Rowan Pelling on the link between acupuncture and fertility
It was last updated at 00:02 on February 19 2008. I was last in the queue for the BCG thrust at school and am not the category of adult who generally embraces needles. So it's with considerable surprise that I have had to admit that acupuncture works for me.
Over the four years I have received treatment, I have discovered its efficacy in all manner of areas, none more so than in boosting fertility.
Fertility treatment is big business in the UK, where it's estimated that lone in six couples doing problems conceiving, so it's not surprising that scientists are sceptical of a growing fringe production of "miracle" remedies.
However, a growing body of proof recommend that the ancient Chinese practice of acupuncture really can embroider a woman's luck of conception. Two weeks ago Eric Manheimer from the University of Maryland published an authoritative review of acupuncture's effect on IVF treatment in the British Medical Journal.
The report was based on seven studies published in English since 2002 (involving women variously treated with real acupuncture, fraud acupuncture or no acupuncture) and found that genuine acupuncture could increase a woman's chance of pregnancy by 65%.
I ahead became aware of the connector between fertility and needles when a brother sent me to her acupuncturist, Gerad Kite, at a particularly low ebb in my life. I had just had my first pregnancy terminated after the fetus was diagnosed with a terminal condition and I had also learned that my mother had onliest months to live.
Ostensibly I was being treated for paralysing grief, but after the first treatment, when I felt currents of energy move across my body, something very strange happened. I not only felt as if a portcullis somewhere interior had lifted, but I ovulated for a second time that month, just as my regular period was due, and I fell pregnant with my first son as a result.
It was one shot after these incident that I cultured Kite had a considerable honour in the field of fertility treatment (although he is also highly regarded representing his work with insomnia, pit and immune system disorders).
After my son was born I started to cautiously reccomend his clinic to friends. I say "cautiously" because the text of what doctors at once call "unexplained infertility syndrome" is delicate terrain.
No treatment, from whatever rim of the medical fence, guarantees a happy outcome and most involve a impartial bit of expenditure. IVF has an principles 15% success rate.
If you don't hog any children already, the NHS will provide up to three cycles of IVF for suitable couples, on the contrary there can be expanded waiting lists and one private IVF cycle costs around £2,500.
Also, many people view acupuncture as some wacky another therapy. There are two schools of acupuncture and, confusingly, the older-sounding Traditional Chinese Medicine (or TCM) developed out of the Maoist Cultural Revolution.
TCM tends to focus on identifying evidence and treats them via set acupuncture points.
The needles are left in the compliant for a period of time and treatment often involves the recipe of herbal remedies - although some doctors worry that such herbs can interfere with habitual medicine, including IVF drugs.
The Kite Clinic is one of the first exponents of the more ancient school of Five Element Acupuncture. This operates on a another holistic basis than TCM and doesn't generally involve the prescription of herbs or any extras.
If you need to probation your sperm or hormone levels, Kite will send you to your GP and patients will be sensitively quizzed on their emotional and mental state, diet and exercise, and full medical background.