IVF Prep at HealthYouniversity

Enhancing Fertility: Acupuncture and Nutrition with Dr. Lee Hullender Rubin

• Dr. Susan Fox

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Imagine improving your fertility outcomes right from the comfort of your home. That's exactly what we're delving into on this episode of Health University with the brilliant Dr. Lee Hullender Rubin. Together, we'll explore the ins and outs of at-home acupuncture techniques for fertility, focusing on the intriguing concept of Transcutaneous Electro Acupuncture Stimulation. Dr. Rubin, with her extensive knowledge in this field, will guide us through the process, explaining how this therapy can boost blood flow and potentially influence the mitochondria within the ovary and follicle.

But that's not all. We’ll also look into the phenomenal benefits of electroacupuncture and photobiomodulation in fertility treatment. You'll find intriguing discussions about how these advanced practices can help manage anxiety related to fertility, diminished ovarian reserve, and even insulin resistance. Plus, we'll touch on how photobiomodulation can aid in reducing inflammation, increasing localized blood flow, and accelerating cellular repair. As we always say, nutrition plays a key role too. So, we'll cover the significance of a nutrient-rich diet that can help boost your fertility outcomes. Join us for these fascinating insights and remember, always consult with your doctor before trying any new therapy. Tune in and let's enhance fertility together.

💻 About Susan Fox: https://www.healthyouniversity.co/about

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Speaker 1:

Hello and welcome to Health University podcast, where we understand that you are both the ever learning students as well as the master of your health, and, with the proper information and education, you can make the best choices for your transformation. I'm your host, dr Susan Fox. I'm a woman's health expert and specialist for more than 20 years in private practice and, having heard just one too many times the lament if I only knew when a woman is facing reproductive or personal health challenges I've decided that now is the time to bring together discussions on what it means and what it takes to live a healthy life. Health University brings guests of a variety of medical and healthcare experts, including MD, obgyns, reproductive endocrinologists, doctors of traditional and natural medicines such as Chinese Ayurveda, naturopathic physicians, doctors specializing in mind body health, pelvic floor specialists, nutritionists, psychologists, sex therapists, all of whom have pearls of wisdom that give you an edge on how to improve your whole health, your reproductive health, the health of your relationships, weaving together the whole cloth of what it takes to live a vital, healthy and happy life. So stay tuned, because class is about to begin.

Speaker 1:

Hello and welcome to today's episode of Health University, where we believe that you are both the student and the master of your education, and we're here to offer some insights and updates for you that you can incorporate into your body of knowledge, to make do with it what you will and improve your own outcomes. Today, I'm delighted to have with us my friend and colleague, dr Lee Hollander Rubin. Dr Rubin is on faculty at Health University in our your Fertile Health course, and she is going to speak with us today on two of the processes, protocols that we have included in our course. That, I think, is very helpful and important for us to understand, or for you, the listener, to understand as well, for how this can be a wonderful DIY at home, in the comfort of your own time and space and place way to improve your fertile health outcomes, and so I would like to just give a little intro, but then I will ask Dr Lee to elaborate as she will.

Speaker 1:

She is founder of Rose Finch Health in Portland Oregon, where she helps women through a variety of wellness issues, including fertility, ivf support particularly pelvic, volvo-denial pain in issues, as well as cancer care. She has a thorough and complete research history and is the author of, I believe, 30 possibly more research reports at this point, and so she brings to us a body of knowledge that is really grounded in science. She also offers Rose Finch Academy for those of us, like myself, practitioners, who need to expand and deepen their knowledge of what's out there in the latest research and how we can implement it in our private practices. So, without further ado, dr Lee, if there's anything that I've missed, please add it to your bio and intro at this time.

Speaker 2:

Thank you, no, I think you covered everything. It's really nice to see you and to be here.

Speaker 1:

Likewise so, dr Lee. We talked about the importance of sharing with the listening audience some of the procedures and protocols that they can do at home, because we know that, especially women going through IVF or egg freezing, they're committed so much during especially that you know well up to three months, but especially the two week period before their retrieval, during their stems. It's wonderful that they have the capacity to do a lot of this acupoint stimulation at home and not have yet another appointment to run to Right Precisely.

Speaker 2:

So they're really trying to help people feel more empowered and be able to do things for themselves. Yes, wonderful.

Speaker 1:

So would you be so kind as to give us a little mini education on like what are these programs and protocols that are part of the your Fertile Health Program that women can do in the comfort of their own home?

Speaker 2:

Yes, I really think of these therapies. There are definitely treatments and therapies that you can apply to yourself as being two different ways to support your fertility. So, in addition to nutrition, in addition to any targeted supplements, where you're really giving the substances for helping support reproduction, we're now also using these exterior, external treatments to help promote blood flow and to potentially influence the mitochondria within the ovary and potentially follicle. So the first therapy that we find that has the most evidence, the most research behind it and a lot of it is actually nearly all of it is from China is transcutaneous electro acupuncture stimulation and basically, if you've ever seen a TENS machine, maybe you hurt your elbow or through your shoulder out, or maybe you had a knee surgery and you were in your recovery period and your PT said, hey, well, let's put on these little electrodes onto your knee and let's see if we can help it heal a little bit faster.

Speaker 2:

We're using a similar technology but instead of stimulating nerves, we are stimulating acupuncture points and we are doing that. Our primary goal is to stimulate the Fatal Respir, distinctive muscles, enter the muscles and gums, tell us, is to influence your reproductive system. So you know, feel free to interrupt me at any time. Dr Fox, if you have questions, because I don't wanna go too long and sound it's not so much sounding anyway but I don't wanna go too long and not and you have a question so please feel free to interrupt me.

Speaker 1:

Thank you, I shall, and I like the flow because I think that this is actually what folks are interested in. You know what is this tease? Why men, why not, and when not? So you take the floor.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, okay. So, yeah, ask me any questions if I forget something that you think is important for folks. So the tease, which is not a drink, it is absolutely a therapy, it is an electrical stimulation of acupuncture points, and we put it on points on your abdomen, we put it on points on your legs. We alternate the points based on several different factors, but the primary thing is that you don't wanna do the same treatment over and over again because your body stops listening to it. We like to switch things up, just like when you're doing your workout. You're not gonna do arms every day, right, you're gonna do your arms one day, you're gonna do your legs another day, maybe you do abs another day, because if you're just focusing on one thing, you're basically your body stops deciding to get benefit from it. So we wanna keep the message fresh and we change the points, and we do that because we're trying to do a couple of things to support your fertility, and this is definitely supported by research. So the first thing is we are helping you have more blood flow to your ovaries and to your uterus, for those of us that menstruate and for those of us with sperm. We can also use it to support the testicular development of sperm, but let's focus mostly on people who have periods. So we down-regulate the nervous system, the central sympathetic nervous system, and that's the part of the nervous system that's like fight or flight, it's like ready to go, it's like redirecting your blood flow to every other part of your body except your reproductive organs. And when we down-regulate that, we are helping to dilate those little vessels that are around the ovaries and the uterus and just perfuse or bring more blood flow to those particular organs and glands.

Speaker 2:

The second thing, which I think is really a lovely addition, is that we know that whenever we do acupuncture, when we use this particular technique of T's, is that it induces neurotransmitters, and neurotransmitters can be lots of different, different neurotransmitters, but they're influencing the deep brain, which then tells your hypothalamus, which is connected to your pituitary gland and then to your adrenal glands or your ovaries, that we need to have a regular relationship, we need to be ready to ovulate at the right time, we need to develop an egg at the right time. So it's helping to reinstate or reinforce and support that relationship. It's like it takes the static out of the line, if you will. Yeah, it definitely takes that, setting it also. I think it also kind of brings everyone into the meeting, do you know, like, instead of well, we'll just have to do that another time, no, actually we need to all be here and be sort of tracking what's going on. It's best for the project management.

Speaker 2:

So then the final thing that we know for sure that happens with acupuncture and with T's is that it helps to release your own natural painkillers, and those painkillers are great because they help not only with pain it's stopping that but it also helps to reduce your stress and, yes, it helps to LAB-Termut. It's the feel good, and by helping that to happen you sleep better. You can cope with this process a little bit more easily, and by doing this regularly, doing it a couple of times a week, alternating between these several different treatments, you continue to get these responses. So I love this particular therapy because patients like to do it like an hour before bed. It's a 30 minute treatment. The little machine turns off all by itself and then people are ready for bed. It's like you're really sort of getting your body ready for rest, because rest and sleep is incredibly important for the hypothalamus, pituitary, ovarian access and keeping your cycles regular and helping with fertility all overall.

Speaker 1:

While we're also doing these other things. Yes, exactly yeah. So this can be done either before bed or during your Netflix binge if that's what you need to do. We'll speak at another time about the importance of circadian flow and maybe not Netflix binging until just before bedtime, but if that's where you're at right now, you can multitask. You can have your favorite show and get something done at the same time, because I know a lot of our listeners are multitaskers by nature these days.

Speaker 2:

Yes, I think we all are myself included.

Speaker 2:

OK. So that's really transcutaneous electroacupuncture stimulation. It's very easy to apply on yourself. We train you how to do this as part of our program. We tell you when to do it, when not to do it. So one thing I'll just say right now you should never do this while you're bleeding, because if you're on your bleed this will because it vasodilates, because it brings more blood flow it could increase your blood flow with your period and we don't want that. Too much is too much. So we always skip it when you're on your period. But we can do it at every other time of the cycle, unless you're also trying to conceive that cycle. So if you do decide to try that cycle with time dinner course, or maybe you have an IUI, then you would want to not do it after two days after ovulation. So you could do it up until two days after ovulation and then skip it until after we find out what's going on with your cycle Right After that two week wait.

Speaker 2:

Yes, very difficult two week wait for sure. And I think the other thing I will just say is that there's data that this helps with anxiety that's related with fertility. This helps with diminished ovarian reserve. There's some good data about that, that it influences AMH in a positive way and influences antropholical count in a positive way, that it has been associated or not associated. Actually, there were randomized controlled trials where it improved IVF embryo transfer outcomes and I think the other pieces that we can. This is where we can deduce or maybe extrapolate that in the other data around polycystic ovarian syndrome T's may actually have an influence on regulating your insulin resistance, so helping to improve sensitivity to insulin and helping to regulate blood sugar and ensuring that the actually the blood glucose is absorbed in the muscles where it wasn't able to do that before. That is so cool.

Speaker 1:

That's new to me today. That is so cool, yeah, ok, fantastic. And we also know that some of these markers are even found in follicular fluid. So if you're doing the T's right at the level of the lower abdomen, at the ovaries, you're not only perhaps in improving the insulin activity and metabolism throughout your whole body, but because it's located right there, you're having a beneficial impact of how shall I say, improving those markers right there at the level of the follicles.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, you're getting a localized influence which then can have a global, whole person influence. Exactly, yeah, beautiful. So there's T's. Oh, I will say there's actually one study Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you. No, no, no. There's one study where even just one treatment has an influence on insulin sensitivity. Oh, wow.

Speaker 1:

So our polycystic ovarian either syndrome or just conditioned gals out there plea, or women people out there. Please pay attention to this. If you're having any other signs of PCO or PCOS, consider adding T's to your protocols to make that shift. Yeah, that's fantastic, Definitely. And then there's T's, and then there's T's. Photo biomodulation.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so photo biomodulation, I like to use both of these therapies together. So in my clinical practice I like to have patients alternate them, and I think this is what we're doing for this particular program as well. So when you have teas one day, the next day you would do photo biomodulation. And what is that? It's essentially these red LED light therapy that provides red light and near infrared energy or light that provides superficial blood flow, so it increases the blood flow. It may help reduce inflammation and it might we don't know this for sure but it might have an influence on the mitochondria within the ovaries. Now, the one thing about photo biomodulation in the LED realm is that we don't have very much information or research about it, that we are extrapolating from other research that's been on pain, that has been on wound healing, that has been on hair growth, that sort of thing. The mechanisms of photo biomodulation are to reduce inflammation, to increase localized blood flow, to help with cellular repair and when we're thinking about fertility, we want our ovaries to be as supported as possible. And we could actually I mean, we don't know this for sure, so this is a extrapolation for sure I'm curious if, by having a more superficial influence on blood flow, are we also potentially improving blood flow more locally and deeply near the uterus and the ovaries? And what? We also know that it's nice and warming, and warmth does increase localized blood flow as well. It is not too hot, which is great, so you won't get burned. It's very safe to do.

Speaker 2:

There is no real risk, except for two things. If you use photosensitizing drugs like retinol or that sort of thing, you are not gonna want to use this on your skin. But if you're trying to conceive, you probably won't be using retinol anymore anyway, right. But if you're taking it and you don't, yes, exactly. If you're taking an immunologic of some kind or some type of medication that you know, has you been told, hey, you need to stay out of light, then this might be something for us to talk about before you use, or you might want to ask your doctor about it.

Speaker 2:

The other risk is that you don't want to do this over a tumor of any kind. So if you know for sure you have a fibroid or actually there's some type of cancer that's been specifically diagnosed for you, you do not want to use red light therapy over that. But the eye but nearly everybody is going to be able to use this, with those two groups excluded, and because it has also been found to be helpful for wound healing, for any kind of superficial skin issue. And we do know that the body is not a stagnant, static thing, that just because you touch here doesn't mean nothing happens anywhere else, like there's fMRI, right, right and fMRI research about that and that's the proof of acupuncture right At meridian points.

Speaker 2:

Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Yeah, for sure, for sure. So we have folks use that over their abdomens and we alternate again. We'll do teas one day, the next day we'll do the photobiomodulation, the LED light panel, and then the next day do a different teas. Treatment and instructions are provided as part of the course, so you get really clear ideas of what to do and when to do it and you can do this all cycle if you're not trying. But again, much like with teas, if you are trying to conceive, you wanna stop two days after ovulation, but you can use it during your menses if you need it.

Speaker 1:

It's really great for pain, for pain for uterine cramping. Would you put that over your abdomen as well, or over your lower back for alternating?

Speaker 2:

You could do either. You can do either. It feels so good. I actually have folks. Oh, it does. It feels so great. I actually have folks do both. I'll have them put it on their back for 30 minutes and then, maybe a couple hours later that day, I'll have them put it on their abdomen. You don't wanna do too much because it has a diminishing returns If you use the red light over and over and over again. You don't wanna do that. You really do need to limit the number of days per week you use it, and this is the whole concept of adapting.

Speaker 1:

Our bodies will adapt, they will exist. We see it anywhere from the description of teas and the celluma infrared. The celluma is what we have been using all the way to ovarian stimulation at the reproductive endocrinologist. Our bodies are brilliant. They know when to say enough is enough. So we don't wanna overwhelm them. We wanna give them suggestions that are unique each day, so that the body can kinda go oh, I can do this, I can respond to this stimulus.

Speaker 2:

Yes, For sure, and you wanna again keep it fresh, right? We don't probably wear the same. We do different outfits every day. We don't wear the same thing, Exactly, Exactly. Try to keep it interesting so that your body continues to respond.

Speaker 1:

It's true, you make a good point because when you said, as you mentioned, that keeping it fresh, we are body-mind and even in our mind, if we're doing the same thing wrote over and over and over again, we are less engaged and so, therefore, we are having probably less degree of neurotransmitter engagement. We're kind of on robotic, and what we want to do with this course and with these protocols is to really help you become more engaged with the processes, the physiological processes, the psychological processes, the spiritual processes of your body, because you have a right you have an innate right to be fully engaged with everything that's happening to you during the various weeks of your cycle.

Speaker 2:

Yes, I do agree with that and that I think I might add. One other piece is that is, that we don't have to just use one thing to achieve that, and sometimes we need more than one thing to achieve that and to think about you're using multiple messages to help support your whole self.

Speaker 1:

And I'd like to remind the audience that it is Dr Lee who is the instructor on these videos and who has designed the PDF sort of supplement support so that when you're going through this, she's done an incredible job of taking you step by, step by step, thoroughly through the process, so you really do know that you are getting all the information you need, all the cautions you need at any point in time so that you can feel really comfortable with taking this on. I know sometimes I'll speak for myself. If there's a new thing out there, one part of my brain says, oh, I want it on that, and another part of my brain says, oh, I'm kind of afraid it's new, it's different, I don't know if I want it. So you will be fully supported in this process should you decide to undertake it.

Speaker 2:

Yes, that's our intention for sure, exactly so.

Speaker 1:

In addition to doing this not during menstrual bleed, but unless it's celluma, and then not two days post-ovulation, if it is a month that you're trying to conceive or undertaking advanced reproductive therapies, are there any other sort of cautions or contraindications that you might want to raise? I know they're covered in the course, but just for the listening audience out there, one thing that comes to my mind, for instance, is if you've got metal in your body right If you've got metal in your body. You probably don't want to be doing either of these things.

Speaker 2:

You can do it with metal in your body so long as there's not an electrical charge with that, Perfect. So people who have implants, if they're a pacemaker, obviously we're not going to use an electrical stimulation with that.

Speaker 1:

And we're not going to do it over the heart.

Speaker 2:

Of course, if you've got a body or leg you're fine, you're good to go, you're totally fine. Yes, that's a great differentiation. Any other contraindications for teas? I will say there's a couple. Again cancer if you have cancer, we don't want to be bringing more blood flow to a potential tumor. Secondly, we don't want to do it on broken skin For teas. We're using little electrodes. I actually have my little machine here.

Speaker 1:

Let's see.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so we use these little electrodes that look like this. So if you have broken skin, you don't want to put this on there. It's just going to aggravate it, yes, or if you have infected skin. So if you have some type of infection on your skin, please don't place this on there. If you have a sensitivity to adhesives this is what I've found so far Most everyone who has a sensitivity to adhesives has actually tolerated this really well because it's not staying on the whole day, it's only 30 minutes. But if you notice that these bother, you do reach out and get the ones that are hypoallergenic, because they do make those.

Speaker 1:

In the course we actually, that is, we supply in the course the TENS machine for teas and we supply the celluloma machines for infrared and we use the hypoallergenic pads. So, just to make sure that we've kind of ticked that box.

Speaker 2:

Yes, and we use small ones for the abdomen and we can use larger ones for different shapes of bodies. We like to be flexible in that, but okay. So the other thing that we want to think about when we are avoiding using this is just, if you know you don't like, I would encourage you to at least try it once. But if it makes you anxious to use this in the sense of like it's uncomfortable, you don't like the sensation it should feel like essentially one patient described this and I just love it, so I've been using it it should feel like someone has an eraser and they're tapping it on you, like it's not meant to be zappy, but if you know that you can't tolerate that, then you don't have to do it. No one has to do anything. But it can be supportive, and so those are our main ones. If you have cancer, if you're bleeding, you don't want to use it. If you have broken skin or an infected skin and if you have it, I think we send the implant already on your medsies.

Speaker 1:

Yes, and I guess I would just add, in terms of the tolerance. Of course there's as wide a spectrum of tolerance as there are human beings. But this device or these protocols, unlike how they would be used for a sprained strain, are so low that it's to the point of perception and you've got your hand on the knob. You know how far, how high, you can go. So the likelihood that this will be bothersome to you is very slim.

Speaker 2:

I won't say no, it is very slim. I think everyone in my practice has really tolerated it very well. In fact, they like being able to do it at home and not having to come in three times a week. So it's a really great way to supplement your treatment and, again, not only take the nutrients in, but use your body's innate ability to support yourself, your ability to self heal, your ability to bring your own blood flow to your ovaries and to your uterus through these kinds of therapies.

Speaker 1:

And I guess I will just add, since you've mentioned twice bringing the nutrient rich blood that depends upon how well your diet nutrition is. So we're going to either bring twinkie blood or we're going to bring nutrient dense blood. So at another time we'll delve into what is good nutrition for your fertile health, for your whole health. There are so many diets out there and nutrition lifestyle programs taking place carnivore, alkyto, paleo, so forth and I'm not going to say anyone is wrong, but I will say some are more right for this time in your life to make sure you're getting all of the nutrients so that when you're doing these protocols you are driving nutrient dense blood to your ovaries and uterus.

Speaker 2:

Yes, and there's actually really pretty good data around the profertility diet to support fertility overall. Yeah, exactly so. You'll get into that in another decade.

Speaker 1:

I will get into that. Unless there's something you want to offer right now, I want to give you the floor.

Speaker 2:

Well, the main thing is that we just really try to eat real food, that we really limit. I don't really like limitations because there's a lot of tendency towards too much restriction. I think if we try to eat lean proteins, if we try to eat fresh fish, that we try to eat vegetables and whole grains and fruits and nuts and seeds and really focus on good fats like olive oil and avocados and sunflower seed oil, that kind of stuff, these are all well-associated with improved fertility outcomes, improved IVF outcomes, time to conception. The data is pretty compelling that we really don't. For most people, we don't have to do a highly restrictive diet.

Speaker 1:

Right, I agree, the eating this way is going to set you up well for pregnancy, because this is exactly how you're going to want to eat in pregnancy. You can make sure that at that point you're not only feeding your ovaries, you're feeding another, and so you want to make sure that. And there may be times in a pregnancy, especially early pregnancy, where you may not feel like eating all of these things. So front load it now. So if there is times that you need to kind of take a break and have a bagel, it won't be quite so adverse at that time, because you'll have fed that placenta and that embryo and that fetus well up until that time that you need to take a break from vegetables perhaps. If that's the case.

Speaker 1:

Well, dr Lee, I wanna give you a minute to kind of wrap this up because I wanna be respectful of your time. I know that you're a busy woman and have lots of things to underway and but if there's anything, any pearls or any offerings that you wanted to make to the listening audience so that they could get to know you better, and of course I will be putting your links in the profile. So take a look at the podcast for links to Dr Lee's, to Dr Lee's websites and anything else that you might wanna add.

Speaker 2:

I think the way I would maybe end our conversation is just reminding all of us that this is, unfortunately for some of us, a journey longer for others and shorter for some and the important thing is that we all remember to breathe, because if we cannot breathe in this moment, we will not be present in this moment, even if it's a painful moment. But the reminder that breathing will help us be present here and know that this moment will pass, that we have within us an immense amount of resource that can support us through some really challenging times. And not all fertility journeys are challenging. Actually, some can be really very easy and others are more difficult and protracted. But people like you, dr Fox and myself, we're here to support you through it, and breathing is your first step to support.

Speaker 1:

Yes, we are doctors of Chinese medicine and the breath is life. The breath is she, evidence of she and life. So with that, well, I'll just take a nice deep inhale and we'll see you. Thank you very, very much for your time. I'm so very grateful and I look forward to bringing you back for more conversation. Maybe it's the nutrition who knows. So thank you for listening. I hope that have a wonderful day and we'll see you on the other side. I guess I will say class dismissed. Thanks for listening to today's episode. We hope that you too found the gold in this conversation and can implement some takeaways into your everyday life to improve your health and your life. Be sure to subscribe so that you don't miss an episode and to click on the links providing additional resources and gifts to this episode. See you next time on Health University. Class dismissed.