeah. Well, about 4000, over 4000 women.

6:59 CL: Oh, I’m sorry. Wow! That’s amazing. Because what I hear is, and I know it for myself, it’s just when you’re having fertility issues, it’s very isolating and so, thanks for having that community of actually women who are going through the same thing and the same struggle, it just brings out this really supportive, nurturing side of you, so I can imagine it’s just a nice group to be a part of and you learn so much, etc.

HB: Yeah, absolutely. Like you said, it is really isolating. So, some posts are in there where they just need to vent to other women that understand and they don’t have to censor themselves. They can say, “Ah! My sister said this really insensitive thing today and I just wanted to pull my hair out,” you know, and all the women will give very loving, supportive comments. Then also, they’re incredibly smart women in there so they’re providing really great information and resources to each other, so they’re asking questions about testing or what their doctor said and different diagnostics and a natural, you know… There was a post in there today about “I have so much anxiety. What do you recommend?” and women shared their resources for dealing with their anxiety trying to conceive, different meditations on YouTube and so forth. So it’s great to see that sisterhood in there especially since it is so isolating.

8:21 CL: So let’s talk about, I mean, when you brought up anxiety because I know acupuncture and acupressure is extremely effective with anxiety, depression, just emotional imbalances in general. So can you talk about some of the tools that you shared with women trying to become pregnant and supporting that?

HB: Sure. Well that’s what I really love about acupressure and acupuncture too of course but I’ll speak to acupressure because I will speak to the tools that I teach women to do themselves obviously. I don’t teach women to give themselves acupuncture.

Women on this path can also get kind of frustrated and overwhelmed with the to-do list of items – how to improve their fertility, take these pills, stand on your head after sex and XYZ and timing of intercourse and blah, blah, blah. That can add to the stress. So what I love about the Chinese medicine tools that I teach is that, yes, it’s another thing to put on your to-do list; however, they relieve stress, relieve anxiety like you said, and they are self-care tools. So they’re a wonderful thing to practice whether you’re trying to conceive or not, it’s something to incorporate into your regular self-care regimen.

But many of the points, many of the acupressure points do relieve anxiety, improve your mood, balance your hormones which will also help with anxiety and depression. They help to relieve what we would say “stagnation”, so they help to increase circulation of blood and energy in your body which also helps to relieve moodiness and helps you to process grief and so forth because Chinese medicine doesn’t consider any of these as separate from each other. Your physical health and your emotional health are one and the same. So you may have let’s say unresolved grief and that may affect your immune system and make you more prone to getting colds or having allergies and so forth. On the flip side, if your immune system is weak, you may be more prone to experiencing grief because in Chinese medicine, that emotion is associated with that particular physical system of your body.

So when you are able to help process the grief which can be done through certain acupressure points you can press on and help to relieve that grief where it’s trapped in your body, then you’re also going to support your immune system for example. So the points themselves are so powerful and that they just have this really profound effect on all systems, all levels of your being – emotional, spiritual, physical, mental. And also, they’re just relaxing. They release endorphins and they’re relaxing so you’ll end up being able to sleep better and have better energy and possibly relieve a headache. So, that’s what I love about it.

It also really helps to put women in touch with their bodies because we’re not raised in our culture. Both men and women aren’t really raised to be connected to our bodies. I mean, we were raised in a generation that didn’t really acknowledge the mind-body connection. Obviously we’ve evolved so much but we weren’t conditioned that way growing up and so we don’t necessarily notice where we’re carrying emotions in our body, tension in our body, or that we’re even feeling discomfort because we might be just so used to feeling that way that we don’t even really notice and then women who are having trouble conceiving oftentimes become even more disconnected from their body because they may be resentful towards their body. You know, I’ve heard women think “Oh, my uterus is a shriveled up dark tavern or my ovaries are just rotten,” and the idea of the relationship that women have with their bodies, it’s also this big disconnect.

So what’s beautiful about acupressure is you’re accessing this energetic system, this mapping system that runs through your body and so when you stimulate those points and you’re starting to feel that you can breathe more deeply and open up your chest, you’re starting to feel like your digestion is working better and you can start feeling movement. Maybe you need to go to the bathroom and you’re quite sluggish in that department. You start noticing these changes that really helps to put women in touch with their bodies. And the more aware you are of your body, obviously, the more empowered you are over your health as well.

13:20 CL: Absolutely. When you brought up the lungs, I think about when someone is having fertility issues and say that they have suffered recurrent miscarriages, obviously that’s the grief and then you were talking about the lungs being that seat of grief, so that creates a weakness there and then that in turn creates a weakness in the immune system and then the immune system, it just weakens the entire body. So what you’re saying is that this medicine, that whole system of medicine, it’s supporting that emotional health, strengthening the lungs which is helping resolve the grief which is then strengthening the immune system. I mean, that’s so powerful, right?

HB: Oh yeah, it’s so powerful. Yeah. It’s wonderful talking to a fellow acupuncturist about it because you can rephrase it in another way that the listeners can understand. It’s a concept that we begin to take for granted as acupuncturists, which is why I feel so passionate about teaching women and people in general this connection from a Chinese medicine point of view because it’s just so profound and so deep. I mean, as I’m sure you know from your clinical practice it’s so true.

I’ve had patients come in where they’re just like, “I have this nagging cough. I’ve had it for a couple of years. It just won’t go away. I get colds really easily.” I said, “Well, when did that start? Did you have any loss or grief?” And they’ll say, “Oh, actually now that you mention it, it started when my father died a couple years ago.” I see examples of that all the time where the emotions are directly connected to a certain system of the physical body.

15:04 CL: Yeah, absolutely. I just think it’s so great to talk about it because sometimes when we talk about emotional health, it can feel a little esoteric or abstract but when you really bring it into kind of connecting it to different organ systems and how those organ systems go in out of balance and then how it affects the hormonal system or anything, the digestive system, everything else, it’s like, oh that seems much more concrete. It’s just showing how important emotional health is and how it really strongly ties with the physiological body.

HB: Yeah, absolutely.

15:40 CL: So let’s talk about some tools. You were talking about acupressure. I know a lot of people know what acupressure is but some people really don’t and so can you kind of give us a short concise definition of what acupressure is?

HB: Sure. So, acupressure is applying stimulation to any acupoint on the body. So the acupoints, a lot of people ask are they the same for acupuncture as they are for acupressure. Yes, they are. It’s the same points. Acupuncture is just a different way of stimulating that point in acupressure. So obviously you’re using a needle with acupuncture but with acupressure you’re using your finger or you can use even an object like a stone or something. But I teach women to use their fingers. So you apply pressure to a specific point on the body and these points, they’re trigger points where there’s increased electrical activity with the nervous system. And it sends a message to the brain to deliver blood, oxygen, etc. to specific areas of the body. So by sending the signal to the nervous system, it is communicating with the rest of the body.

So there are certain points that coordinate with particular areas of the body. For instance, there’s a point on the inner ankle that goes to the lower abdomen. I use it every frequently in my practice and I use it very frequently in my acupressure program. It’s called Spleen 6 and that delivers circulation directly to the reproductive organs. So some of the points will coordinate with certain areas of the body but they’ll also increase physiological function. So they might increase digestion, they might help to build healthy new blood cells. They might go to the lungs and help to take in more oxygen into the lungs. So when you stimulate the points, you’re sending that message to the brain.

From kind of an easy Chinese medicine perspective, basically you’re helping to increase flow there is an enough flow or a reduced flow where there’s too much flow. So one of the basic principles of Chinese medicine is when you have a blockage, you have disease. When you have free flow, you have health. So it is almost as simple as that. So there’s some places that is just getting too much energy and too much circulation and then you might have a blockage there. And then downstream, for instance, like if you were to compare the flow of energy like a river system, downstream you’re not getting enough flow, so obviously that area of the river is running dry, it’s depleted and so forth.

So the idea with the acupressure meridians is to open up the flow and make sure that the areas that aren’t getting enough flow or the flow is reestablished and that the areas that are blocked and have too much flow blocks there are opened up and that pressure is relieved.

18:40 CL: Is it difficult to learn? You talk about Spleen 6. I mean, people are like, “Spleen 6?” Is it difficult to learn kind of the anatomical locations of these or how do you sort of help people understand where that is and what to do with it?

HB: Well, I have instructional videos. So yeah, definitely the visual is really important. But once they see the videos, they’re able to follow along and find the points.

19:10 CL: Okay. I know that you are mentioning about castor oil packs. Do you recommend those and can you talk about some of the benefits of using a castor oil pack when trying to conceive?

HB: Yeah. Castor oil packs are a wonderful home self-care tool. A lot of people online in the fertility world will teach women to do a castor oil pack over their uterus. Which I also teach that but I teach them to also do the castor oil pack over the liver. Because the liver plays such an important role in a healthy menstrual cycle and healthy hormone balance and fertility. I mean, it’s huge from a Chinese medicine point of view.

So when we refer to the liver in Chinese medicine, it’s different than referring to the liver in Western medicine where they’re speaking specifically and literally about the organ. But in Chinese medicine when we say the liver we’re not speaking just about the organ but an energetic system associated with that organ. So I teach women how to put the castor oil pack over their liver so it literally is over the area of the organ. But it also helps to smooth the liver energy as we would see in Chinese medicine. So the liver energetic system regulates the flow of blood throughout your whole cycle through ovulation and through menses and so forth, and it has such an impact on hormone balance.

So most of us have backed-up liver energy. From stress, from toxins in the environment, from not getting enough sleep, from life. It’s pretty much another role. We all have some degree of backed-up liver energy. But the better we can keep it flowing, the more things we can do in our daily lives to support the smooth flow of that liver energy to keep our liver circulating and happy, the better. We’ll be happier and we’ll also be healthier.

So the liver and from a Chinese medicine perspective really likes being soft and supple. If you think of cirrhosis, that liver is hardened. So when the liver is soft and supple, then it is going to regulate energy throughout your body much more smoothly. So the castor oil, it softens the liver and nourishes it. Castor oil is also very cleansing. It can pull toxins out of the tissue to help your body flush it out. Because it’s very softening, that’s why it’s also good to use over your uterus as well because it can help to soften nodules and soften residual tissue so that it can be cleansed from the uterus and prevent it from developing into fibroids or polyps or any kind of other stagnant tissue. It’s good for endometriosis as well. It helps to leach out excess estrogen from the system as well. So it’s detoxifying and it’s also softening. So those two things are good both for our liver as well as our reproductive organs.

22:30 CL: That seems extremely important. Do you talk about it in more detail on your website? Just how long, how to prepare it, etc.

HB: Yes. There is a video on my website. So when you go to my website, there’s a free fertility resources page and there’s a video there, it’s also on my Youtube channel that explains exactly how and when to do the castor oil pack.

22:55 CL: Okay. Could you mention your website now? I mean, it will be in the podcast notes but in case someone’s listening to it and they’re not looking at the notes so that they can refer to the actual video.

HB: Absolutely. So my website is HeidiBrockmyre.com and then if you click on the Free Fertility Resources page and you scroll down, there’s a blog and then at the top line there’s a few different blog posts that you can see there and you can flip through them and it’s one of the very first blog posts where it says how to do a castor oil pack. Click on there and there’s the video and it’s got all the instructions.

23:32 CL: Thank you. Of course, her website will be in the podcast notes, HeidiBrockmyre.com. What about abdominal massage? Do you also recommend that and can you talk a little bit more about the benefits of it?

HB: Yes, I do recommend it. It’s another instructional video I have on that free fertility resource page. You’ll find it in the same area. My technique is kind of a combination of Chinese medicine approach, Chinese medicine massage, abdominal massage with some shiatsu like a Japanese technique as well as the Mayan abdominal massage. I have trained in all of those techniques and I kind of made a fusion based on my own clinical experience of how women can do it on themselves. Which I think is great because not all women have access to somebody who does have a fertility massage in their area. And most times when you get massage, you’re not getting an abdominal massage and again, it’s being able to do it frequently. So most women can’t afford to necessarily get a massage every week or even once a month or whatever, their schedule might not be permitting.

So doing abdominal massages on yourself, it’s about 5 minutes and you can do it on a regular basis, about three times a week. You can really have a great effect on your reproductive organs because it’s going to, first of all, increase blood flow to the area, so that’s key. Again, I’m going back to when you have free flow, you have health. The ovaries need fresh healthy blood to nourish the eggs. A lot of women think the egg quality is dependent only on your age and as you get older, your egg quality decreases and there’s nothing that you can do about it, but that’s not true. The eggs are more vulnerable but during the 90 days of maturation they have before they’re ovulated, it’s very important that they are exposed to a healthy environment and they get the right nutrients to thrive and that they’re not being exposed so much to toxins and so forth.

So when you have more circulation going to the ovaries, then you’re not going to get fresh blood cells there. That’ll provide the eggs with the nutrients they need to thrive and be healthy. But you also want to increase circulation and relax the muscles in the area so that your fallopian tubes aren’t pinched necessarily or to help realign your uterus if it’s displaced from exercise or bad posture, whatever it may be. So that’s another benefit of doing the abdominal massage is to help relax the muscles in that area so that your tubes, your eggs and your uterus can get properly aligned. It will help to drain excess fluids too that may be blocking the tubes or affecting implantation.

Then it will also help when you do have your period to better flush the uterus out of residual old tissues so it can get a nice fresh healthy lining in there for implantation and so forth. So it’s got quite a few benefits.

26:56 CL: A couple of thoughts came up. One, it sounds like everything that you’re talking about ultimately is just empowering women. At the end of the line it’s really like putting – I always say when talking to a lot of women who are struggling with fertility issues, they feel sort of powerless in this and they go, “Oh, I feel like I can control so many things in my life and this, I have no control over.” But you’re giving women all these tools that you feel like it’s definitely you actually do have a lot of control over your health and here are some tools. It’s kind of like ancient medicine that we’re going back to getting really in touch with our bodies. I just think that that’s so important. I really, really hope that women who are listening today go, “Wow! I could do these simple things.” They’re simple but that does not mean that they are not extremely powerful. I know that they are. I’ve witnessed it many, many times.

Also when you were talking about the castor oil packs on the liver, you were talking about how Chinese medicine, it talked about kind of like the energetic system of the liver but also using the castor oil packs on the organ of the liver. Does it help detoxify hormones as well? Xenoestrogens is what kind of comes to mind that’s kind of problematic for women. Even though it’s an energetic system, it’s literally helping the liver detoxify.

HB: Yeah, you’re right.

28:31 CL: That’s so important, castor oil packs. It’s a pretty simple thing to do. It’s extremely powerful. It’s been around for hundreds of years and there’s a reason. It’s not some trendy thing. I mean, it’s literally something that’s ancient medicine, it stood the test of time because it’s very, very effective.

HB: It feels great too. Again, it might be one of those things like “Oh! It’s another thing I have to do after my to-do list.” But once you do it, you’ll see it’s very soothing and you can just leave it on there when you’re watching your TV or reading a book, just relaxing at night so it doesn’t have to feel so chore-like. You’ll find that you’re in a better mood afterwards and you don’t feel so edgy, so it goes back to also helping relieve depression and anxiety.

29:17 CL: I like that. I’m assuming with your video you’re showing a way using like flannel or whatever where it’s not like you’re pouring castor oil on your stomach and making a big mess about it. So you really can kind of use it in bed before sleep.

HB: Yeah, exactly.

29:33 CL: That’s great. Do you want to demonstrate kind of an acupressure point that someone could use to calm energy? People might be listening today so I guess we have to make the demonstration quite simple. But is there something, a point you have in mind that you would like to show us that we could be using every day to kind of keep our minds calm?

HB: Yeah, sure, that would be a great idea especially since we were talking about anxiety and so forth. I know maybe some of your listeners are even driving at the moment so that could be challenging.

So one point that is really powerful but really easy to do and you could even do it while you’re driving at a stoplight or whatever, it’s called Yin Tang and it’s actually right at your third eye. It’s the point right between your eyebrows right above the bridge of your nose. You can just gently massage it with the tip of any finger, whatever finger feels most comfortable, most natural to you. It doesn’t matter whether it’s your pointer finger or even your thumb or your middle finger. Whatever just comes naturally to you. You’re not really pushing in hard so that you’re causing yourself to have a headache. This point, you can really do just quite gently but with a slight firmness. And you can massage it in a circular motion. And it’s very calming. Some people say that it opens up the heart chakra. It is the third eye point as well so this will help you tap into your intuition which should not be underestimated saying that might sound kind of woo-woo.

But when you’re on the fertility journey, you have so many difficult decisions to make and it’s really easy to start overthinking things. So this is a good point if you’re just kind of overwhelmed at the doctor’s office or something like that and you can gently massage this point, just bring yourself back to your heart center, bring yourself back to your intuition and just checking with yourself what feels right to you even if you’re being pressured one way or another to make a decision what feels right to you intuitively. This point is really good for headaches and also opening up your sinuses. So if you’re feeling sinus pressure or sinus headache or really any kind of headache then you can stimulate this point. It’s good if you have high blood pressure. So again, if you’re about to go into the doctor’s office and your blood pressure raises because you feel anxiety or when you’re at work or something, you can stimulate this point to relieve that anxiety. You can also stimulate it before you go to bed. If you have trouble falling asleep, it can help with insomnia.

32:23 CL: I really felt that. I kind of forget, you know. I think of like needling it. But just stimulate that, I really felt that and it was like, “Wow! It really dialed me down a few notches.” Sometimes you just walk around and you don’t even notice you’re stressed because that sort of becomes your default setting, right? Especially if you’re dealing with fertility stuff, you’re like, “Oh, I’m not that stressed even though I’m trying to figure out if I should do IVF and I’ve had another…” It’s just like, yeah, you are. Your body is going to react.

A couple of things. You had mentioned a few minutes ago about a healthy menstrual cycle. What does that mean? Does that mean my menstrual cycle comes every 28 days? Is that a healthy cycle? Or is there more to it than that?

HB: Yeah, that’s a common question. There is more to it than that but that certainly is one part of it that your cycle should come about 28 days. I say I’m happy if the range is 26 to say 32, I think that that’s a healthy range. I don’t like it going shorter than 28 days so I always try to if it’s starting to go to 27 or 26, I don’t want it to keep going in that direction; 25, 24, 23 – that’s a short follicular phase, a short luteal phase or both. So I really try to keep it at least at that 28, well, at that 28 day. But 26 is still relatively a healthy range.

Then 32 days is kind of on the other end of it, the healthy range. If you go longer than 32 days, there’s an increased chance of miscarriage because it compromises the quality of the egg. That means you’re ovulating late. So it’s very rare to have a luteal phase. The luteal phase is from ovulation till day one of your next cycle or pregnancy. It’s very rare to have a long luteal phase especially much longer than like 16 days. So really, if you’re having a longer than 28-day cycle, it means that you’re ovulating later than, say, around day 14. You may be ovulating on day 18, 20, 21, 28, whatever it may be. So if you’re ovulating later in your cycle, then there’s that increased chance of miscarriage because the egg quality is compromised during that maturation process.

Same thing if you have a short follicular phase. Follicular phase is from day 1 of your period through ovulation. If that’s on the short side, then your egg may be maturing too quickly before it’s ovulated. If you have a short luteal phase, then your hormones may be off. Half the cycle is not supporting implantation, won’t be supporting implantation optimally when you have a short luteal phase. So that’s why you would want to make sure that you have a nice, healthy luteal phase, a nice, healthy follicular phase. So length of the cycle is important.

Also, I look a lot at a woman’s period. I mean, in Chinese medicine this is one of the best diagnostic tools, the best windows we have into the body and what is possibly going on. It’s one of the advantages we have as women versus men because it’s this whole slew of information that we get about what’s going on with that person. So you don’t want to have any spotting before your period. Maybe just a little bit before the day that you get your period if you have a little spotting that’s not too alarming. But let’s say you’re having two or three days of spotting before you get your actual flow.

It would be one thing in Chinese medicine, in Western medicine you probably question whether that woman has low progesterone. But it could be a few different things from a Chinese medicine standpoint. But that’s something that I would want to work on as I’m improving women’s fertility and say okay, let’s get it so that you’re not having any spotting before you get your period and when we see that you’re not getting that spotting, that’s a sign of improvement we’re moving in the right direction.

Then of course, the quality of your flow. Are you having a lot of clots? Are they big clots? Are they dark? What’s the color of the blood? Is it a fresh, healthy red? Or is it a dark red? Is it purplish? Is it pink? So, the quality of the flow itself really gives us a lot of information. So ideally, a healthy flow would be a fresh red color and it would be a moderate amount of low, not where you can barely keep up with your pads and tampons without leaking. Or not so light that you only need a pantyliner, you could use the same pad or tampon all day long and you hardly need to change it at all. Between there where it’s a moderate amount of flow. Maybe you need to change every 2 to 3 hours or so and it’s a medium to super tampon or pad. Although you shouldn’t wear tampons, ideally. And ideally, you have about 3 to 5 days of moderate amount of flow. Of course it’s going to taper off probably the last couple of days or so and that’s normal but you would want a minimum of 2 days of good moderate flow.

If you have a lot of clots or dark blood, dark red, or purplish, brownish, blackish, then that’s an indication that you have some blockage, that you don’t have the best circulation in your uterus and that the health of your uterine lining may be kind of like sluggish. You’re not fully getting rid of that old tissue and there’s some build-up. It could be some toxic build-up and so forth. So that’s something that you would definitely want to work on to improve your fertility.

38:54 CL: The acupressure you recommend, can that help regulate the flow for women?

HB: Oh yeah, absolutely. Women start seeing changes in their cycle just in the first month of doing it in their very first cycle. Yeah, it’s really effective for that.

39:13 CL: We’re not really educated about our menstrual cycle, are we? I mean, I could have gone to a gynecologist before I studied Chinese medicine. I bleed really heavily, dark blood, lots of clotting. “Well, that’s normal. A lot of women have that.” Okay. And they go on for another 10 years and then try to conceive and then actually, that was a telltale sign that I was having some imbalances where they were never addressed and then dealing with that.

What about women who’ve been on birth control pills? Gosh, some people have been on birth control pills over a decade and so you really kind of don’t get the true picture of what your menstrual cycle is like, do you? I mean, it kind of alters that. Is there any advice you give to women who’ve been on the pill for a very long time?

HB: Oh gosh, yes. I mean, yeah, women will say, “Oh, my period was never that bad when I was on the pill.” And it’s like, well, it doesn’t count. As long as you were on the pill, that doesn’t give me any indication of what your period was like unless they might have some extreme symptoms. Most women don’t have much symptoms and they have very light periods, if any period at all. Some women don’t even have periods.

So then when they come off the pill and try to conceive, they either a lot of times I see women are not ovulating. Or they start developing symptoms of polycystic ovaries even though it’s not of the traditional polycystic presentation like a prediabetic presentation. But basically they have all of these undeveloped eggs on their ovaries and they become cysts because they aren’t able to fully mature and that’s because a couple of things. There wasn’t the circulation to their reproductive organs from being on the pill because the pill inhibits circulation to the uterus and ovaries. That’s why you have such little periods on the pill because there’s just not really a lining developing.

Then also, you basically repressed your reproductive system so obviously it’s used to be in this normal, healthy hormonal cycle so it needs to be supported to have that healthy hormonal cycle again. So those two things cause the eggs to not be able to fully mature, maybe not ovulating, getting cysts on the ovaries, having really light periods. I see a lot of women too where they get off the pill and they’re able to get pregnant right away but then they miscarry because that uterine lining just isn’t developing. So the embryo really can’t thrive once it’s implanted. Either that’s where Chinese medicine really, really, I mean, I wish it was just kind of like the standard protocol for gynecologists to say you’re coming off the pill, go and get acupuncture, go do Chinese medicine to get your body back on track because it’s so effective.

42:14 CL: Well, I think that’s our fault. We’re doing a poor job at educating gynecologists because I think if they were educated, they would think of that more, right?

HB: I know I’ve tried and…

42:25 CL: Yeah, you are outstanding. So I guess it’s all of us as a group we need to be a little bit more outspoken of that because I feel like it is such a tool. Yeah, there’s millions of women on birth control pills and, unfortunately, it’s not something that was created to be on long term so it could be problematic when you try to conceive and other issues as well. But Chinese medicine is brilliant at helping resolve some of those issues.

HB: Yeah. A lot of women too, they were put on it right when they first started menstruating because they had regular cycles that were really painful cycles and they were maybe in high school or whatever, so they had to go on it.

Then you have two issues. You have the fact that they may have been on the pill for 15 years. By the time they get off of it and they’re trying to conceive, plus the original issue was never addressed and was just masked, it being the painful periods, possibly endometriosis and so forth and their bodies never learned how to have healthy cycle. And the bodies really need that support to address both of those issues.

43:35 CL: Okay. So now that we brought up the pill and if women are listening, I don’t want to just create a lot of anxiety, what’s the first tip or advice that you can give a woman who’s been on the pill for a long time? Let’s just start with this simple thing and then go on because I know your website is full of amazing resources for it. But like, what’s step one for kind of getting back on track after being on the birth control pill for a long time?

HB: What we talked about earlier, the castor oil packs are excellent because they’re going to help your system detox from those synthetic hormones as well as increase circulation and help to balance hormones again. The abdominal massage will help get that circulation back into the uterus. So those are great. Then self-acupressure as well. There’s also a self-acupressure video on my website you can do each day to help balance the hormones. So those are some home healthcare tools. And as far as a professional healthcare tool goes, go to an acupuncturist, absolutely.

44:48 CL: I agree.

HB: And they’ll put you on herbs as well, an acupuncturist especially. I would recommend an acupuncturist also practice herbal medicine, have knowledge in women’s health, fertility and so forth, and these people prescribe you herbs to help with your particular situation because it’s different for every woman.

45:13 CL: Absolutely. We’re almost kind of at the end of our interview and I feel like you’ve given some great advice. If you could mention your website one more time and spell your last name because it’s a little bit different than it sounds.

HB: Sure. My website is HeidiBrockmyre.com and yeah, you did a wonderful job spelling my name before. That kind of is tricky. So it’s Heidi, H-E-I-D-I, Brockmyre, B-R-O-C-K-M-Y-R-E .com and the free fertility resources page has a lot of the resources that we reference during this interview and you can also sign up to have access to my Fertile Living library which has guided meditations, the self-acupressure introductory fertility video and foods, IVF prep guide, a whole bunch of resources in there. So that’s the ways to go.

46:17 CL: I can attest to that. It’s an amazing website. So many free resources. Now, last question. How can a woman tell if what she’s doing is helping besides getting pregnant? You’ve been doing it for several months, like what’s the signs that things are improving that one could look out for?

HB: Yeah. Well, improvements in their cycle like we talked about before. Just seeing maybe less spotting or the length of your cycle is healthier, the quality of your blood. Or I didn’t touch upon PMS symptoms so it’s normal to have some mild degree of PMS, bloating, breast tenderness, cramping, and so forth but if you’re having a lot of it, a lot of irritability, moodiness, cramping, low back pain, digestive issues, headaches, and so forth, obviously that’s a sign of imbalance. So when you start seeing those things improve, although I would like to also mention that sometimes when you first start incorporating health changes, things seem to get a little bit worse before they get better especially as the hormones adjust.

So let’s say for instance you were on the pill for a while, your hormones have been suppressed. You start doing castor oil packs and acupressure and acupuncture, and the first 1 to 3 cycles you might start having more PMS symptoms, feeling moodier and so forth because your hormones are starting to kick in. Or you might get breakouts or something. You’re like, “Wait! I thought things were getting better and they seem to get worse.” Sometimes as the body is adjusting and incorporating this to help hormonal balance, things can get a little funky first. But in general, the 3- to 6-month window is where the magic really happens.

And after you’ve been consistent with your self-care regimen and going to an acupuncturist and so forth, and so you’d want to see a healthier period, a healthy length of your cycle and as well you want to see your other symptoms improve because as Charlene and I talked and mentioned earlier, your emotional health and other physical health symptoms play just as much of a role in healthy fertility as do your actual reproductive organs. So if you’re having digestive problems or if you’re having trouble sleeping or if you’re having allergies or asthma or low back pain, these things will all affect your fertility and can be directly related to your fertility. So in Chinese medicine we don’t compartmentalize the different systems of the body. They’re all one and the same.

You would want to also see a general health improvement as well; not getting headaches so much or having good digestion, going to the bathroom regularly, having healthy bowel movements. A more even mood, for example; not feeling quite as stressed. So all of those would be considered wins and we consider being on the right path because a lot of times women think it’s all about getting pregnant or not getting pregnant understandably so when you don’t necessarily know how to read the symptoms in your body so it seems like every month you get your period or that negative pregnancy test, it feels like a fail and it feels like your efforts aren’t working. But when you start to really become more in touch with your body, your reproductive system and your whole health, you can see like, “Well, maybe I got my period this month but I saw all these other improvements. So I know that I’m on the right track and my body is getting there.”

49:56 CL: I don’t know if someone’s thinking this but this comes up, sometimes people go, “Well, my sister-in-law, she’s overweight. She has back pain, asthma and PMS and she has four kids.” I know those scenarios exist but if you’ve been trying for several months to several years, it’s just unfortunately more imbalances have happened because I agree, there are people who they treat themselves not too well and they don’t have a problem with fertility and life’s not fair that way. But for your particular situation if you’re listening, I’m assuming you’re having fertility issues and if are having these signs and symptoms, they are creating overall imbalances in the body.

HB: Yeah, totally. I know.

50:44 CL: It’s frustrating.

HB: Yeah. Some things in life just don’t make sense and I can’t make sense of them, not even from a Chinese medicine perspective which makes sense with so many things to me. But bottom line is, we can’t compare ourselves to other people and everyone’s body has a different predisposal to a certain vulnerability. You might have great lungs but unfortunately your reproductive system is vulnerable to imbalance. Everyone’s body manifests imbalance in a different way so you just have to do what you can to support yourself and I know, I get it that it’s very frustrating.

51:28 CL: Thank you so much. It’s really motivated me. Honestly I have been using castor oil on my lashes because I used it in the past and for lashes and hair growth, it’s amazing. You can look at so many YouTube videos but I’ve seen it myself. But the castor oil packs, I have not done them in a while and I definitely want to incorporate them because everybody needs to be taking care of their liver whether they’re trying to conceive or not. It’s just the times we live in. So thank you for that, I’m going to start doing them right away. And thank you so much for being on. I felt like you gave us so many important simple tips that are extremely powerful and I so appreciate it.

HB: My pleasure. It was so fun to be on here and I thank you for having this show and spread the word to your listeners about the wonders of Chinese medicine. But on the castor oil note, yeah, I wanted to add like you said it’s good for everyone, so it’s also good for the husbands, male partners as well to do it on their liver, for sperm health and stress relief. That’s a big one for men. But I didn’t know the trick about the eyelash.

52:38 CL: Oh my gosh.

HB: You could just like put it on with a mascara wand or something?

52:44 CL: Yeah. You do it consistently for like 6 weeks and you will see thicker, longer and you don’t have to use those like growth hormone like Revitalash or whatever those are. I don’t know if they’re safe or not but this is natural and people have used it for hair growth. But thank you for bringing up the husbands because can you come on again and let’s talk about men a little bit next time because they’re 50 percent of the equation. They cannot be ignored in this because male factor in fertility is a huge, huge issue right now and I think men need to be addressed. They’re kind of, “Oh, my sperm is okay.” Well we’ll talk about what okay really is and how easy it is to really improve sperm quality if that’s given some attention and it helps so much. So will you come on again and we could talk a little bit more about that?

HB: Sure, I’d love to.

53:33 CL: Okay, thank you. All right. Thanks so much. All right.

HB: Okay.

53:38 CL: To everyone out there, God bless. All right, thank you. Bye-bye!

HB: Bye. Thanks.