I will never be able to thank Dr Zhao enough for what she did for me. I came to Dr Zhao and Traditional Chinese Medicine in utter despair, at the age of 39, with a loudly ticking biological clock, a partner unwilling to go for IVF, and a diagnosis of unexplained infertility. However, I have taken contraceptive pills for 15 years for severe acne. My cycles were between 21 and 33 days after I came off the pills, and vaginal bleeding after bowels movement. I had dreadful acne, and I was deeply depressed, not least by what felt like a deeply unhelpful diagnosis from the NHS and 5 long years of trying to conceive. 

Unexplained infertility may sound fairly benign to a fertility specialist but to a woman desperate to conceive it felt like the end of the world. Unexplained infertility. What on earth was I meant to do about that? So I Googled and found Traditional Chinese Medicine. And a local fertility expert in South Yorkshire called Dr Zhao.

Of course I was deeply cynical. About Traditional Chinese Medicine and about Dr Zhao. I believed in the NHS, and in Western medicine, not in alternative remedies, and Eastern approaches to infertility. How could something as unobtrusive and relatively painless as herbs and acupuncture possibly help unexplained infertility? If the infertility was unexplained, how could there be anything to even treat? Wouldn’t I be better off going straight for IVF with a donor? But the scientific evidence supporting Traditional Chinese Medicine as a treatment for infertility was overwhelming. So reluctantly and nervously, I decided TCM might be worth a try. 

Within two months, and to my amazement, Dr Zhao got my cycles back on track, and stabilised my general health and low energy and mood levels. With no IVF or hormones or drugs, just herbs and acupuncture. Dr Zhao also recommended an NHS medical fertility specialist, with an understanding of TCM, to investigate what turned out to be endometriosis. And so unexplained infertility was replaced first by regular cycles and then at last, after 6 months of treatment from Dr Zhao, by the child I so longed for. When I got pregnant, it felt like a miracle. A miracle supported by Traditional Chinese Medicine. 

It still does to this day. I’m ashamed now of my cynicism about Traditional Chinese Medicine. Dr Zhao changed my life, from a sad and lonely one, to one full of laughter and noise and mess and happiness, and all the things it so desperately needed. My son, the child I so desperately wanted, is now 3. I had acupuncture throughout my pregnancy and I still wonder now if that’s why he’s so happy, healthy, clever, strong, and everything I could possibly have wished for. 

If you’ve also received a diagnosis of unexplained infertility, please see Dr Zhao. For yourself and for your partner and for your future children. Because there will be children, however despairing you may feel now. I know that because I was there too, struggling to conceive and all but abandoned by the NHS in which I’d put my faith. I can’t claim to understand how or why Traditional Chinese Medicine works. But what I do understand is that Traditional Chinese Medicine and Dr Zhao gave me a child after 5 years of trying to conceive. That definitely makes TCM more than worth a try.

(Lisa G. Feb 2017)