What is unexplained infertility?

First, in order to understand the cause of unexplained infertility, you need to understand what it is. Unexplained infertility is a diagnosis of exclusion. This means, after all other causes of infertility have been ruled out, you get a diagnosis of unexplained infertility.  What are these other causes of infertility? They are diagnoses that cause infertility, which are recognized by the conventional medical system and insurance billing codes. This means, what is causing your unexplained infertility, is not recognized by the conventional medical system and insurance billing codes.  That is all it means. Your doctor my even understand what may be contributing to your unexplained infertility, but since it's not recognized by the the medical system at large and insurance billing codes, there is no 'diagnosis' or 'treatment'. 

What causes unexplained infertility?

In my experience, unexplained infertility is caused by:

• Poor...

The first thing to remember with PCOS, is all of these symptoms are related, BUT not everyone will have the same symptoms or the same severity of symptoms. It is helpful to understand what is causing these symptoms, so you can be empowered and understand how to alleviate your symptoms. 

At the end of this article I will give a brief summary on how to address general treatments for PCOS. These are not intended to treat you specifically as each case is different.

1. Missed or irregular periods

Increased GnRH frequency release from the pituitary leads to elevated LH to FSH ratio in women with PCOS, this causes eggs each cycle to not reach full maturity. Without one dominant mature egg, ovulation does not occur, therefore no egg is released and progesterone levels are chronically low, because the egg release is what causes progesterone to increase. The withdrawal of progesterone, two weeks later, causes you to bleed each month. Without progesterone increasing after healthy...

The word cyst can sound scary. Oftentimes they are nothing more than a normal part of ovulation or a fluid filled sac that has developed on an ovary. In some cases they can be caused by PCOS or can be malignant such as in ovarian cancer. Normal ovulatory cysts are not caused by PCOS and are typically completely normal and even expected.  

I will be briefly describing the various types of cysts, and at the end you will find a simple chart summary of the differences between "normal" ovulatory cysts and PCOS cysts.

Functional "Normal" Ovulatory Cysts

These are a completely normal part of ovulation. Each month when you ovulate a cyst forms outside your ovary. This cyst is called a follicle. It grows to about 20-25mm in size! Eventually the cyst opens and releases the egg into the fallopian tube for fertilization. 

Some women can actually feel the cyst opening. This has a fun name, it's called "mittelschmerz" pronounced MITT-ul-shmurz. It is a...

Improves Sperm and Egg Quality

Good sperm and egg quality are central to fertilization, and the health of the baby. After all, those two cells alone, begin to divide pretty rapidly after fertilization, and end up as the parent cells to every single cell in your baby's body.

When you think of it that way, doesn't it make you want to do every thing in your power to optimize the health of those two cells? 

Procedures like IVF and ICSI, try to merge the sperm and the egg together for fertilization, but they overlook the basic health of the two cells to begin with. Do you see how that can potentially be a problem? Overlooking the basic foundations to optimize the health of those two cells can have a serious impact on your fertility and the health of your pregnancy and baby. 

Optimizes Endometrial Lining/Thickness

Your endometrial lining is the blood layer that coats the inside of the uterus each month, in response to hormonal changes. Estrogen and progesterone are the two...

Write Out a Timeline

Having a documented timeline of your fertility history and anything related to fertility health in prior years is very helpful when working on your case. Women, for example, it is helpful to have a history of female health challenges throughout your life, a general history of your period, history of birth control usage, pregnancy history and/or infertility history, and therapies you have tried in the past.

Have a Good Understanding of Your Period

Using a mobile period tracker can be very helpful here. Depending on your cause, 6 months to 1 year of cycles can be helpful during your initial consultation. Tracking symptoms like headaches, breast tenderness, cramping, mood changes, spotting, libido, and  bloating, can be helpful. As well as, knowing the number of days of bleeding, the length of your cycle, if you suspect ovulation and when and how you suspect ovulation (ovulation tests, basal body temperature tracking or through observation). For more...

Are you ready for 10 incredible facts about Naturopathic infertility care? Naturopathic Doctors are the pioneers of functional medicine. Our approach works with the body to facilitate healing and optimize health. When it comes to fertility/infertility it is the ideal place to start. Unfortunately, many couples don't know it as an available option when they are considering their path forward. In this article I will outline 10 benefits of Naturopathic infertility care.

In the diagram above, there are five areas of healing opportunity before reaching medications, surgeries, and invasive procedures. This diagram is known as the Therapeutic Order, and it gracefully moves from least invasive to most invasive therapies. When you step into most conventional fertility practices these first five areas of opportunity are glazed over. This is not the fault of the practice or the doctors you see, but rather a problem with the system. Insurance requires certain criteria and...

It's a fact that fertility rates have been declining for almost a century, pretty consistently. Sperm is much easier to evaluate, and 50% of infertility is attributed to the male, so this article will focus on the declining sperm counts and quality. Keep in mind though, these same factors impact female fertility as well. I will discuss, in my opinion, three large contributing factors to decreasing sperm viability. These are: widespread dietary fads, specifically low fat diets, pesticides, and plastic contamination.

Reality of the Problem

Sperm counts in 1940 averaged 113 million/mL, and today (2019) that average is 49 million/mL. That is almost a 50% decline in about 80 years. This should be a serious public health concern, if you ask me, but it doesn't seem to be. Well, it's concerning to me, and if it continues this way, the future does not look very good. Another halving of the sperm count in 80 years would lead to the average being critically close to the low end range of...