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Tubal Obstruction, Blocked Fallopian Tubes, Pelvic Obstructions, Reproductive Scar Tissue & Infertility: Causes, Symptoms & Treatment

Pelvic Adhesions, Tubal Obstruction, Reproductive Scar Tissue

Mechanical Barriers to Conception

Sometimes a woman can’t get pregnant simply because the path from the ovary to the uterus is compromised. For instance, the ovary could be covered with adhesions that block the mature eggs from entering the pelvic cavity; or the fallopian tube could be narrowed or even completely obstructed; or perhaps the uterus is bound up with scar tissue that keeps it from holding the fertilized egg successfully. Such blockages may be caused by congenital defects, by scarring from past infections, even by surgical procedures like tubal ligation, D & Cs, and so on. Some cases of blockage can be resolved through surgery. In other cases, however, surgery results in a relatively small improvement in fertility, if any. In that case, IVF may be a woman’s best option. Here we will discuss the some of causes and symptoms of mechanical infertility, and review how The Fertile Soul Method ™ can provide support in healing your reproductive system.

Learn more about Mechanical Barriers to Conception:

Pelvic Inflammatory Disease (PID) - What is it?

Treating PID Naturally - How can we help?

Fallopian Tube Obstruction

Treating Fallopian Tube Obstruction with The Fertile Soul Method

Fertile Soul Method ™Adhesions

Using The Fertile Soul Method ™ to Treat Mechanical Obstruction – How you can help yourself

Pelvic Inflammatory Disease (PID) – What is it?

Pelvic Inflammatory Disease, or PID, is one of the most heartbreaking causes of mechanical infertility, simply because it can destroy a woman’s fertility without warning, long before she is even considering getting pregnant. PID is usually the result of a bacterial infection that can involve the ovaries, fallopian tubes, uterus, and cervix. The bacteria commonly enter the body through the vagina and cervix and from there spread throughout the pelvic cavity. More than one million women in the U.S.—most of them in their teens and twenties—are diagnosed with acute pelvic inflammatory disease (PID) every year.

The best-known causes of PID are sexually-transmitted diseases, especially chlamydia and gonorrhea. PID can also result from interuterine device (IUD) use, complication from earlier pregnancy, or infection following any surgery of the reproductive tract. Depending on the infectious organism and the severity of infection, the acute phase of the disease may be characterized by lower abdominal pain, fever, painful sexual intercourse, irregular bleeding, and profuse vaginal discharge. As with any bacterial infection, signs such as these should be treated as quickly as possible with antibiotics. On the other hand, some PID infections, like chlamydia, may be silent (without symptoms of any kind) yet can cause extensive damage to the reproductive organs, especially the fallopian tubes. Most fertility problems associated with PID are not caused by active infection but instead by scarring from past infections. Untreated, chronic PID creates a condition of long-standing inflammation within the pelvic cavity, and this sets up a reactionary environment within the reproductive organs, especially the fallopian tubes. If antibiotics are not prescribed or have not been effective, chronic scarring may result. If a woman suspects she has (or has had) PID, it’s important to consult a Western medical doctor for a diagnosis and possible treatment with antibiotics.

Treating PID naturally – How can we help?

Since our specialty at The Fertile Soul is chronic infertility, it is rare for us to see patients with active PID; we usually see them only long after the damage has been done. However, there are ways to use The Fertile Soul Method ™ to treat both the symptoms and infection of active PID. In addition to treating the manifestation of the problem, we must address the underlying imbalance.

A 1995 study in China described the treatment of 148 women between twenty-five and forty-six years old with chronic pelvic inflammatory disease. Most of the women reported lower abdominal sagging pain, excessive vaginal discharge or menstrual irregularity, painful menstruation, and a wiry pulse as their main symptoms. Their TCM patterns were diagnosed as (1) Liver depression, Spleen deficiency pattern, (2) Damp heat with stasis, and (3) Cold, damp and stasis.. They were treated for anywhere from 20 to 60 days with a combination of Xiao Yal San Jia Wei (Rambling Powder with Added Flavors) and Kang Fu Xiao Yan Shuan (Healthy Woman Disperse Inflammation Suppository). Other herbs were added based on individual patterns. Of the 148 women, 106 (72 percent) were considered cured after treatment (their symptoms disappeared, and gynecological and ultrasound examinations showed that adhesions had disappeared and enlargement and thickening of the uterus and fallopian tubes had returned to normal). Thirty-seven others (25 percent) experienced some improvement (symptoms disappeared, adhesions were reduced but there was still some uterine and fallopian tube enlargement and thickening). The total cure rate was around 97 percent.

When PID is in its acute form it often produces a condition of damp heat in the body, accompanied by Blood stasis and stagnation. (This is also a common pattern seen with fallopian tube obstruction, as we will discuss later.) We begin by looking at the symptoms produced by PID. Since most cases of PID involve abnormal vaginal discharge, we focus on its quality and quantity. If the discharge is profuse and watery, and without any smell or irritating sensation, it would be categorized as being damp and cool in nature. This does not mean that the organism itself is “cold” per se, but that the response to it creates a pattern of cold. Any treatment would need to resolve dampness (by drying) and cold pathogens (by warming). On the other hand, if the discharge is pussy and discolored, foul-smelling, irritating, itching, or burning, it would be characterized as a damp-heat pathogen. Again, it is our physiologic response to the organism that is “hot” in nature, not the pathogen itself.

A Fertile Soul natural treatment would be based on balancing the damp-cold or damp-heat conditions created by the body’s response to the invading pathogens. It is important to note, however, that our inflammatory response to a pathogen may remain for some length of time after symptoms have resolved. In the same way a course of Western antibiotics usually must be continued for several days after symptoms of the underlying infection disappear, it is equally essential that a Fertile Soul natural treatment continues until the body’s inflammatory response has quieted and the body’s balance has been fully restored.

A primary means of treating excess discharge is through one of the Extraordinary meridians known as the Dai Mai, or Girdle meridian. The Nan Jing describes the Extraordinary meridians as a system of drainage ditches that tap into the main meridians and allow their excesses to run off and discharge. The Girdle meridian is described by the Su Wen to be like a belt that cannot be too tight or too loose. We drain excesses like profuse vaginal discharge through the Dai Mai. Although the Dai Mai does not have any points of its own, it taps into points on other meridians, like the Gallbladder and San Jiao, so treating points on these meridians will help clear the Dai Mai.

Other Fertile Soul treatments for excess vaginal discharge include herbal preparations to resolve damp conditions and invigorate pelvic circulation; acupuncture and herbs to increase blood flow through the pelvic organs, certain exercises that open up the pelvic circulation, and deep tissue pelvic massage.

Fallopian Tube Obstruction

One of the more common results of PID is fallopian tube obstruction. The fallopian tube is the “golden path” that the egg must travel to get from the ovary to the uterus. It is also the most common location for egg and sperm to meet and for fertilization to occur. The tubes contain two specialized kinds of cells: (1) those that produce mucus, glucose, and other substances needed to nourish the egg both before and after fertilization; 2) tiny hair like structures that move the egg through the tube and into the uterus.

Unfortunately, the fallopian tubes are often the first locations attacked by the opportunistic bacteria coming from the uterus in the case of PID or other infection. And because they are such narrow structures, it doesn’t take much to obstruct them. The tubes can become inflamed within, a condition called salpingitis. They may become filled with fluid (hydrosalpinx) or pus (pyrosalpinx), creating a bulge and/or possibly destroying the lining and musculature needed to nurture the egg and move it along. (Some researchers suspect that the fluid from a hydrosalpinx can seep into the uterus and have an adverse effect on implantation.) The tubes may develop adhesions and thickened walls, and close off completely. In that case a woman’s hormones can be fine, her eggs can mature and she can even release healthy eggs every month, but the sperm may not be able to reach them. Further, if the tubes are open just enough to allow the sperm through, fertilization may occur in the fallopian tubes. Then when the growing zygote is traversing the thoroughfare to reach the uterine destination, it may get stuck on its journey through the obstructed tube, and actually implant right in the fallopian tube itself, resulting in an ectopic pregnancy, which may cause further tubal damage and even loss. She will likely never again become pregnant naturally.

Since most fallopian tube obstructions produce no overt symptoms other than infertility, most women discover the state of their fallopian tubes as a result of a laparoscopy, laparotomy, or a hysterosalpingogram (where dye is injected into the uterus and examined via x-ray to see if it spills into the pelvic cavity). Treatment for tubal blockage is always some kind of surgery, either to remove or reduce the blockage or, in the most drastic cases, to excise the occluded part of the tube itself, followed by sewing the two healthy ends of the tube together. Advances in micro- and laser surgery are making success rates for tubal blockage treatment higher. If a woman still cannot get pregnant, however, the final treatment recommendation is IVF, which bypasses the blocked tube to allow for pregnancy.

Treating Fallopian Tube Obstruction with The Fertile Soul Method ™

When the fallopian tubes are closed off, it takes powerful measures to open them. Chinese medicine employs a number of techniques to help remedy fallopian tube inflammation and obstruction. Herbs to invigorate the Blood are typically given orally to help diminish active inflammation. To eliminate tubal blockages in China, herbal concoctions are sometimes injected directly into the uterus, as in a hysterosalpingogram procedure. The herbs then flow to and through the fallopian tubes, bringing the healing effect of the herbs directly to the site of obstruction. However, in the United States, our medical/legal system will not allow any procedure involving this kind of internal delivery of herbs. Therefore, we must utilize alternatives that treat the pattern imbalance using less direct but still effective means.

Most fallopian tubal obstruction has Blood stasis as one of its underlying patterns. When we use Chinese herbal therapy to treat enduring diseases like fallopian tube obstruction, the stasis-resolving herbs prescribed must be both powerful and capable of reaching the closed-off environment of the fallopian tubes. Chinese medicine calls this “resolving stasis in the network vessels” (which lie between the major vessels and are thus harder to reach). To treat Blood stasis in network vessels we use resins like myrrh and frankincense, which are known for reaching the deepest network vessels. In the case of conditions residing in the uterus or fallopian tubes, we can also ingest herbs that can find their way through the digestive system to indistinct origins like the fallopian tubes. Or, we can use herbal enemas (decoctions taken rectally) or suppositories (herbal concentrates in a glycerin or cocoa butter base), both of which bypass the need for harmonizing the herbal formula for digestion. There are also specific acupoints that can help resolve Blood stasis in the fallopian tubes.

In terms of diet and lifestyle, cigarette smoking paralyzes the cilia, the small hairs in the fallopian tubes that help propel the eggs to the uterus. Therefore, if you smoke, stop now. I also recommend a tubal obstruction massage, using a deep kneading technique to the lower abdomen. In some cases, this deep massage can apply enough friction to the fallopian tubes to manually resolve the adhesions.

Fallopian Tube Massage

The fallopian tubes are located just to the sides of the uterus and extend outward. The points that are most closely correlated with the fallopian tubes are located just above the pubic bone, approximately five inches down from the navel and about two inches out from the midline.

Massage the area between the uterus (midline above pubic bone) and ovaries (inside your hip bones) in circular, clockwise motions with your fingertips, going outward from the midline at the uterus area toward the ovary, then returning. Note any areas of tension and congestion, and apply deeper pressure, holding at the tighter regions. (This may be painful.) As circulation returns, you will be able to go deeper. Do not force yourself, however. Allow improvement over time. Continue the massage outward toward the ovary and back again. End with a pumping motion with the heel of the hand.

[NOTE: These massage techniques should be practiced only between menstruation and ovulation; not during menses or during the luteal phase.]

Adhesions

Most mechanical infertility is due to adhesions and/or scar tissue found inside or outside the organs of the reproductive tract. Adhesions form naturally within the body as a healing response to tissue trauma. They may form after injury (such as a fall, physical or sexual abuse), inflammation or infection (such as endometriosis, yeast or bladder infection, or PID), or surgery (such as D & C, abortion, C-section, or appendectomy). The damaged connective tissue causes a series of vascular and cellular changes that alter the actual structure of the collagen fibers, contracting the tissue and causing cross-linking of the collagen fibers. This results in the fibrinous changes known as adhesions. Wherever adhesions form they act like glue on neighboring structures. Unfortunately, the female reproductive structure is so delicate that it does not take much “glue” to severely restrict its movement and function.

Adhesions may impair the mechanical functioning of the ovaries, the fallopian tubes, and the passage between the two, blocking the ability of the egg to enter the uterus. When adhesions form within the uterus, they tend to make an inhospitable surface for implantation, often resulting in miscarriage or infertility. Adhesions on the outer surfaces of the organs can attach organs to each other or to neighboring structures, restricting their movement and their proper function.

Where adhesions are present, you can feel the restriction in the deeper tissues. Manual palpation first helps detect the damaged tissue. Adhesions are usually detected during pelvic exams, and confirmed by laparoscopy or laparotomy. Western medical treatment is inevitably surgical, and may or may not restore fertility. In some cases, the adhesions are so extensive that they make pregnancy impossible.

Using The Fertile Soul Method ™ to Treat Mechanical Obstruction – How you can help yourself

To decrease adhesions of the female reproductive tract, The Fertile Soul staff will perform, and teach you to apply certain manual massages of your pelvic organs. Applying a deep pressure, kneading and stretching the abdominal area, can help break up scar tissue and slowly and gently pull adhesions apart. As the adhesions decrease, function improves. These massages often are given on points that are related to acupuncture and/or acupressure meridians. In addition to the fallopian tube massage described earlier, here are some other specific massage techniques to release adhesions in the uterus and ovaries. Please do not perform after ovulation or during menstruation.

Uterine Massage

Your uterus is located just above the pubic bone, which is the bony part beneath the upper part of the pubic hair. You may locate it by making an upside down triangle with your two thumbs and index fingers. Place your thumbs at your navel and extend your fingers downward. Beneath this at the midline is the location of the uterus.

Place your fingers on either side of the uterus, and apply a deep kneading type of massage, pressing and lifting while massaging any tight spots. Finish with a pumping motion with the heel of the hand.

Ovarian Massage

The ovarian massage location is approximately three inches from the midline, approximately four inches down from the navel. Massage in a circular (clockwise) motion. If you note any areas of tension or congestion, knead deeply, apply increased pressure, and lift with the fingertips. Finish with a pumping motion with the heel of the hand to resolve congestion and improve circulation. If you have ovarian cysts, this massage will be very uncomfortable. Do not apply excessive force to the point of pain.

We also like to employ the use of light or laser therapy to help resolve adhesions through electromagnetic radiation. Laser acupressure is a beautiful blending of modern technology with ancient tradition. Low-energy photonic therapy applies light to stimulate acupoints without penetrating the skin. The resulting effect of (red spectrum) light absorption is photochemical, which aids in the production of ATP (adenosine tri-phosphate), the powerhouse of the cell. The light therapy realigns the electrical potential of collagen, which is responsible for adhesions and scar tissue. Ovarian cysts, fibroids, blocked fallopian tubes, and adhesions all have collagen constituents and can benefit from electromagnetic stimulation.

No matter which disease process has been at the root of the mechanical obstruction, the radical healing found in The Fertile Soul Method ™ can help restore function to your reproductive organs by improving blood flow and micro circulation, restoring the delicate equilibrium that will return you to health and wholeness.

Learn More about The Fertile Soul Method ™

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