High FSH and pregnant naturally… after acne, headaches, and menstrual pain clear up.

I have always been fascinated by the observations of the early Chinese. While figuring out the patterns of our cosmos, that the Earth actually cycles around the sun at a precise 365.25 days, thousands of years before the Europeans, the ancient Chinese also figured out that women themselves cycle in very unique patterns. They observed that when a woman’s menstrual cycle is different than the patterns deemed normal, that problems arise – infertility being one of them.

A whole field of medicine developed out of this observation of the menstrual cycle, one that the great and lovely sinologist Sabine Wilms translates as menstrual attunement (Jing Tiao 經調). We may call this in our modern world the field of gynecology. A Doctor specializing in attuning a woman’s menstruation would use herbal medicines to adjust her cycle length, flow, consistency, and any other associated symptoms that may be off. By doing so, as has been proven over hundreds if not thousands of years, woman struggling with infertility were better able to both conceive and carry to term a healthy child.

So in reality anything that happens in a cyclic fashion (repeatedly happening around ovulation or menstruation), like headaches, acne, menstrual pain, irregularities in cycle length, night sweating, digestive upset, breast tenderness, and on and on, can show that a woman’s reproductive system is off kilter. One could say that the energetic flow responsible for healthy fertility is either weak or is getting stuck, allowing for the various problems to come about.

This is what I saw in a patient I treated recently. She and her husband had been trying to conceive a child for 3 years already. Through western testing this women was found to have a high follicular stimulating hormone (FSH) of about 31 mlU/ml, the likely culprit for her lack of success. Basically FSH climbs in relationship to depleted egg stores, until menopause is reached and the egg store is zero. Many fertility doctors like to see the FSH below 10 for healthy fertility. An FSH of 31 is considered peri-menopausal, and for women still in their early 30’s it may indicate premature ovarian failure.

The issue with FSH is that it is a hormone excreted from the pituitary gland, not the ovary. So while a high reading can indicate that eggs are declining, it may also indicate that the ovary is just not listening very well, forcing the pituitary to speak louder in order to get a response. Inflammatory issues are one possible reason as to why this may occur, as inflammation may damage or reduce the amount of available eggs (by what is called apoptosis). To actually see the amount of eggs left in a woman’s ovary would require a very powerful microscope, along with the removal of the ovary so as to inspect it properly. FSH readings are then just a guess as to the ovaries store of eggs, sometimes an accurate one, but it is still a guess nonetheless.

Although higher FSH readings can be useful to the Doctor of Chinese medicine, they certainly do not offer us a “definitive” diagnosis by any means. What is more important is the basics, whether a woman’s cycle is regular or not, and that any associated signs and symptoms are mild. If all is looking good, then regardless of the FSH reading, women should be able to conceive (considering that the husband is healthy as well).

So when this woman visited me with her long history of infertility I was more interested in her migraine style headaches, premenstrual acne, and clotted and painful menstrual flow, then I was with her high FSH. These were tangible symptoms that were telling me that her reproductive centre was out of balance. Actually these symptoms were telling me that her energetic flow was stagnating and needed to be smoothened out.

Using primarily herbal medicine, specifically designed for this particular woman, we saw tremendous things happen. First her headaches reduced to almost zero. Then her acne disappeared. Finally her menstrual pain and clotting vanished. Afterwards this woman became pregnant, defying the odds of all the western fertility Doctors that had given her such a poor prognosis. She and her husband were obviously very delighted.

Clear skin, no headaches, no menstrual pain, and the gift of pregnancy after trying for so long. What could be better?

Wishing you health,

Dr. Trevor Erikson