June 18, 2024 • 13 mins
Can managing stress and cortisol levels significantly increase your chances of conceiving? Join us for an insightful conversation with Dr. DeWayne Baugus from Maplebrook Acupuncture Clinic in Tulsa, Oklahoma, as he unpacks how acupuncture and oriental medicine can transform your fertility journey from a stressful ordeal into a hopeful experience. With over 23,000 fertility patients under his care, Dr. Baugus brings a wealth of knowledge on addressing not only the physical but also the psychological and spiritual elements essential for successful fertility treatments.
Discover how Dr. Baugus seamlessly integrates acupuncture with the hormonal treatments prescribed by fertility clinics, ensuring a harmonious and effective approach. By working closely with fertility physicians, he highlights the importance of avoiding common pitfalls and incorrect acupuncture practices that could otherwise hinder your efforts. Learn about the vital role of aligning the mind and body, and how creating a supportive environment can turn the inevitable bumps along the way into moments of grace and patience. Whether you're from Tulsa or traveling from afar, this episode offers invaluable insights to help you navigate your fertility journey with optimism and success.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Dr. DeWayne Baugus (00:05):
Welcome to Balancing Life in Medicine.
I'm Dr DeWayne Baugus.
I work at MaplebrookAcupuncture Clinic in Tulsa,
Oklahoma, and today I'd like togo over some of the things that
we offer at our clinic thehighlights of what we see,
what's common, what isn't commonand some expectations as far as
(00:25):
how can acupuncture andoriental medicine, or an
alternative approach help you inbettering your health care?
So I just wanted to give thatone a pause.
Do you want to pull yourmicrophone just a little bit
closer to you?
There you go.
(00:46):
Perfect, all right.
One of the topics I'd like tocover today is something we see
quite frequently.
In fact, every day we come intothe clinic and we do work.
I'm always helping fertilitypatients.
Fertility has become a majorissue for young couples as
they're trying to grow theirfamilies, having those beautiful
(01:10):
little children.
It's an obstacle in the worldwe live in today, with high
stress levels, with both partieshusband and wife out working,
trying to make ends meet, but atthe same time wanting to grow
their family.
It's a pleasure that my wifeand I have to work with those
families, and we work with manyof them.
In fact, we've worked with over23,000 patients as far as
(01:34):
fertility is concerned.
When it's difficult for you toconceive on your own, you're
looking for other options andmany times you'll go to a
fertility clinic.
In the Tulsa area, where we'relocated, there's two major
fertility clinics and one thirdclinic that is rarely talked
(01:56):
about, but ladies come from eachof those clinics and that's
where those 23,000 plustreatments have been thrown in
our direction.
It's where we're blessed to beon the journey with a young
family while they're trying tonavigate some very personal
obstructions, some personalunderstandings about themselves,
(02:18):
as well as the frustrations oflearning how to communicate as a
young couple.
So we work in all those areas,combining not just what the
body's doing but what the mindis doing and a spiritual aspect
to have some grace for eachother, to learn faith in a
process and understand thattimelines aren't always under
(02:43):
our control.
Just because we want to dosomething at a certain time
doesn't mean that it's going tohappen at that time.
And if it doesn't happen,sometimes there's psychological
ramifications where people startto become depressed, angry,
frustrated, or sometimes theyfeel like they're not good
(03:04):
enough in their marriage withtheir partner.
Those are all major things thatwe see and I like to approach
each of those aspects.
The body, mind, spirit approachis necessary, especially when a
couple is coming to me from afertility clinic.
Fertility clinics in the thearea as well as around the state
(03:25):
of Oklahoma, have recommendedus.
So we have patients that comefrom not just Tulsa or Oklahoma
City.
We have them coming from FortSmith, from Denver Colorado,
from Dallas Texas, PhoenixArizona, Los Angeles California,
San Francisco.
There's so many different areasthat these couples come in from
(03:46):
and their journey in trying toget pregnant, and when they
arrive here at our clinicthey're usually exhausted
Psychologically, they're beatdown and they have questions.
They don't know why.
Maybe something isn't working,and my job is to calm their
(04:08):
hearts and minds, get themrelaxed and to knowing that this
is a joyous occasion because italmost turns into work.
It becomes very stressful andthat's not the right environment
to get pregnant.
Believe it or not, um, stress,it's right there with cortisol
levels.
If you've heard of cortisol,you know it's.
It's an enemy.
(04:29):
It's not a friend, um.
But the fertility process itselfcan be very stressful, with a
lot of lab work, um, a lot ofinjections, self injections, a
lot of looking at hormones, alot of ultrasounds.
There's retrieval processes,there's the big day for
transfers and all those eventscome with anxiety.
(04:52):
There's a level of stress thatfamilies are going through when
they do that process and I'dlike to explain process.
And I'd like to explain some ofthat process from our
perspective, the biggest onebeing an understanding of
acupuncture and orientalmedicine isn't the same across
(05:13):
the board.
It's actually different.
Acupuncture does have theability to stimulate hormone
releases and change hormonelevels, and that can be very
dangerous if someone is alreadyworking with hormone levels with
a fertility clinic.
In other words, their hormonesare being balanced through
(05:37):
patches, through injections.
There's so many differentthings that are going on in
different clinics.
I won't go into those details,but hormone levels are being
balanced by those fertilityclinics.
So when a patient comes to us,there's just a few things that I
really have learned tocapitalize to get the most
success out of our treatments,one of them being is lower that
cortisol level.
So, as stressed out as you are,when you come into our clinic,
(06:00):
my job is to be a supporter andencourager on your team and I
think that that is across theboard, with fertility clinics,
physicians, nursing groups thatare there to support you.
Remember when you're on thatjourney, as I've met so many
ladies before.
Sometimes they get caught up init.
It can be overwhelming and youstart to forget that the
(06:25):
individuals that you're going tofor help are on your team.
But at the same time, you're incharge, you're managing all of
this and, as I've done in thepast, I've had to stop ladies
when they get overwhelmed.
They get so nervous they becomeafraid.
Hormones are taking you on aroller coaster ride and I'll
(06:48):
have to stop them and say, hey,maybe we should pump the brakes,
maybe we should remember thisis about a joyous occasion.
We're creating a little person,we're building a family.
This isn't about beingoverwhelmed.
So if that is a part of theprocess and you are going
through it currently rememberyou're in charge, your team can
(07:10):
be fired and you can always hirea new team of encouragers, of
supporters, of those who arethere to remember you are a part
of the process, the main part,and your health comes first.
So many times ladies will comein.
Husbands and wives arepreferred, but sometimes it's
(07:31):
just the ladies, and that's okay.
Us guys don't like to go inmedical clinics.
I get it.
I'm one of them, so Iunderstand.
If I'm going anywhere, it'sbecause my wife tells me to.
So, wives.
Take your husband, he's a partof this process too.
Sometimes it's us guys that arehaving the issue, not you
ladies.
(07:52):
So when we figure out thosethings through the fertility
clinics, testing and lab workand investigation, and start to
understand where, where theproblem area lies, that's when I
usually see a couple come inand say we've tried everything,
(08:12):
we're tens of thousands ofdollars in into this, we're
invested, Nothing's working andwe were told to try acupuncture
and we have absolutely no ideawhy we're here.
And that's where I get to talkabout cortisol, stress, proper
communication between husbandsand wives.
Everybody needs to know what'sgoing on with the fertility
(08:33):
process and for some reason,ladies take on that full burden
and try to encompass, toencompass all of it and try to
try to do it all themselves.
And that's just toooverwhelming, especially when
you're midway through thefertility process and hormones
are cranking.
You've got injections you'redoing on yourself, you've got
patches, you're having hotflashes, you're having night
(08:56):
sweats, you're having questionsabout lab work All these things
are going on and you need to beable to communicate that with
your other half.
And sometimes in that process Iget to be that mediator.
So whenever a couple show up,we're treating stress, we're
treating cortisol.
We're also boosting serotoninand dopamine hormones that are
(09:22):
relaxing, happy stuff.
We're helping out sleeping,because sometimes ladies going
through that fertility processthey don't get good sleep.
If we have this issue ofcontrol, sometimes that can
cause more stress and more of anissue.
Trying to control everysituation in a fertility process
(09:45):
yeah, that's a variable thatyou're just going to beat
yourself up with.
So I try to help withunderstanding what you can
control and what you need to beable to just let go.
Let go and know that you've gota whole team of people that are
looking to help you succeed.
So what do I do with acupuncture?
(10:07):
We do points to relax you, tocalm you down, to help balance
out those roller coaster highsand lows of hormones, of lab
work, of waiting for answers, ofwaiting for results, of
preparing for that retrieval,which there can be a ton of
anxiety for getting the resultsafter the retrieval, of how many
(10:31):
of those embryos are actuallyusable, and then getting you
ready for that transfer.
All these things have ups anddowns.
There's expectations, there'sanxiety with it.
Acupuncture is great at helpingyou relax, reset and stay calm
and kind of allows things topass through as far as your
(10:52):
stress and your psychology.
We don't hypnotize you.
We don't take anything out ofthe equation.
What we do is we just help thebody relax and in that process
cortisol drops, and we all haveheard of that cortisol.
Once again, I keep mentioningit because that's a fight or
flight hormone and it's hard toget pregnant when you're in
fight or flight.
(11:12):
It's nearly impossible actually.
So if we can help with that,that's a big bullet, that's a
big hammer that we can wield asfar as helping you in your
fertility process.
The other thing is tounderstand who you're getting
acupuncture from, becausethere's many great acupuncture
physicians out there who havetrained with fertility clinics,
(11:32):
who are trained in hormones andbalancing pediatrics for just
overall health care, and a lotof us are tailored toward
helping those individuals.
There's many differentdisciplines and interests in
acupuncture.
We take fertility as one of ourtop priorities.
It's something we've done for along time.
It's something that we do verysuccessfully and I believe one
(11:54):
of the reasons that we have beenso good at helping ladies with
that success rate is the factthat we don't interfere with
hormones when we do acupuncturetreatments.
There's a lot of acupuncturephysicians that think that they
can just do everything, andacupuncture covers a lot of
ground.
It's very legitimate, it doeswork, the body does respond.
(12:16):
So if it's done incorrectly,then sometimes an acupuncture
treatment can go against afertility clinic, the lab work
and the hormones that you'retaking.
In fact it can cause moreproblems than good.
So here at our clinic,understanding how those
physicians work, working withthose physicians for many years
(12:37):
now, it's been our pleasure tobe able to make this journey a
good one, an easy one, withouttoo many bumps on the road.
There's always going to bebumps, that's part of the
fertility process.
But it's our job to keep yougoing, pick you up sometimes
when you're feeling down, but tomake sure that your mind is in
(12:57):
the right place for the highestsuccess rate.
Thank you for joining me today.
Once again, I'm Dr DeWayneBaugus, with Balancing Life in
Medicine.
Welcome to Balancing Life in Medicine.
I'm Dr DeWayne Baugus.
I work at MaplebrookAcupuncture Clinic in Tulsa,
Oklahoma, and today I'd like togo over some of the things that
we offer at our clinic thehighlights of what we see,
what's common, what isn't commonand some expectations as far as
(00:25):
how can acupuncture andoriental medicine, or an
alternative approach help you inbettering your health care?
So I just wanted to give thatone a pause.
Do you want to pull yourmicrophone just a little bit
closer to you?
There you go.
(00:46):
Perfect, all right.
One of the topics I'd like tocover today is something we see
quite frequently.
In fact, every day we come intothe clinic and we do work.
I'm always helping fertilitypatients.
Fertility has become a majorissue for young couples as
they're trying to grow theirfamilies, having those beautiful
(01:10):
little children.
It's an obstacle in the worldwe live in today, with high
stress levels, with both partieshusband and wife out working,
trying to make ends meet, but atthe same time wanting to grow
their family.
It's a pleasure that my wifeand I have to work with those
families, and we work with manyof them.
In fact, we've worked with over23,000 patients as far as
(01:34):
fertility is concerned.
When it's difficult for you toconceive on your own, you're
looking for other options andmany times you'll go to a
fertility clinic.
In the Tulsa area, where we'relocated, there's two major
fertility clinics and one thirdclinic that is rarely talked
(01:56):
about, but ladies come from eachof those clinics and that's
where those 23,000 plustreatments have been thrown in
our direction.
It's where we're blessed to beon the journey with a young
family while they're trying tonavigate some very personal
obstructions, some personalunderstandings about themselves,
(02:18):
as well as the frustrations oflearning how to communicate as a
young couple.
So we work in all those areas,combining not just what the
body's doing but what the mindis doing and a spiritual aspect
to have some grace for eachother, to learn faith in a
process and understand thattimelines aren't always under
(02:43):
our control.
Just because we want to dosomething at a certain time
doesn't mean that it's going tohappen at that time.
And if it doesn't happen,sometimes there's psychological
ramifications where people startto become depressed, angry,
frustrated, or sometimes theyfeel like they're not good
(03:04):
enough in their marriage withtheir partner.
Those are all major things thatwe see and I like to approach
each of those aspects.
The body, mind, spirit approachis necessary, especially when a
couple is coming to me from afertility clinic.
Fertility clinics in the thearea as well as around the state
(03:25):
of Oklahoma, have recommendedus.
So we have patients that comefrom not just Tulsa or Oklahoma
City.
We have them coming from FortSmith, from Denver Colorado,
from Dallas Texas, PhoenixArizona, Los Angeles California,
San Francisco.
There's so many different areasthat these couples come in from
(03:46):
and their journey in trying toget pregnant, and when they
arrive here at our clinicthey're usually exhausted
Psychologically, they're beatdown and they have questions.
They don't know why.
Maybe something isn't working,and my job is to calm their
(04:08):
hearts and minds, get themrelaxed and to knowing that this
is a joyous occasion because italmost turns into work.
It becomes very stressful andthat's not the right environment
to get pregnant.
Believe it or not, um, stress,it's right there with cortisol
levels.
If you've heard of cortisol,you know it's.
It's an enemy.
(04:29):
It's not a friend, um.
But the fertility process itselfcan be very stressful, with a
lot of lab work, um, a lot ofinjections, self injections, a
lot of looking at hormones, alot of ultrasounds.
There's retrieval processes,there's the big day for
transfers and all those eventscome with anxiety.
(04:52):
There's a level of stress thatfamilies are going through when
they do that process and I'dlike to explain process.
And I'd like to explain some ofthat process from our
perspective, the biggest onebeing an understanding of
acupuncture and orientalmedicine isn't the same across
(05:13):
the board.
It's actually different.
Acupuncture does have theability to stimulate hormone
releases and change hormonelevels, and that can be very
dangerous if someone is alreadyworking with hormone levels with
a fertility clinic.
In other words, their hormonesare being balanced through
(05:37):
patches, through injections.
There's so many differentthings that are going on in
different clinics.
I won't go into those details,but hormone levels are being
balanced by those fertilityclinics.
So when a patient comes to us,there's just a few things that I
really have learned tocapitalize to get the most
success out of our treatments,one of them being is lower that
cortisol level.
So, as stressed out as you are,when you come into our clinic,
(06:00):
my job is to be a supporter andencourager on your team and I
think that that is across theboard, with fertility clinics,
physicians, nursing groups thatare there to support you.
Remember when you're on thatjourney, as I've met so many
ladies before.
Sometimes they get caught up init.
It can be overwhelming and youstart to forget that the
(06:25):
individuals that you're going tofor help are on your team.
But at the same time, you're incharge, you're managing all of
this and, as I've done in thepast, I've had to stop ladies
when they get overwhelmed.
They get so nervous they becomeafraid.
Hormones are taking you on aroller coaster ride and I'll
(06:48):
have to stop them and say, hey,maybe we should pump the brakes,
maybe we should remember thisis about a joyous occasion.
We're creating a little person,we're building a family.
This isn't about beingoverwhelmed.
So if that is a part of theprocess and you are going
through it currently rememberyou're in charge, your team can
(07:10):
be fired and you can always hirea new team of encouragers, of
supporters, of those who arethere to remember you are a part
of the process, the main part,and your health comes first.
So many times ladies will comein.
Husbands and wives arepreferred, but sometimes it's
(07:31):
just the ladies, and that's okay.
Us guys don't like to go inmedical clinics.
I get it.
I'm one of them, so Iunderstand.
If I'm going anywhere, it'sbecause my wife tells me to.
So, wives.
Take your husband, he's a partof this process too.
Sometimes it's us guys that arehaving the issue, not you
ladies.
(07:52):
So when we figure out thosethings through the fertility
clinics, testing and lab workand investigation, and start to
understand where, where theproblem area lies, that's when I
usually see a couple come inand say we've tried everything,
(08:12):
we're tens of thousands ofdollars in into this, we're
invested, Nothing's working andwe were told to try acupuncture
and we have absolutely no ideawhy we're here.
And that's where I get to talkabout cortisol, stress, proper
communication between husbandsand wives.
Everybody needs to know what'sgoing on with the fertility
(08:33):
process and for some reason,ladies take on that full burden
and try to encompass, toencompass all of it and try to
try to do it all themselves.
And that's just toooverwhelming, especially when
you're midway through thefertility process and hormones
are cranking.
You've got injections you'redoing on yourself, you've got
patches, you're having hotflashes, you're having night
(08:56):
sweats, you're having questionsabout lab work All these things
are going on and you need to beable to communicate that with
your other half.
And sometimes in that process Iget to be that mediator.
So whenever a couple show up,we're treating stress, we're
treating cortisol.
We're also boosting serotoninand dopamine hormones that are
(09:22):
relaxing, happy stuff.
We're helping out sleeping,because sometimes ladies going
through that fertility processthey don't get good sleep.
If we have this issue ofcontrol, sometimes that can
cause more stress and more of anissue.
Trying to control everysituation in a fertility process
(09:45):
yeah, that's a variable thatyou're just going to beat
yourself up with.
So I try to help withunderstanding what you can
control and what you need to beable to just let go.
Let go and know that you've gota whole team of people that are
looking to help you succeed.
So what do I do with acupuncture?
(10:07):
We do points to relax you, tocalm you down, to help balance
out those roller coaster highsand lows of hormones, of lab
work, of waiting for answers, ofwaiting for results, of
preparing for that retrieval,which there can be a ton of
anxiety for getting the resultsafter the retrieval, of how many
(10:31):
of those embryos are actuallyusable, and then getting you
ready for that transfer.
All these things have ups anddowns.
There's expectations, there'sanxiety with it.
Acupuncture is great at helpingyou relax, reset and stay calm
and kind of allows things topass through as far as your
(10:52):
stress and your psychology.
We don't hypnotize you.
We don't take anything out ofthe equation.
What we do is we just help thebody relax and in that process
cortisol drops, and we all haveheard of that cortisol.
Once again, I keep mentioningit because that's a fight or
flight hormone and it's hard toget pregnant when you're in
fight or flight.
(11:12):
It's nearly impossible actually.
So if we can help with that,that's a big bullet, that's a
big hammer that we can wield asfar as helping you in your
fertility process.
The other thing is tounderstand who you're getting
acupuncture from, becausethere's many great acupuncture
physicians out there who havetrained with fertility clinics,
(11:32):
who are trained in hormones andbalancing pediatrics for just
overall health care, and a lotof us are tailored toward
helping those individuals.
There's many differentdisciplines and interests in
acupuncture.
We take fertility as one of ourtop priorities.
It's something we've done for along time.
It's something that we do verysuccessfully and I believe one
(11:54):
of the reasons that we have beenso good at helping ladies with
that success rate is the factthat we don't interfere with
hormones when we do acupuncturetreatments.
There's a lot of acupuncturephysicians that think that they
can just do everything, andacupuncture covers a lot of
ground.
It's very legitimate, it doeswork, the body does respond.
(12:16):
So if it's done incorrectly,then sometimes an acupuncture
treatment can go against afertility clinic, the lab work
and the hormones that you'retaking.
In fact it can cause moreproblems than good.
So here at our clinic,understanding how those
physicians work, working withthose physicians for many years
(12:37):
now, it's been our pleasure tobe able to make this journey a
good one, an easy one, withouttoo many bumps on the road.
There's always going to bebumps, that's part of the
fertility process.
But it's our job to keep yougoing, pick you up sometimes
when you're feeling down, but tomake sure that your mind is in
(12:57):
the right place for the highestsuccess rate.
Thank you for joining me today.
Once again, I'm Dr DeWayneBaugus, with Balancing Life in
Medicine.
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