Is your body too acidic to conceive? pH Balance and Your fertiltiy

Over the years I have thought about writing about how the acid and alkaline balance or pH balance in your system may impact your fertility but there haven't been actual studies on this topic so I was always a bit apprehensive.

But after seeing some of my patients adopt these principles over the years and subsequently become pregnant I thought, "why not?"  The worst thing that can happen is you become healthier and the best thing of course is you become pregnant!

I have to admit there is some logical basis to the concept of regulating your pH balance to support your fertility.  The body does naturally change the cervical mucous pH through the cycle to become more sperm friendly leading up to and at ovulation.

ph Balance is important for overall health.  Keeping the body more alkaline than acidic has been purported to improve health.  One strong finding in a petri dish that hasn't been formally tested yet in humans and published is that cancer cells tended to grow in a more acidic than alkaline environment.

Our Westernised diets of meats, white flour products, sugar, sweeteners, dairy, multiple coffees and black teas (often times with sugar and dairy), pastas, trans fats, and food additives found in most convenience foods contribute to making our body much more acidic than it should be.  Overgrowths of bacteria, yeast, fungus and all sorts of little organisms that can be quite annoying to us (think itchy or tinea, thrush, etc) can thrive in an acidic environment.

Symptoms of excess acidity levels can be
heartburn (this can be low acid in the stomach as well as high acid)
reactions to jewelry, dark marks on the skin when wearing jewelry
chronic muscle pain and/or joint pain
mouth ulcers or other ulcers
skin redness or rashes
strong smelling urine (discuss with health care professional as this can be related to many things)
if a man's semen is too acidic the female may experience a burning or stinging after ejaculation

How to know if you are too acidic.  You can test your urine or saliva's pH balance using ph Balance strips similar to ones you might find at the pool shop.  Or your health food shop may carry a ph Balance
testing kit.

In the morning we are naturally more acidic with our urine measuring approximately 6.8 and by mid afternoon a more alkaline reading of 7.2 can be desireable.

How to decrease your acidity if its too high (the more acidic a substance is the lower the pH)

-decrease red meat to only occasionally but some may need to remove all together.  If you have red meat make sure its grass fed to increase the % of good fats that you are exposed to in the meats.

-lots of water:  Attempt to have atleast 2 litres of filtered water per day.  And check your tap water
as a few of my patients after having the council check their water found that it was more acidic than what it was supposed to be.

- start your morning with a glass of water with lemon or a table spoon of vinegar before brky.  Both are acidic foods but actually help the body become more alkaline.  Vinegar can assist in optimising blood sugar levels.

-Remove all sodas, soft drinks and energy drinks

- Eliminate coffee if very acidic or limit to only one cup of black coffee per day.  Black tea (even with milk its more acidic) can be acidic so should be limited to no more than 2 cups a day.  Green tea
2-3 cups a day and lots of herbals teas

- Veggies and Salads have a great alkalising effect on the system

- Get your Greens.  I love two products for this 1)  Barley Life (superior to other barley products as it grown organically and it removes the undigestied cellulose which is the grainy texture that most
other barley products leave in and therefore you get less Barley and more undigestable material.
2) Leaf Greens which is a beautiful product containing spinach, barley, peas, and beans.

If you are interested you can order these for the WHOLESALE price in either powder or capsules and save $$  Email me at info@sharkeyshealingcentre.com if you are interested in either of those.

Hope that helps!!

Stacey the babymaker Roberts
www.sharkeyshealingcentre.com
www.naturalfertility.com
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Regular Fish oil or Krill?

Everyone is asking me if they should change over to krill oil due to all the latest advertisements on television and on the radio saying krill is better and you don't have to take as many etc, etc.  

First lets take a step back and remember why fish oil is important in the first place.  
One: it may optimise the health of the egg.  THe outer layer of the egg is made from fat so if we are low in essential fats like omega 3 this could impact the egg and the sp ability to fertilise the egg.  THe outer shell of the egg can become hard when you are deficient in essentials fats.  

Male fertility:  High levels of abnormal forms of sp have been shown to improve with increased essentials fatty acids like in the omega 3.  

We tend to be deficient in omega 3 in our diets and get too much omega 6, our body makes omega 9 so we don't have to supplement omega 9.  

So by taking fish oil the idea is to increase the omega 3 essential fatty acids which consist of dha and epa.  Your fish oil should be good quality, i.e either go thru a process that removes toxins such as mercury as much as possible or uses fish that don't contain those toxins in the first place.  Saying a supplement is mercury tested is not good enough, it must be purified or shown to not have contained the toxins in the first place.

Krills advantage is two fold.  Nonexistent mercury (krill are so small they don't tend to contain the mercury other larger fish do) and high antioxidant content particularly from an antioxidant called as astaxanthin which is great for overall health (can help fight wrinkles supposedly as well) BUT and this is a big BUT...krill oil or atleast the ones I have seen have very very low amounts of the omega 3 which is the important bit that most of us need. Omega 3 has been shown to be correlated with immproved moods, improved joint health, better skin, less dryness of the eyes, improving cholesterol balance, thats just to name a few.

Therefore my conclusion is krill is NOT a replacement for your good quality fish oils that have optimal amounts of omega 3 epa and dha but it certainly can compliment the fish oil and add more antioxidants into your system which has been shown to be correlated with better egg health and sp health.  

For specific recommendations of what fish oils we recommend pls email info@sharkeyshealingcentre.com and let me know what country you are in.

Here is a quick little email from one of our subscribers which is our creation story of the week.
I am 39 years old and I purchased one of your ebooks. (I am thinking it was recurrent miscarriage ebook due to her history)  I followed all the steps in it and am now 26 weeks pregnant after having had 3 miscarriages.  Thank you for everything and keep doing the good work that you do.
_____________________________-
I hope that some day if I haven't already gotten one from you, that you send your creation story in.  This doesn't always mean becoming pregnant and having a baby either.  We have women talking about creating a newer fuller life after seeing us to recover from a long bout with fertility issues.  We at Sharkeys aren't just about helping you get pregnant, although obviously that is our hope for you, but we also strive to help you become healthier and therefore live fuller richer lives. So if you know anyone out there that has been tossed around from dealing with fertility issues and just needs to get their life back, feel free to let them know about us and our services.

wish you a wonderful weekend ahead.

all the best

Stacey the babymaker ROberts BSPT, QHerbalist, Naturopath
www.sharkeyshealingcentre.com
www.naturalfertility.com
http://haveababy.blogspot.com/
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AMH Antimullerian Hormone Unreliable

If you have been on my list then you know what I think of AMH levels.  Despite what you hear or have heard they are extremely inaccurate at determining your fertility.  They have nothing to do with your supposed egg count and can improve based on what we have seen in our clinic.

However a new study has just shed more light on to why AMH levels are truly only a representation of the acronym for FEAR, i.e. False Evidence Appearing Real.

It has been shown that two common tests for AMH are actually inaccurate and it is being recommended that AMH is NOT a good test to use in the clinic to determine a patients fertility potential.  Here is the link if you want to see for yourself.  http://humrep.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2012/07/09/humrep.des260.abstract

Lately I have seen doctors rushing patients into procedures based solely on low AMH levels saying they are out of time and every month they waste could be detrimental to their fertility. Since the only data that is consistent regarding AMH level being low is that you are less likely to respond to IVF meds and when AMH levels are significantly low you may not respond at all, I have a hard time supporting this recommendation.  Wouldn’t it make sense to help the patient prepare for a procedure to attempt to help them respond better than to start something straight away where they have such a minimal chance of it working?  One of my patients said it best when she said, “sometimes medical sense is very different from common sense”. 

I strongly recommend that if your AMH levels are out of the normal range which by the way is NOT adjusted for what is normal in your age category, then you take your blood tests to someone that can help you interpret them to see if they are optimal based on their fertility population of patients.  We have been looking at optimal levels based on our patients for the last 7 years. And have them work with you to prepare you for a procedure and optimise your chances of becoming pregnant naturally as well.

A recent patient did just that.  Her AMH was 1.3 and at 33 the doctors told her she was on the verge of menopause.  She didn’t feel her body was ready to deal with IVF at this point. After just a few months which is even quick on our program she was pregnant naturally.

I hope you spread the word about the unreliability of AMH to your friends on your forums, and even to your doctor by showing them this study because it is time that FEAR (false evidence appearing real) is not used to encourage people to make decisions that they otherwise wouldn’t make had they had all the relevant information to make that decision.