Natural Recovery after IVF Retrieval
How to Recovery Quickly and Naturally After a Retrieval
In the martial arts, any sort of trauma, no matter how mild it might seem, can cause everlasting chronic problems. My favorite references for this is:
Secret Shaolin Formulas for the Treatment of External Injury
I’ve had many patients not bounce back for a long time after a retrieval or any sort of surgery.
The IVF procedure basically pokes a hole through your vagina using a needle (see Cook Medical & Cooper Surgical oocyte retrieval equipment & below) and then proceeds to poke your ovary’s follicles to suck out the egg. For the Wallace Single Lumen, the outer diameter of the needle is almost 2 mm for their largest diameter product. Two millimeters is not that small. Imagine that poking again and again to the ovary. We can use the same principles we use in the martial arts to recover from this trauma.
Oocyte Needle
While many people will cite that we don’t know the pharmacology of herbs, that is their ignorance and that is not true. See one of my favorites Chinese Medical Herbology & Pharmacology. Previously I wrote that certain measured aspects like the half life are not readily available for most herbs, but now with ChatGPT and other AI technologies, this information is easily available. The half life of these herbs are in the hours, unlike psychotropic drugs which extend for days. A short half life means these herbs are metabolized out of your system in hours. If you are comfortable taking an herbal formula, I would highly recommend taking a ‘die da wan’ (called a hit pill in the martial arts). The easiest way for most people to get in the ballpark of this is using Health Concerns Resinall K. You would take this for 1-2 days.
If you don’t want to take an internal formula, you can apply herbs externally to treat the trauma from the outside in. You can apply the Resinall K topically but keep in mind it stains. There are other herbal decoctions known as ‘dit da jows’ such as this from Plum Dragon that can be used. These also stain. Normally you’d use herbs that are ‘cold’ in nature directly after trauma but since the uterus is an organ that is ideally warm, you would use a jow that is neutral to warm in nature.
You can use plasters (herbs in a nicer delivery application) externally too. Don’t mix plasters and topical decoctions. One plaster that is good is Hua Tuo. Another one I like is 701. These external applications are only used 1-2 days. Someone with endometriosis, adenomyosis, fibroids, etc, I might use external applications at certain points in the cycle and custom herbal formulas based on what is going on with your overall health.
Another powerful way to recover after surgical trauma is to do acupuncture. In many martial arts studios, someone will do acupuncture onsite right away after a traumatic injury. There are very powerful points we can do to recover very quickly. This is especially important if you are doing a fresh embryo transfer.