Dr. Nieters,
I am an acupuncturist in Seoul and I have a patient who is trying to get pregnant. Do you have recommendations for dietary, supplement, or any other thing to aid in this process?  She was also wondering about her body temperature, as she runs a little cold and several people here have told her that if her body is cold it is hard to get pregnant. She is 36 yrs old.  she was diagnosed with stage 2 breast cancer in 2005 and underwent lumpectomy, chemo and radiation. She took tamoxifen for 5 yrs, which she completed last year. She has high cholesterol 260 currently. ldl was 179 and hdl was 66. She is not taking statins.  She takes a multivitamin, folic acid 800 ug, and kirkland fish oil 1 capsule daily.
Thanks John!

– Seoul Acupuncturist

Dear Seoul Acupuncturist,
That is a very long list of very difficult issues.  Fertility rates drop very dramatically after radiation and chemo.  The tamoxifen is the bigger problem though.  The tamoxifen basically destroys the kidney yin, and somewhat the jing reserves ,with it’s interference with the estrogen system.  The chong and ren will also be affected.

She has to rebuild her ovarian reserves and re-establish the qi and blood to the uterus which has been severely malnourished from the Tamoxifen on top of the chemo insult..
She needs a lot of kidney yin building supplements as well as blood movers to re-establish lower jiao balance.

She must do a BBT (basal body temp chart to see if she is ovulating properly (proper length of follicular and luteal stages)  also to see if she is maintaining a 12 day temperature peak.
With the cold temperature and other problems the minimal testing would be TSH and day 21 progesterone levels.  Lots more that should be done, but those are the minimum.  The “high” cholesterol is a positive.  The cholesterol is the precursor for her diminished hormone levels.

1. TSH and Progesterone tests
2. Daily moxa at Ren 4 and at Stomach 36.  Also will need it at appropriate spleen, liver, kidney points by diagnosis.
3. Herbs to fit the diagnosis.  Think something strong like Wen Jing tang (if chong channel deficiency with cold), Ren Shen yang ying tang, Shi Quan Da bu Tang, Fu Zi li zhong tang (if more middle jiao cold), Ren Shen Dang Shao San, etc.
4. BBT chart – need a clear sharp temp increase days 13-15.  12 day flat temperature peak.  Sharp drop from peak to menses.  Have sex (not you; her) on the day the temp before the peak (need to estimate from the prior month).  2nd best day is 2 days pre peak.  3rd best day is the day of the peak.
5. Good quality fish oil (not kirkland) at 3-4 grams per day.
6. Chi Nei Tsan abdominal massage

Be Happy!

– Dr. John Nieters, L.Ac. DAOM

Dr Nieters,
This October, it will be one year since I started listening to The Balancing Point – and what a year it’s been! I started listening to The Balancing Point after researching my symptoms online, and learning about candida from your Itunes podcast.

With the help of an acupuncturist, lifestyle changes and the three week Detox that you recommended, I no longer have the following issues: a chronic sinus infection including excessive phlegm and a constant cough, a ringing in my left ear, a droopy left eye that twitched, and a popping in my right ear.  All of this is gone – without the use of the antibiotics and daily steroid nasal sprays that my doctor prescribed for the same conditions.

And, the list goes on … I’ve had an improvement with my dry eye syndrome, dry skin, cracked feet, soft nails, and extremely rough elbows. Plus, although I have not lost as much weight as I’d like, I’ve lost inches, especially belly fat!

In addition – from listening to your show – I also learned that my leg length discrepancy might be able to be corrected.  I found a great chiropractor – discovered that my LLD is from a hip problem – and am still working on this issue, but, I’ve already been able to remove the lifts from my shoes.  None of the three doctors that I saw previously ever even mentioned this as a possibility.

And – as an added bonus – people are now noticing the difference and saying that I look younger.  I definitely feel younger – thanks to you and your show – and I am now back to exercising regularly.

So, a year later, I wanted to let you know that The Balancing Point show has changed my life – and I can’t thank you, your wife and your staff enough!

Best regard from an avid listener!

– Denise from Colorado

Dear Denise,
Thank you for sending this email. Nothing is more heartwarming than receiving an email like this. Thank you for letting us participate in your journey.
Be Happy!

– Dr. John Nieters, L.Ac. DAOM, FABORM

Hi Jennifer and John,
It was a pleasure meeting you both and listening to John’s lectures on Sunday.  So much information!  It was a great day!  Lot’s of aha moments. I had some questions for John.
1) Do you have any good recommendations for breakfast that include protein/fat and not eggs.  My  IGG was through the roof on eggs which is my favorite for breakfast.  I ate them everyday to help with hypoglycemic issues and I am wondering if that was a bad idea.
2) Along the same lines, I don’t eat cow dairy but I am wondering about whey protein
3) You mentioned herbs that support healing of the gut.  Can you give me some recommendations?
4) Where do you get you PGX fiber?
5) Do you have any resources (besides your awesome shows) that correlate western medicine with TCM D&D.
The information you shared was absolutely wonderful!  I am going to see if the school can have you back to talk about food allergies, autoimmune diseases and reading labs. I know you are extremely busy and I apologize for the many questions.  I am one of those people who has to chew on things for a bit so I can formulate questions.

– Colorado School of Traditional Chinese Medicine Student

Dear CSTCM Student,

You really know how to sweet talk a guy. Those classes, along with the Diabetes and Pi Wei Lun classes that I did last weekend, are my favorites! Chew well. There was a lot of information in the Diabetes class and I don’t want you to get indigestion.

1) Jenny’s breakfast favorites for gluten and egg free breakfasts include Salmon sausage patties from www.vitalchoice.com, avocados and wild boar bacon, Rudi’s gluten free toast.  I concur with her suggestions.  Any meat that you can tolerate or make a congee with meat or organ meat.  Ghee is great to add to everything as it is a yeast killer, supplies major fuel for the heart, and does not contain milk proteins.

Eating a food that you have a current IgG problem with will cause inflammation in a dose dependent manner; the more you eat, the worse it is.  It takes 4-6 months for the body to “forget” the specific immunity causing the IgG problem that has been created to foods.  Every time one eats those foods it basically starts the clock over, so it may take another 4 months.  Whenever there is severe food sensitivity long term there WILL be leaky gut problems. This is a Pi Wei Lun  (Treatise of the Spleen and Stomach) type of problem.  Following the 4 basic steps of Li-Zhu medicine:

• Fortify spleen to boost qi and cause proper upbearing of pure yang (and proper downbearing of turbid yin)
• Clear any of the 6 depressions involved to allow for proper coursing of the qi.
• Clear pathogenic heat
• Treat any branch problems

With food allergies we will typically see patterns such as: Liver depression qi stagnation assailing the spleen and stomach with damp heat in the middle jiao.  We often see a combination of a cold middle jiao with pathogenic heat, just to confuse things a bit more.  Long term this would lead to kidney yang xu and other patterns.

In treating this with TCM and supplements I would first determine how significant is the Liver depression.  If it is a core problem I might look to Qi rectification, stasis resolving formulae such as Shu gan San or Chai hu shu gan san as a starting formula.  If there is not liver qi as a core problem I would go with spleen fortifying, damp resolving, formulae such as Liu Jun Zi tang.  If more dampness I might use Xiang Sha Liu Jun Zi tang.  If more of the depressions are involved I might use Bu Zhong Yi Qi San as a core formula and add herbs for branch problems.  For example; if there is diarrhea with the other depression you could add Bu Gu Zhi or Shan Yao with the core Bu ZhongYi Qi San to make a very efficient formula.  Or add Huang Lian or Huang Bai to BZYQS for specific heat clearing.  The “three huangs” are all anti-bacterial and anti-candidal.  The spleen clearing medicinals were perfectly formulated for leaky gut problems. If there is cold stagnation in the middle burner or significant kidney yang xu, or the naturopathic concept of adrenal fatigue, I love Fu Zi Li Zhong Tang.  FZLZT dries the spleen, fortifies the spleen, lung and heart qi, warms the middle jiao, and warms and supports middle and lower jiao cold.

With IgG problems there is always a great deal of small intestine inflammation, which allows for much easier attack, adherence, and penetration between cell walls by candidial hyphae.  Often there is pathogenic yeast as an ongoing, perhaps non symptomatic, problem whenever we see significant IgG problems.  So, we must simultaneously:

• Avoid the foods for 4-6 months.  Rotate any other foods eaten.
• Resolve yeast in an ongoing manner  (I like TCM formulas and supplements such as undecyclenic acid, capryllic acid, grapefruit see extract, etc, for this)
• Increase Intestinal Secretory IgA to restore immune function (I like TCM formulas, saccharomcyes cerevisia if no allergy or Crohn’s disease, colostrum, cod liver oil, Vitamin D, Vitamin A, krill oil, etc for this)
• Increase beneficial intestinal flora ( increase fiber, use soured foods, take probiotics)
• Increase pancreatic enzyme output or ingest endogenous food enzymes (Spleen Qi tonics, herbs to resolve food stagnation, querecetin, endogenous enzymes)
• Heal the lining of the small intestine. (Spleen Qi tonics, middle jiao heat clearing herbs, Fish oil or Cod Liver oil, Evening primrose oil, black seed oil, etc.)
• Warm or cool the middle jiao as appropriate (TCM formulas)
• Liver and gallbladder support for circulating immune complexes, cic’s, caused by the IgG/macrophage/antigen process.  (TCM formulas, milk thistle or extracts such as sylimarin or sylibanin, artichoke, beet tops, dandelion, etc.)

2) By far the worst dairy allergies are to casein, particularly to beta casein A-1.  Whey is typically less than 10% as likely to be a problem.  If you tested positive to whey you should avoid it, otherwise I would go with it.  Rice protein works for many people.  Pea protein for some others.  Always avoid casein and soy proteins.

3) For healing the gut, see the formulas above.  All spleen tonic herbs are good in general.  phlegm/damp clearing medicinals are often important in small doses; such as chen pi, qing pi, ban xia, etc.

4) I use PGX fiber which is a konjak mannan product.  We get ours from “Natural Factors”.  I personally use their “slimstyles” product as a meal replacement rather than eating during the day at work.  I have my patients either do the slimstyles or take the PGX capsules before meals.

5) I love Treatment of Western Diseases in a TCM clinic and Evergreen herbs clinical manual as starting points.  They don’t cover supplements, but they do a wonderful job of creating correlations.

Thanks for the kind words. It was really great to meet you in person.  It was a very friendly group of students and I really enjoyed seeing Denny again.  Hope to see y’all soon.

Be Happy!

– Dr. John Nieters, L.Ac. DAOM, FABORM