If your first thought is, “What’s a Fertility Hot Seat?!” Then let me tell you.

I go live ONCE A MONTH on Instagram and YOU have the opportunity to join me live to get my take on your case. I set a timer for 15 minutes, you ask your question/s and I give you my answers.

Whether you’re chosen to go live with me or not, I may answer questions that can help with YOUR 

case. If you’ve ever thought about coaching with me or my team but weren’t sure if it would be a good fit this would be a great opportunity to test it out!

Did this case resonate with you? Drop a comment below!

***

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Disclaimer: Please keep in mind that I am not a medical doctor. I have been a practitioner of Traditional Chinese Medicine for over 17 years and I will be speaking from my clinical experience helping thousands of women conceive. The office of Aimee E. Raupp, M.S., L.Ac and Aimee Raupp Wellness & Fertility Centers and all personnel associated with the practice do not use social media to convey medical advice. This video will be posted to Aimee’s channels to educate and inspire others on the fertility journey.

SEE TRANSCRIPT BELOW OR CLICK ON THE IMAGE ABOVE FOR THE FULL VIDEO.

Aimee Raupp:

Well, hello. How is everyone? Hi. I am coming to you live for a fertility hot seat and I am in my bed because I've had a rough few nights of not so great sleep. And today I decided my gift to self would be to work from bed for most of the day. My husband just brought me a yummy cup of tea and I'm here for you. Here's how it goes down. Let me just turn on this light so the lightning's better. There we go.

Here's how it goes. This is my fertility hot seat. These happen once a month and this is where I bring one of you on, at random, to go live with me for a free 15-minute fertility consultation. This consultation is not medical advice. It is based on my two decades, it's officially two decades as of December, that I've been in practice helping women get and stay pregnant.

I'm Aimee Raupp. I am … on a phone call that … let's see. Hi. Let me make sure I'm still live because a phone call … yeah, okay, good. So, again, I'm going to start over.

I'm Aimee Raupp, I'm an author. I've written four books. Chill Out and Get Healthy was my very first book, came out 14 years ago. And the advice I recommend in that book still stands, which I'm very proud of, I have integrity. Then I wrote, Yes, You Can Get Pregnant in 2015. Still a bestseller in the space of women's health and fertility. If you haven't ever read that book, please check it out. I cannot believe it's going to be its 10-year anniversary this year. I'm thinking about some kind of revamp for the 10-year anniversary. Then I wrote, Body Belief, which is all about healing autoimmune diseases. And then I wrote, The Egg Quality Diet, which came out about a year and a half ago, or was it two years in June? I can't remember anymore. Anyway, that's me.

And then I've been in clinical practice as an acupuncturist and herbalist, as a nutritionist. I've also been studying functional medicine. I work hand-in-hand with multiple different reproductive endocrinologists and their clinics. So I love integrative medicine, but I've been in clinical practice for two decades as an acupuncturist. At the height of my clinical practice, I was seeing upwards of 60 patients a week. Now I only go into the clinic once a month in each clinic, I have three different clinics, and I have associates in all those clinics. And now my main job is this, supporting you guys all over the world. And I have online fertility courses and I do online fertility coaching. It's great and I love it. And I get to do these too, these fertility hot seats.

There's a handful of you guys. Here's how it works, if I didn't already say this. Request to join me live, there's that little video camera with a plus sign in the bottom of … you have to be on your phone, you can't be on your computer by the way. Request to join me live. And then I'm go in and I'm going to pick one of you, and then you're going to come on, 15 minute consult. Everybody else gets to learn from this.

I know there's so many practitioners that come on and watch these because they love to, I think, hear my recommendations and see how my brain works. Which I think is great and I appreciate that. I'm also … I've gotten so many requests lately to do more mentoring with practitioners. So we're probably going to, in 2024 at some point, have a mentorship program where practitioners can join in to work with me. And then I can support them in supporting their clients.And so if you're ever interested in the mentoring piece and you are a practitioner in women's health, email my team, info@aimeeraupp.com.

If you guys want to work privately with me or my team, head over to aimeeraupp.com/coaching. The only way to work with me right now is through my six-month functional fertility group coaching program. You have to apply to be accepted. And we're currently accepting applications for the February cohort. The January one's already full and it starts next week.

And then last bookkeeping item is my fertility reboot, which is everybody's favorite 30-day program, is actually kicking off. We're going to open enrollment for that on Monday of next week, and we're going to kick off January 22nd. So, keep an eye out for that. Okay, now there's so many of you who are asking to join me live. I am going to pick … let's see, Dr. Christy. And these are at random because I believe in randomness and that there are no coincidences. Let's see if it worked. Oh, I see her coming. Hi.

Dr. Christy:

Hi.

Aimee Raupp:

How are you?

Dr. Christy:

I'm good. How are you? I'm trying to figure out how this works because I've never done this. Let's see.

Aimee Raupp:

Yeah, this is it. If it works for you, it works for me. And we just have a chat about what's going on with you. And I'll give you some advice. But just so you know, it's not medical advice because I can't do that over an Instagram Live. Not legal. But I do have a lot of experience and so, I think you could just pick my brain about what's going on and I'll give you some feedback. How's that? And then everybody gets to learn.

Dr. Christy:

Yep.

Aimee Raupp:

Which I think is highly beneficial for the community.

Dr. Christy:

Right, sounds good. Well, first of all, I'm in bed too. I'm currently on rotation working in Alaska. And we are snowed in this morning, so I don't go until the afternoon.

Aimee Raupp:

Wow.

Dr. Christy:

Yeah.

Aimee Raupp:

That's kind of fun. How's Alaska? Is it cool?

Dr. Christy:

Yeah, it's good. Like I said, we have a blizzard right now, it started last night. And so, when the roads get pretty bad and lots of snow, I think there's been 10 to 15 inches, they delay openings because of road. They have time to clip the roads and things like that, safety issues.

But anyway, a little bit about me. I started trying to conceive back in 2021. Because I come out in rotation to Alaska and at that time I think I was 37 or 38. And excuse me, I had never tried before, never been pregnant. I had tried for approximately three months, and then I said, “You know what? I just want to get a work up. I don't want to wait all this time. Waste time. Let me just get a work up.”

Anyways, long story short, everything was normal, normal, normal until my HSG showed a right block. After that HSG, maybe 14 to 16 hours later, I developed severe abdominal pain 2:00, 3:00 in the morning. I was in the hospital, septic with peritonitis. And so, that was a big bummer, hospitalized for about five days.

Aimee Raupp:

That sucks. Yeah.

Dr. Christy:

Horrible, horrible, horrible. Then maybe six months later, at that time I had reached out to professional specialists who said, “We need to remove your botched tube.” She went in to do that. There was tons of adhesions. She was only able to [inaudible 00:07:26] removable. And she went over to the opposite side and noticed that there was a tumor. And so, then I had a tumor to deal with. And then on the right side, the same side-

Aimee Raupp:

What kind of? Not a dermoid cyst, an actual ovarian tumor?

Dr. Christy:

Tumor. Yeah.

Aimee Raupp:

Okay. Okay.

Dr. Christy:

And then on the right side, the side that they originally were going in on to remove the tube, there was a large cyst that she said the surface was very similar to the tumor, so she was pretty sure it was the same thing. Anyways, referred to [inaudible 00:08:02].

Aimee Raupp:

[inaudible 00:08:00].

Dr. Christy:

The following month I ended up having surgery. They removed 60% of my right ovary, 40% of my left ovary and completely removed-

Aimee Raupp:

Both tubes?

Dr. Christy:

Both.

Aimee Raupp:

Is that what you said?

Dr. Christy:

Yeah.

Aimee Raupp:

Okay.

Dr. Christy:

Both.

Aimee Raupp:

So IVF is currently the only option.

Dr. Christy:

The only option, yes.

Aimee Raupp:

And did you do any chemo or radiation or anything like that? Or are they just removed?

Dr. Christy:

No, they were removed. Pathology showed they were borderline serous tumor.

Aimee Raupp:

Okay.

Dr. Christy:

I just need to follow up.

Aimee Raupp:

Okay.

Dr. Christy:

And the goal I think is eventually to remove the ovaries, but they know I'm trying to conceive.

Aimee Raupp:

Yeah, okay. So AMH probably took a dive after the surgery.

Dr. Christy:

Oh, it took a huge dive. It was two before the procedure, and now all my latest one was 0.2. [inaudible 00:08:50].

Aimee Raupp:

And what's antral follicle count typically?

Dr. Christy:

Four.

Aimee Raupp:

Okay. Not bad. Not bad, honestly.

Dr. Christy:

I did one cycle. It ended up being just a month after, which I shouldn't have done. I shouldn't have done, but I wasn't told that I shouldn't have done it. They went-

Aimee Raupp:

You're desperate. You're desperate at that point. So give yourself some slack.

Dr. Christy:

And the provider didn't tell me-

Aimee Raupp:

Wait, wait.

Dr. Christy:

They didn't. And they ended up giving me very high dose of Menopur and Gonal-F and I didn't respond at all. At all.

Aimee Raupp:

Of course not, it shut you down. Sure. Yeah.

Dr. Christy:

So then I switched clinics to CCRM in Colorado. Well, and before I did that cycle, I actually went to RFC and did the PRP. And then I had my next retrieval was in Colorado, and that was around April of last year. And we retrieved four eggs-

Aimee Raupp:

Good.

Dr. Christy:

Three were mature. One made it to blast and biopsy and it was abnormal.

Aimee Raupp:

Okay.

Dr. Christy:

So that was that cycle. And then I decided I didn't want to travel so much because I already travel for work. I didn't want to go to Colorado anymore and I found a local clinic. And I was already kind of priming the same protocol I was doing in Colorado. So they said, “Let's just continue that protocol for this next round.” So, we did. And that time I ended up having two eggs mature, and neither of them made it to blast. Then I did my clinic protocol, this was the most recent one, this was in October. And they did stimulation in the luteal phase.

Aimee Raupp:

How much Menopur did they do?

Dr. Christy:

It wasn't much. I think the Menopur was 75.

Aimee Raupp:

75.

Dr. Christy:

Yep. And Gonal-F.

Aimee Raupp:

150? Maybe.

Dr. Christy:

I think it … 150. I think so. And we ended up having, I believe it was four follicles-

Aimee Raupp:

Okay, good.

Dr. Christy:

She said she thinks the right side ovulated for retrieval. So we missed out on that one. Then we retrieved three and one was mature and didn't make it to blast.

Aimee Raupp:

What day are they stopping?

Dr. Christy:

[inaudible 00:11:30] cycle has gone down.

Aimee Raupp:

What day did they stop growing on?

Dr. Christy:

Gosh, I honestly don't even remember. I feel like I-

Aimee Raupp:

Would they freeze at day three?

Dr. Christy:

They probably would. So the last I talked to them, we talked about doing a fresh transfer.

Aimee Raupp:

Those are my two thoughts. Either don't try to grow out to blast and just try to bank and freeze at day three. Or do fresh transfer, do a fresh day three. I have a girl even doing a fresh day four. That's what I would try. And then I would also maybe try for another retrieval, since you're only getting one or two anyway, why not just do letrozole and no Menopur. That's like a Merhi thing, he says, no Menopur in women over 40. That it can cause them to basically like ripen prematurely or prematurely ripen. I'm a little sleep-deprived still, but you know what I mean, and that can impact quality.

I wonder, this clinic maybe sounds like they could work with you if you just say, can we do super low stem? I want to try just letrozole and maybe they'll still do some priming. I think like the estrogen in the lead up, and see what you get. And then either freeze at day three or even day two. I see some clinics here in New York, they do day two freeze if we're not getting it to go any further. Or try a fresh because yeah, you've never even had the opportunity at this point of getting pregnant. So, we just don't even know. And then before … the only thing I would say about the fresh is that you make sure you've had a hystereoscopy at some point before you do another retrieval.

Dr. Christy:

I did. Well, I had one back in January, so a year ago. And I just recently had a saline ultrasound, which was everything was normal.

Aimee Raupp:

And any endometrial biopsy to just make sure there's no endometritis. That's the one thing I would rule out is … or just do seven to ten days of doxycycline in the lead up to a transfer, which would treat the infection. I mean, obviously you clear this with your doctor, this is not medical advice. But that's where I would go. And then sperm semen analysis has always come back, I'm assuming fine, because you didn't say otherwise. Okay.

Yeah, that's where I would go is try to go even lower on the meds. Because you almost had … I mean that one cycle that you had the four, that was pretty good. But maybe dropping the Menopur. You could either do that Follistim 150, no Menopur, try that. Or you could also just say, I just want to try one where we're just doing oral, no injectables. Merhi too, I mean, again, this is just one clinic, but he's always in my head probably because I talk to him so often. But if antral follicle count is less than three, he does not use injectables. He will only use letrozole or Clomid. And if antral follicle counts above three, then he'll do Follistim 150. But sometimes two, he'll just do that for one or two days. Do you know what I mean? Then couple it with letrozole or Clomid.

Because the eggs are in there. And so I think it's more like, let's get them, let's fertilize them and get them back in you as quickly as possible. Try not to grow them out. Because I think too, there's question around the testing these days anyway. I mean, I know CCRM still has their hard rules, but I have so many girls in their forties that do day threes and they become healthy children. And then we also see so many women a year, unfortunately not going to be in this camp that have unsuccessful IVFs and then go on to get pregnant naturally in their mid to late forties and have healthy children. So we know there's still so much that's going on. And then as far as diet and supplements, what are you currently doing?

Oh, look at that. Well, thanks. You could join our reboot too.

Dr. Christy:

I'm trying to do it, I haven't read it all, but I'm trying to get there. And I'm practicing some of it. I'm doing eggs every morning, half an avocado. I'm doing half of a sweet potato every day, trying to do almond, almond butter.

Aimee Raupp:

And I think that's it too, like for you and everybody listening. The removals sometimes are really hard and you sound like you have a busy life and all those things. And I think most people do. Focus on the additions, shoot to get the 80 to 100 grams of protein, shoot to get in the good quality fats, watch the process crap, try to, and then try to be as non-toxic if you can. Avoid the plastics, avoid the pesticides and the bath and beauty products and things of that nature. But maybe just think about adding and getting in all your veggies, of course. And then what about supplements? What are you taking?

Dr. Christy:

Oh gosh, I'm taking a lot. They're all vitamins. And then I have a fish oil, a multivitamin [inaudible 00:16:29]. And I'm taking [inaudible 00:16:29], I was not hypothyroid, but it's 2.5, so I [inaudible 00:16:43].

Aimee Raupp:

Good, smart.

Dr. Christy:

And then vitamin C, I think that's the gist of it. [inaudible 00:16:51] supplement a little Acai.

Aimee Raupp:

Yeah, that … I mean, Schoolcraft and his Acai, you can't be a patient without it. [inaudible 00:17:01]. I would think about some kind of serrapeptase supplement. I use Wobenzym, which technically isn't … they're proteolytic enzymes. But something to break up stagnation just because of the history of the tumors, just in my head, from a Chinese medicine perspective. If you have a propensity towards those tumors and is there other congestion, if you will. I think Wobenzym is the one I typically recommend, it seems out of stock these days. So the Enzymedica is the brand Digest Gold, it's like two supplements per day on an empty stomach. I would do that and then do your castor oil packs, if you can get in for some acupuncture, some kind of abdominal massage or something. Anything for blood flow, because we know blood flow will improve your response, I think, but also could really impact the quality. And just thinking about the surgeries and the assault, if you will, even though it's been a while. But the assault on the ovaries and just healing and recovering them.

Dr. Christy:

Right. Yeah. And I am doing that. I started to do the castor oil packs. I am doing acupuncture as well.

Aimee Raupp:

Okay.

Dr. Christy:

All things.

Aimee Raupp:

Yeah, I mean, do all the things. And I just think if you were in a different position and you hadn't lost your tubes, you'd be trying naturally on the off months if you could, or you maybe would even went to IUI first. Almost think from that mentality of a less is more. And just because the reserve is … first of all, your reserve is also … what's the word I want to use? It's a false low, it's not truly low. It's lower because of the tumors in the surgery. Play with that story a bit too of just like my ovaries are a little compromised because I had this surgery and thank God they found these tumors, all these things.

But there's no reason to believe that all your eggs are bad. I just don't believe that. And I think especially at 41, I just think that's impossible. I think you can even … and even if you look at some of the research. Some of the research is like, yeah, maybe 40% of your eggs are bad, maybe 50%, even if we are on the side of super caution. But 50% are still good. So if you get a couple, I think we have a fifty-fifty chance, we just got to get it in there, we got to get it to implant.

Dr. Christy:

Right. And I do remember also I had an ultrasound between cycles and it was like I was not stimming that cycle. Can I [inaudible 00:19:34]?

Aimee Raupp:

Yes.

Dr. Christy:

So I'm getting the same when I'm not [inaudible 00:19:36].

Aimee Raupp:

Yeah, I would go lower dose then. That's the answer there. Less can be more. And especially too of your history with the adhesions and things of that nature of your detox pathways may be compromised and the stims are just so hard on the body. And I feel like they can cause more inflammation than necessary, which in my brain equals to poorer egg quality. I don't think there's hard data on that. And then people would, I'm sure, punch holes in that theory. But I don't know. It's also just keep trying things differently. That's how I would do it.

Dr. Christy:

Okay. And what was that supplement that you recommended?

Aimee Raupp:

Oh, it's Enzymedica and then it's called Digest Gold, and it's two a day on an empty stomach. And it's a seropeptase, so they're proteolytic enzymes, they basically … they're not like digestive enzymes. They help break up masses and tumors, but I'll use them if I suspect endometriosis or a history of yours. If someone says, oh, I had fibroids, they were removed, or I have adeno, that kind of stuff, where I would just … and then I would get the endometrial biopsy or at the minimum do the antibiotics. If you just want to keep retrieving, I get that, then don't stop the process. See if your doctor will just prescribe prophylactically, if you will, for treating endometritis. Just to make sure that uterus is ready for implantation.

Dr. Christy:

Okay. Okay.

Aimee Raupp:

Okay. All right. Well, sending you so much love. Keep us posted. Okay? You can DM and let me know how things are going, all right?

Dr. Christy:

I will. Thank you.

Aimee Raupp:

Thank you. Thanks everybody. Have a great one. Bye.

END TRANSCRIPT.

VISIT MY WEBSITE: Aimee Raupp is a best-selling author, fertility detective, acupuncturist, herbalist and scientist who has helped thousands of women conceive. She has been in clinical practice for 20+ years and works with women all over the world to help them optimize their fertility so they can get pregnant faster. Visit AIMEERAUPP.COM for all her offerings.

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