Last week I wrote about how different health complaints like psoriasis, inflammatory bowel disease, and stress may in fact be the contributing factor affecting fertility. I truly believe this is true in many cases that I see, particularly in the ones dubbed “unexplained infertility”, or poor sperm and egg quality being due to “genetic” and/ or “advanced age” reasons- all too often used terms that may often be stemming from a laziness to investigate available research.
Another example is one that I actually encountered in the clinic last night. A case of male infertility due to all around low sperm health parameters, including the count, motility (how well they swim), and the morphology (the sperms shape). This gentleman’s morphology was in fact 0%, which means that according to the World Health Organizations “strict kruger criteria” for evaluating the best looking sperm for optimum egg fertilization, none of his little swimmers were considered normal and healthy.
Over the course of several years, this poor guy had seen many different health professionals including; his general physician, a urologist who repaired a vericocele (a testicular varicose vein), several Naturopathic physicians, an acupuncturist, and a reproductive endocrinologist (who designed 2 different in vitro fertilization procedures for the couple). Not one of these care providers looked into the reality that he was experiencing roughly five, very uncomfortable, outbreaks of genital herpes per year (for over a 10 year period). Research has shown that the herpes simplex virus is a causative factor for poor sperm health- particularly for reduced morphology and motility.
When I brought up this correlation to my patient last night, he declared that I was the only one to ever mention this to him and that he was very happy that I did, as he himself always felt that his reduced fertility was indeed related to his herpes outbreaks. He did not believe that just plain old “genetics” were his problem, as his parents had no trouble having children at all. We chatted how it was pretty much common sense to assume that a massive inflammatory event in the area local to where his sperm manufacturing was taking place, could have damaging effects on the growing and maturing sperm.
In Chinese medicine, both research and clinical experience has shown that herbal medicine can effectively treat herpes. My standard approach to this problem, particularly when there are chronic repetitive outbreaks, is to give treatment for at least three to four months to see if outbreak frequency and intensity is reduced. This is also a good amount of time to ensure an increase in sperm health, as sperm takes roughly eighty five days or so to grow from start to ejaculate.
Dr. Trevor Erikson
Copyright © 2019 Dr. Trevor Erikson