The Ever More Complicated World of Holistic Fertility Support

It used to seem so simple.

A bit of sensible, straightforward advice, combined with some simple acupuncture - and things would fall into place.

But never always.

There were always some cases where we didn’t get there.

And those cases have always bothered me the most - lying awake at night wondering what I’ve missed, what questions haven’t I answered, which patterns did I fail to recognise. Wondering if we are on the right track and need to be more patient, or whether I have taken a wrong turn and need to go back to the beginning again.

So I tooled up. I dived into Naava’s Advanced Fertility Diploma and over the years I have forged incredible working relationships with some outstanding medical and holistic practitioners to help to to crack more of those difficult cases.

But in the past couple of years it feels as though the tough cases have kept getting tougher.

I used to wonder what I was missing in terms of male fertility (IVF clinics generally do a lousy job for the guys) - then along came sperm dna frag tests, along came experts such as @ian_stones_ and Claire Mooney at Fertility Solutions, and this space felt fairly well served. Improvements in the teaching and research into male fertility, and access to incredible fertility focused urologists has meant we now catch so many male fertility cases which means we can solve some of the cases that would previously have remained elusive.

I used to wonder what we were missing with regard to bacterial infections. Then along came the Vaginal Ecologix test from Invivo Healthcare which was a huge leap forwards in this area. More recently I have come to rely heavily on the ScreenMe tests - they have tests for the vaginal microbiome, the semen microbiome and the uterine microbiome (via either menstrual blood or using a swab taken from a biopsy). Again, these development made it possible to solve cases that I would previously have failed to solve.

And yet there has always remained a hard core of cases which are so difficult to solve. Cases where we know there are signs and symptoms suggesting inflammation and we can see from NK cell testing that the immune system regulation is out of kilter but immunosuppression has not been enough to resolve these cases. In several of these cases, infection seems the most likely underlying cause - there is such a strong relationship between infection, inflammation and immune system dysregulation - but I haven't been able to figure out how to find it, and what to do about it if I do find it.

The Inflammation Triangle

Through so many interesting conversations with some incredible practitioners, I have come to understand more about the potential for viral reactivation to be at the root of some of these more difficult cases. In simple terms, prior to the global pandemic of 2020, many of us carried dormant viruses in our system, viruses that were held in the latent state, not active, not causing inflammation or impacting health. Since the pandemic, there are people who have an unexpectedly complex picture of reactivated viruses - often multiple viruses simultaneously. Our immune system is not designed to cope with multiple active viruses at the same time. This is a new phenomena - thought to be at the root of many cases of long covid, but also increasingly recognised in cases of unexplained infertility. I'm talking about viruses such as Epstein Barr Virus (glandular fever), CMV, Coxsackie Virus (hand foot and mouth) and a whole host of others.

I have started to understand how to recognise when we need to 'go there', and have establish a referral network of holistic infection and immune system experts. It's important work - reactivated viruses don't just impact fertility, they have the potential to have an impact on risks throughout pregnancy. We all know that there are many viruses that you would steer clear of during early pregnancy - we know that active virus infections can wreck havoc with placental development and development of various aspects of the baby.

This is not easy work - the tests are super-expensive, and if significant viral reactivation is detected, the treatment plan is quite complex. But the treatment protocols are being refined and improved all the time, this is such a fast moving field - largely led by international scientists and holistic practitioners with a strong interest in immunology. This is very much a work in progress for me - but I am diving in. If it helps me to resolve some more of those incredibly difficult cases, and helps me to sleep better at night, I'm there for it.