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Katie: Hello and welcome to the Wellness Mama podcast. I’m Katie from wellnessmama.com. And today is all about you are not your diagnosis, specific if you have received an infertility diagnosis and the five element Chinese model. And I’m here with Susan Fox. Dr. Susan Fox is an expert in reproductive health and fertility with over 23 years of experience combining modern science with traditional medicine to create some amazing outcomes for her clients. And her online programs teach a five-element model of Chinese medicine that explains the intricate connections between our lifestyle factors, whole health and fertility. And her fertility program really looks at the way individuals approach their reproductive health and offers best prep for IVF or natural conception. And we delve into today what the five-element model is and how this relates specifically to fertility and infertility, but also is widely applicable across so much more. So let’s join Dr. Fox. Susan, welcome. Thank you so much for being here.
Susan: Oh, thank you so much for having me. I’m really excited to have this conversation with you and your viewing audience.
Katie: Also very excited, especially because one of the topics that came up in researching for this episode was getting to dive into the idea that you are not your diagnosis, especially when it comes to infertility. But I know this is almost universally applicable and something I learned through being given the word Hashimoto’s and now no longer having it. And I feel like you bring such a unique perspective to this because I haven’t heard anyone else talk about the five element Chinese model. And that might just be because of, I haven’t gotten to go to all the places in the world and experience all the different views, but I’m really excited to learn about this. I feel like for context, before we get to jump into the five element Chinese model, which I’m most excited to learn about, I would love for you to give us some base understanding of why you feel and have said in interviews before that the infertility as a diagnosis, the model, the way we currently think of it is incomplete. So we have an idea of the missing pieces.
Susan: Great. Thank you. Yes. Yes, I actually feel quite passionate about this because we have this story going around that one in five people are presumed to be struggling with infertility. And I think that very word is a misnomer. I think that oftentimes what we have is subfertility based upon issues that make our patterns of health go a little sideways. And then if they’re not corrected over time, they become issues of disease, disorder that then get a diagnosis. And frankly, the diagnosis is simply a means by which insurance can tag it, say, yes, we cover it and give a reimbursement. Unless there’s an issue wherein sperm simply cannot meet egg, I challenge the subject of infertility and really like to choose the word subfertility because that can be corrected.
When I think about Chinese medicine as in terms of subfertility here again, in the five-element model, it has to do with the fact that because things we are, we are subject to nature, we are nature. And so we can in our own body, mind, spirit, go a little off track. And if we’re not correcting it, then that pattern, it’s a pattern. It is not a disease, it is not a diagnosis will amplify, exacerbate, and then we become, you know, we become in a position wherein we’ve got a diagnosis.
Katie: And I would guess anybody who has been told they have infertility maybe already has an idea of some of the diagnoses that go along with that. But what would be some of those things in the medical world, the codes that insurance recognizes that can be linked with infertility?
Susan: Yes, absolutely. Well, they’re overarching, there are simply infertility codes that are either of uterine origin or of unknown origin or explained origin, that seems to be the most common. But the diagnoses that we would see would be things like polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS), endometriosis. We would see Hashimoto’s thyroiditis as a diagnosis, and that is oftentimes more, I find, in the secondary fertility challenge, wherein someone has had a child and then is struggling to have a second pregnancy. And I don’t need to tell you that the whole process of gestating, birthing, and raising and growing a baby afterwards is a bit of an assault on a woman’s, on a person’s body. And so it makes her a little bit more susceptible to her blood cells, her immune system going a little bit askew, but as you have experienced personally, that can be corrected.
Katie: Yeah, absolutely. And as you touched on, I know we’ve probably all seen the stats floating around, at least some of the recent ones about what they’re saying with fertility rates and the decline in sperm count and how many women they’re expecting to not be able to conceive at least naturally going forward. So I know there’s a lot that goes into this and there seemingly are a lot of scary statistics floating around. I definitely want to go deep on the five-element model and why that can be an answer to a lot of this. But also I’d love to understand what do you see as some of the big drivers of why we’re seeing this drastic change? Because to me, fertility is a good indicator of health in general as well. So to see this kind of population-wide change, especially in such a short span of time, seems a little ominous.
Susan: Absolutely. Yes, I couldn’t agree more. And I would say that, you know, these statistics, they are bringing forth what has happened, right? We can’t, we’re not doing predictive, we’re doing, you know, analytical. So in the last, you know, 20, 30 years or so, you know, we have to just look at what has happened to our lifestyle? Lots of changes to our lifestyle that are kind of out of alignment with nature.
We’re having more processed foods, we’re eating, you know, on the run, we’re not having whole foods that are organic or fresh or, you know, really providing the most nutrient dense assistance to our bodies. Our lifestyle where, you know, we’re living with, you know, lights and blue lights and so forth. And so we’re up until 11, 12 AM, you know, zooming or Netflixing and our bodies are not designed to stay up as though it’s midday. And so we’re not getting our detoxification and recovery time during sleep.
So, and of course, I don’t need to tell you, but the environmental, you know, insults that we are having with plastics and parabens and phthalates and formaldehydes and so forth, are just added insults and I believe it is a cumulative insult that is taking place that is creating this, this, pandemic if you will of infertility, and so, therefore, I assert, that when we can remove some of these insults, our bodies are brilliant and they are, and they can reverse some of this toxic load such that we can get pregnant naturally. Or if we’re, if the choice is to go to IVF or egg freezing, I’m all for that, that we can have better outcomes because one of the other statistics that I think is notable is that typically it will take three retrieval cycles to make enough embryos to assure, not guarantee, there’s no guarantee, but assure the likelihood of a healthy pregnancy. Each of those is this, again, added burden on a woman’s body. She’s getting stimulation hormones to increase her follicles, to grow eggs and so forth. And that doesn’t come without its own set of requirements that she unload or detoxify from this.
So I do think that it is our habits, our lifestyle that can be the game changers that either reverse the need for IVF or if one is wanting to plan a larger family and on the time-space continuum, it makes sense to bank some embryos, you know, have better quality embryos on the first retrieval cycle.
Katie: Yeah, and I love that it speaks to the idea that there are things you can do to positively affect the quality and the outcomes that are within your control. One thing I say a lot on this podcast is I firmly believe we are each our own primary healthcare provider. And while we can work with amazing experts to be partners on that journey, the responsibility and like to your point, the daily habits that really create our health over time are within our own hands. And I think that when we can operate from the driver’s seat of that, we step into so much power.
And you talked about even the toxicity side and the assaults of sort of the modern lifestyle. I know a lot of different functional medicine doctors use analogies about the bucket or the bathtub or sort of the idea that many things can go into the bucket, but once it starts overflowing, sort of problems are going to happen no matter what the things were that went into it.
To me, there’s kind of a two-prong approach to this. One is we want to reduce the number of negative things going in the bucket. Also, is there a potential to create more capacity to create a larger bucket or both? And ideally, essentially create more margin so we avoid that overflow situation. I also love that that analogy speaks to we don’t need perfection for that to work. We just need margin. We just need to create a little bit of space. And it sounds like that’s a lot of what you recognize and do in your work.
But to me also what you brought up about being in alignment with nature. I feel like that alone, if we focused on nothing else and just looked at in what ways can I be more in alignment with nature, even in my modern environment, with lighting, with what I’m exposed to, with the foods that I’m eating. And even over time, I’ve been learning slowly to try to transition into, as I trust my body more, learning to listen to my body and ask it, what would it love? And almost always the answers are very in alignment with nature.
And I feel like all of this probably is building perfectly into introducing the idea of the five-element approach, because I would guess that there’s some wisdom there that we haven’t quite understood in the modern world potentially. So I would love if you could bring us into that topic now.
Susan: Oh, I’m happy to. And I guess I would say we know it intuitively, but we’ve forgotten how we are nature and how it is imperative that we align ourselves with our natural wellness and the natural world. We’ve become so enamored with our frontal cortex and data and science and progress, which is all well and good. But if it’s at the cost of our really being human beings, full human beings, then we’re going to suffer some consequences.
And that has always been a conversation, an observation in the Chinese medicine five-element model, in that it is through its 5,000 years of observation has said, of course, we embody all the elements, but we just naturally tend toward one of the elements. So I’m just going to briefly describe the elements, because I think when I say, when I describe them, it will resonate with viewers and listeners as to where they may find themselves.
So for instance, we are, one of the five elements is the wood element, and the wood element in Chinese medicine governs our liver. And it has to do with our ability to grow and create and process. And what I love also about the Chinese medicine element is that it includes our emotional body. You know, we’ve segregated and separated our emotions into yet another set of diagnoses and pathology when one is going to affect the other. So this wood element individual is the one who says, I want to learn how to play the guitar. I want to, you know, take up pickleball. I want to just create, you know, and so when that natural impulse or imperative to create is suppressed, either with physical insults or emotional insults, you know, the stress of being, you know, just being bombarded every day with 15-minute increment Zoom calls, that person’s natural desire and tendency to flow and express gets a little suppressed. And her response will either be to push against it because she really must create, and the emotional response will be one of irritability, outbursts, you know, a little road rage or whatever. Or she’ll get depressed where it will all sort of implode on her. But the depression, if you will, is more of, well, you’ll hear her sighing a lot because she wants to, again, wants to express, but that suppression just has put too much of a lid on.
So our goal is to move that chi, move that energy so that she can remember who she is. And because it governs the liver, her imperative would be to pay attention to her liver’s importance in her whole health, detoxifying and helping to eliminate properly because boy, that liver is doing so much every day. We really take a deep bow to the workings of the liver. We think we work hard. Try being a liver for a day.
Another one of the elements is what we call the fire element. And we would say that fire element governs our spirit. We refer to it as our shen. We see it in the light in someone’s eyes. And if they are a little bit either overexerting, that person may be the party girl, if you will, where someone says, how are you today? And she’ll say, fine, fine. Everything’s fine. And then she’ll quickly divert and say, and how are you? Because she can’t quite settle her spirit. And that will show up in her cycle as well. Sometimes she will have missed cycles. Sometimes she will kind of burn up her ovarian reserve, if you will, because she’s so fiery.
So we want to really help soothe that person. She would do well to maybe take some yoga, meditate, a walk in nature, something a little bit quieter. Whereas that liver person might need to do a dance party in her living room to shake it off. This fiery person just needs to be soothed.
The earth element person is the one where in which it, how should I say this? Her need to transform what she’s taking in nutrients and create the nutrients for her cells, including her ovaries, follicles, eggs, gets bogged down, I guess is a better word. It just gets too heavy. And she would be the person, for instance, who might have polycystic ovaries. There’s this accumulation of material that has settled in her body, and we need to help her sort of warm and transform is the term we use in Chinese medicine. So she can really let this accumulation almost wipe off so that she can be clear again, so that she can get nutrients in and wastes out efficiently.
Emotionally, she would be the one who is up Google searching in the wee hours of the night because her mind can’t settled, her mind is also bogged down and she can’t get the sort of clear-eyed remembering of her ability to, how shall I say this? Her ability to function appropriately. So that person needs to maybe rest more. She needs to warm up more. So for her, maybe the hot yoga or the brisk walks or something like that might be better for her.
The next element is the air element in Chinese medicine, and that governs our lungs and our large intestine, organs of inspiration taking in and, you know, expiration, exhaling, excreting. So when those are not functioning properly, that person may be more inclined to easily catching colds, flus, viruses. And then emotionally, the accumulation, if you will, of her air energies is such that she becomes grief stricken. I might not be explaining that the mechanism of action very well, but she needs to inhale and exhale, intake and excrete. And when things get bogged down, she just kind of collapses into herself. And oftentimes that experience, the emotional experience is one of grief that she just can’t seem to break out of.
I want to just put a little pin in that, like, I’m actually an advocate for expressing grief because we tend in our society to say, you know, just you know, pull up your big girl britches and move on. And I think we have lost our honoring of the grief process.
We do want to express grief because the next generation of energy, when we express it fully, is what’s called the water element, the kidney energy. And that governs our hormonal health. It governs our, they say in the ancient classics, our ability to grow, reproduce and age effectively without putting too much burden on our everyday life.
And so what we know, if we’ve got this person who can’t quite express her grief and clear that energy, it’s going to affect her hormones. Well, it just to translate it a little bit to the Western world, that’s adrenal fatigue, that’s cortisol excess. And both of those hormones, that’s thyroid, all of those hormones upstream will have an adverse effect on her ability to have that symphony of hormones communicate well, so that she can grow follicles, ovulate an egg, have a conception and fall pregnant healthfully. That was a lot.
Katie: That was great. That was such a cool model. And I love what you said about, especially like honoring grief. And I would say even like all emotions, honoring them. I heard the quote once that bliss is any emotion that’s allowed to be fully felt. And I loved that reframe because I feel like we often categorize emotions as good or bad and resist ones that we’ve sort of defined as not ideal.
And I love that the Chinese model, like you said, takes into account the emotional side of this. I would say we’re seeing progress, but I would say this is something in the Western world that you don’t often see integrated with medicine in most areas at all. And yet I keep hearing from doctors, including an oncologist recently, who was saying how she had shifted out of the conventional model entirely when she realized the importance of the mental, the spiritual, and the emotional for physical health, and especially for her working in the very time-sensitive area of medicine, just how that was being ignored in the conventional model. So I love that it seems like this wisdom has always been here and perhaps we’re slowly returning to it in the west, which is wonderful.
As you were explaining the different elements, I could hear, for instance, pieces of myself a little bit in each of them and then kind of had an idea of which one I might be. But I’m curious, how do we figure out which element we are? Is it from, you know, we’ve been hearing it, an intuitive feel, or is there a way to sort of like define that or figure it out for sure?
Susan: Sure. Well, what I can say is to the fertility patient, I have a quiz. And so it is called the yourfertilityquiz.com. And it will go through a series of questions that when you answer them, the analytics will say, oh, you have a tendency toward one of the five. Of course, we are all of them, but we do have a proclivity toward one of the five because we’re just, as humans, tending toward being one kind of persona. We’ve developed our persona over time.
So the results of that quiz for the fertility person will produce a report, a free report, that will then say, you fall into this category. And these are some of the things that we would describe or see in your element. And these are some of the things that you can do to, tips and tricks to help rewrite what has gone out of balance. Because here again, in Chinese medicine, we talk about patterns as opposed to diagnoses. So we just want to shift the pattern back to its holistic nature. Otherwise, I would say if it’s not a fertility question, call me. I can help. It’s in seven years of training where it’s very elegantly complex, not complicated, but complex.
Katie: Yeah, I love the idea of patterns versus diagnoses. That’s something I learned in my language. And it seems like perhaps I could learn a lot from the Chinese model, even about language. But shifting from how I used to say I have Hashimoto’s or I am sick and making that part of my identity to I shifted slowly, I was a slow learner, but over time to say I am healing. My body knows exactly how to heal and not making the illness a part of my identity, but reminding myself that healing is actually the part of us that we’re wired for as humans. And that anytime that’s not happening, it’s actually our body speaking to us in a way to give us information and how to help it, which is, I think, so beautiful.
And I feel like one lesson I learned in that is having the belief that the body can and is healing is such an important first step. And people like Dr. Cortney Hunt talk about the first step is to see yourself well, to make room for the possibility that that can happen so that it actually can. And it sounds like this is also worked into this five-element model, but with also some specificity in yes, and as you see yourself well, and as you know that you can heal, here are some specific ways you can support the uniqueness of you in that journey.
Can you give any examples of like with the different elements, for instance, things that might be supportive, maybe just like one little tip or something that can tie to each one?
Susan: Absolutely. So for instance, again, I’ll start with the liver since I started that last time, you know, the wood element, the liver loves to express. When it gets congested, and our liver organ itself is not a tube, it’s like a sponge with lots of little pockets, we want to help release those pockets of accumulation, whether they be physical or emotional toxins and the liver loves sour. So that person, we all do well to start our day with, with lemon water and a pinch of sea salt, but the liver person especially does well to have more sour in her diet. So, you know, lemon water, kombucha, non-alcoholic, fermented foods. All of those things really help that liver person.
And again, physically, movement is good, you know, more, more movement, not to the point of overexertion, please, because I think that that can also be one of the ways in which the liver person goes sideways is, you know, more is better, and more is just more. So that, you know, so do these movements so that you really remember your joy, your creative spirit, what do you start pop popcorning ideas thinking, Oh, right, I forgot I wanted to do this or talk to that person, things that bring your heart joy, then you’re on the right track.
The fire element, the foods, if you will, is more of a bitter, because we would say that air element, when there’s too much fire, we need to make room for the water. And we use bitter to kind of astringe, if you will, that fire, I know, that sounds a little, you know, sort of eloquent, but, but trust me, if you add a little bit more of the bitter foods, you know, bitter herbs, what else could I say, or even bitters would be would be a way to make those changes. And then you come in with the soothing, softening kind of foods that or lifestyle that would really help engage more of the water in our body. So drinking more water in Chinese medicine, we are, we guide people to use tepid or warm water and foods, you don’t necessarily have to eat warm foods, but have them cooked, rather than eating raw, because it’s just easier to digest.
So this person, the fire element person would do well to increase and improve what we call her yin, the water element of her body. And a food in particular that comes to my mind is asparagus, asparagus will really help raise the yin of her body. And blood, we want to help that person with her blood, because again, when we’re too fiery, we’re burning up our blood. So you want to have more blood-enriching foods. If you’re plant-based, think of the foods that quote, end quote, bleed. You know, if you were to squeeze some chard, you’re going to get the green of the blood of the chard. If you are a meat eater and in Chinese cuisine, we are really proponents of healthy meat-eating during reproductive years, especially, you know, the red meats are really helpful.
For the earth element, that person who tends to get bogged down, more of these sort of warming spices like cinnamon, cardamom, fennel, the things that you’ll often see in the curries, if you will, the East Indian curries or the Chinese medicine congees or the Ayurvedic, I forget the name of their food group, but they’re all very similar in that they include all of these foods well-cooked with warming spices that really help nourish our system.
The lung and large intestine, that air element, the ways in which we can really help to improve our lung and large intestine health is to really be mindful of our barriers. So not putting on our bodies things that are toxic. Those scented creams are just an insult to our lung and large intestine because the barrier of our body on the outside is our skin and on the inside, it’s first our lung and then down to our large intestine. So really being mindful of healthy environmental products that will really help kind of reduce that toxic load.
And the water element, the kidney element, we think of the water element as being sort of the deep sea where there’s lots of movement, but the sea could appear to be still in the depths. So we go to the deep sea, we go to the salty waters. And unfortunately, now we have in our world a lot of toxicity with the deep-sea fish and fish oil. So we would say fish oil is a wonderful supplement or a fatty fish is a wonderful food that helps this kidney energy. In the plant world, we would say look for the deepest, darkest colors of food that you can get. So black beans, black sesame seeds. What else can I think of? Dates and figs, that kind of look for those dark things, and you’ll be nourishing your kidney element, your water element.
Katie: That’s so interesting. And then I’m sure there’s so much more beyond that for each of those, but I love those as starting points. And I’ll make sure to link, if you can get me a link in the show notes to the quiz, so people who really want to go and find out what they are can directly go there. But I know you have a podcast and a website and that this is the work you do, especially with couples who are working on fertility. So where can people find you on those topics and keep learning from you?
Susan: Thank you. Thanks for asking. So my podcast is called Health Youniversity and university is spelled Y-O-U-niversity, the university of you. And where, you know, our topic is mostly in the fertility field, but we’ll be expanding into pregnancy, obviously the natural outcome of fertility challenge and postpartum, the natural outcome of pregnancy, and perimenopausal and emotional health. Because here again, the beauty, the reason I’m so enamored with Chinese medicine is that it does not exclude emotional wellness.
And I call it emotional wellness because I’m not a psychologist or a psychotherapist. So I’m not calling it mental wellness. I’m calling it emotional wellness. And I really think that if we could call it that we would have fewer, again, misdiagnoses or diagnoses that we could actually heal from before we start medicating against.
Katie: Yeah, I love that you’re addressing that piece because like I’ve shared on this podcast before, that was a big missing piece for me for a lot of years, one that for a long time I wasn’t even aware of. And then I was unwilling to look at for a long time after that. And addressing that side let all of the things I was doing in the physical realm to try to support my health actually take effect and be supportive. And I feel like this is not enough talked about area of health and wellness. And so I love that I get to have conversations like this one and to bring that into the awareness more.
And it seems like many people are starting to delve into that and address that in their own lives. And I’m excited to see what changes that brings on a large scale, but more importantly for each person as they get to go on that beautiful journey. So thank you so much for this episode. I know we’re going to get to do a follow-up one that I’m also very excited about, about cycle syncing with the seasons and about the magnificent menstrual cycle in general. So you guys stay tuned for that one. But for today, thank you so much for the time.
Susan: Thank you so much, Katie. It’s been a delight.
Katie: And thank you for listening. And I hope you will join me again on the next episode of the Wellness Mama podcast.
If you’re enjoying these interviews, would you please take two minutes to leave a rating or review on iTunes for me? Doing this helps more people to find the podcast, which means even more moms and families could benefit from the information. I really appreciate your time, and thanks as always for listening.
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