Acupuncture for male infertility

Building your strength back up

Acupuncture can be used to help with male infertility.  Difficulties with male fertility are on the rise, and they can make for a deeply distressing time in your life.  Having assumed that everything would work as expected when the time came, it can come as a shock, and feel very undermining, to hear that the quality of your sperm is not as strong as it could be.

This type of problem is more and more widespread.  Compared to the averages in our grandfathers' generation, modern sperm counts are much lower.  Even the standard 'normal' counts that doctors use to assess sperm levels have been correspondingly lowered.  You are definitely not alone!

Clearly there's something about our modern lifestyles which is not supportive to male fertility.  In Chinese medicine the main causes are fairly clear: stress, overwork, increasing exposure to all manner of chemicals, and in some cases overdoing it with exercise.  Acupuncture does not use a 'one size fits all' approach, instead Jessica will discuss your health to reach a fully individualised diagnosis.

The acupuncture approach

Acupuncture treatment aims to improve the number, formation, and healthy motility of your sperm.  Each sperm takes about nine weeks to reach maturity, so the results of treatment will not be immediate, and generally a minimum two-month course is to be recommended.  The optimum approach is to start with weekly treatments, using acupuncture points to strengthen your reproductive energy and also to resolve any other health imbalances to get you back to peak condition for the tough challenge of fatherhood.  These treatments can then be lengthened to fortnightly the monthly if they are still needed at that stage.

The treatments

The acupuncture points which need to be needled will vary from person to person, due to the individual and holistic nature of acupuncture.  However it's true to say that a lot of the most useful points lie on your leg below the knee and on your arm below the elbow.  Jessica certainly will only needle areas you're fully comfortable with.

Acupuncture does involve needles, which are not everyone's favourite cup of tea!  People often imagine hypodermic-sized needles, but acupuncture needles are only a fraction of the size, typically 0.2-0.3mm thick.   Before they experience it, people often worry about the sensation of acupuncture, and it certainly does generate a distinctive sensation, which varies a lot from person to person.  The points can feel numb, tingly, heavy, sharp, or give other sensations.  Some people feel very little and others do find it a little painful.  Either way, these brief sensations during needling never seem to stop anyone coming back!

Optimising the female contribution too

Even if it seems the difficulty in conceiving or carrying may lie with the male partner, the female contribution is also critical in achieving a successful conception and sustained pregnancy.  If your partner is already in good health an optimal approach while trying for a baby is for her to have 2-4 weekly treatments followed by monthly treatments, to give you both the best possible odds. 

Contact Jessica

Each of us responds differently to acupuncture.  Do get in touch to discuss whether acupuncture is likely to be right for you, or to make an appointment.

© Jessica Kennedy 2005-8, all rights reserved