Fertility Drugs

Today I received a call from a very gentle and kind spirit who had some questions about using my practice in conjunction with fertility treatments. She was not the first person to ask me this question.

The answer is, sometimes I can work with whatever the fertility clinic is doing, but generally speaking I won’t be able to work with them if you are taking medications or drugs that you are not willing to take, at least, a break from.

The reason is this, many fertility drugs are completely unnecessary once a woman has learned how to read her fertility signs. Any problems that materialize along the way can typically be attended to by using herbs. Some rare cases do, in fact, require some more invasive treatment, such as that which the Western Medical Model uses with regularity. But I happen to believe…no…KNOW… that for many of those cases, western medicine is overkill. Also, I can’t teach you how to read your fertility signs when fertility drugs mask them, which they almost always do.

Today’s telephone call reminded me of the myriad women that I have spoken with or worked with who have gone the Western Medicine Model route. The prescriptions are predictable. For nearly any fertility-related ailment, Clomid (usually taken in pill form) is prescribed. Most western practitioners will move on to injectibles after an arbitrary and variable amount of time on Clomid. The basic tests are always performed. Ultrasounds. Post-coitals, blood tests. Sometimes they will move on to more invasive methods, checking to see if one or both fallopian tubes are blocked, for uterine fibroids, ovarian or uterine abnormalities, and so forth. None of which show ANYTHING if not performed at the precisely correct moment, which most western medical doctors have no clue about how to determine. They continue to work off of the “normal woman=28 day cycle” method of “prediction”. Fertility Awareness Method (FAM), the method I use, has nothing to do with prediction. In fact, no one ever predicts anything. We use scientific facts to determine what is going on in a woman’s body at any given moment.

Of course, if you do happen to be one of the rare cases that does need to go the western medicine route, nothing will increase your odds of success better and faster than a solid practice of FAM. So FAM is important and appropriate for any woman, always.

But the post doesn’t end here. The phone conversation today got me thinking about the very difficult line I feel I’m walking when I share with women the truth about the fertility drugs they are taking. Let’s go back to the old stand by and typically first line of treatment; Clomid. I’ve encountered many women who have been put on this drug (myself,  included) and I’ve noticed that despite the many side-effects associated with this drug, women are often times ill-informed by their doctors.

Yes, doctors will often share with them the side-effect of potential multiples in pregnancy, but to a starry-eyed woman suffering infertility, the idea of having not one baby but MULTIPLE babies takes on a romantic air. After all, what’s more appealing to the woman who can not even have one pregnancy than the potential for a pregnancy with multiples?

But what the doctors fail to mention is that pregnancies involving multiple babies come with a wide variety of risks. The risks of premature birth are many fold. The risk of complications from that birth are undeniable. The risk of miscarriage of all of the babies increases. Many doctors neglect to mention that if you do become pregnant with multiples, you will be pressured by said doctor to selectively abort. This, of course, presents dangers to all of the babies in utero, besides the spiritual/religious questions of which babies do you let live…and which, not.

The doctor will also frequently forget to mention that Clomid (and later on, injectibles) are fairly new. We do not know the long term effects of these drugs, but from what we do know, there is a link between all of them and several forms of cancer, including ovarian, uterine and breast cancer. And the longer you are on these medications, the higher your risk. Also, certain lifestyle habits and genetic markers increase these risks.

Doctors usually fail to mention, until it is too late, that some side effects, such as hot flashes, migraine headaches or seeing in double, triple, or more are relatively common. If your fertility drugs are affecting your vision, what does that tell you about the whole system involvement and potential dangers of these drugs?

I could go on ad nauseum about the dangers of fertility drugs. It is not a decision to be taken lightly, of course. And once women find out how to read their fertility signs and understand, through doing so, what the problems really are they tend to not even need those drugs anyway!

When speaking with many of the ladies who have come to me in the past, I will often mention a simple truth; what do you have to loose to try a more natural way? The fertility drugs and clinics will still be there in two or three months…or even 6 months, though it usually doesn’t take that long for most women who work with me to conceive.

FAM has no side-effects because you are not doing anything to your body, but rather observing the messages your body is sending to you. And if you need to move on to herbs, which have thousands of years of history and a proven safety and track record, you are still in a better short and long term situation than you would be in with synthetic drugs and invasive procedures.

In Good Health and Blessing,

J. Rivkah

For additional reading about FAM and how the Western Medical Model (aka, the medical establishment) treats and diagnoses women, check out the two books below…