PRP for Fertility with the Egg Whisperer with Dr Aimee

Lorne Brown:

By listening to the Conscious Fertility Podcast, you agree to not use this podcast as medical advice to treat any medical condition in either yourself or others. Consult your own physician or healthcare provider for any medical issues that you may be having. This entire disclaimer also applies to any guest or contributors to the podcast. Welcome to Conscious Fertility, the show that listens to all of your fertility questions so that you can move from fear and suffering to peace of mind and joy. My name is Lorne Brown. I’m a doctor of traditional Chinese medicine and a clinical hypnotherapist. I’m on a mission to explore all the paths to peak fertility and joyful living. It’s time to learn how to be and receive so that you can create life on purpose.

I’m excited to have on the Conscious Fertility Podcast today, Dr. Aimee, and I’m excited because she’s got a lot to share. But I wanted to really talk to her about PRP, what women are, and I’m seeing on Google and on the internet, this ovarian rejuvenation. And I have patients here in Vancouver that are traveling to San Francisco to have their ovaries with PRP. And so I’ve been asked, can you find somebody to talk about PRP? So who also was known as the Egg Whisperer? Dr. Aimee on the show today. Hi Aimee. How are you doing?

Aimee Eyvazzadeh:

I’m doing great. Thanks for having me on. I really appreciate it.

Lorne Brown:

First of all, I’m a fan of your podcast, your show. I do want to shout out that if you’re on this journey, check out the Egg Whisperer. I have an episode on there on low level laser therapy fertility, which one day we should do an update, but I just want to share with you guys. So Dr. Aimee, she’s just somebody out there transforming how we do reproductive care. She really has that patient-centered care. At the heart of her approach, she’s come up with this method called the Tushy Method. So we’re going to talk about PRP, but I am just curious, can you tell us a little bit about the tushy method and how you got into what you’re doing and how you see what you’re doing is supporting women and why it’s so important, why you’re so driven to have all these shows and do all this outreach and support the people going through this journey?

Aimee Eyvazzadeh:

Absolutely. I mean, when you’re trying to get pregnant, it’s so hard to figure out where do you even start. And sometimes you go to your general OB, GYN, you ask them to check your fertility, and then you just get ACBC and HIV test and maybe a blood type. And I see that even now in 2023. And it just was blowing my mind with how inefficient things were for fertility patients. I just basically went to my husband and I said to him, and I always throw my husband in here because he is a genius and I love him to death. But I said to him, honey, look, there are five things that I do on every fertility patient. I said, I check the tubes, I look at the uterus, I look at the sperm, we check hormones, and I look at genetic tests. I said, give me something.

He loves crosswords. So he does all those word finder things. And so he was like, tushy method. I’m like, done. And so five tests that you need to get your fertility checked, it is not hard. This stuff is not rocket science, otherwise I would not be doing it. I’m not that smart. It just takes three things to have a baby and people sometimes miss those basic steps and just needs to stop. And I just get so fired up about this because I want anyone who wants a baby to have a baby, and I want anyone who wants to have an answer as to why they’re not having a baby to get the answers. So that’s the reason why I do what I do.

Lorne Brown:

And so you’re a big fan of coming out with a good diagnostic to lead your treatment plan.

Aimee Eyvazzadeh:

Yes.

Lorne Brown:

And the Tushi method, then you said five things, you said them, but let’s just spell it out. So T is for tubes.

Aimee Eyvazzadeh:

Fallopian tubes. So I’m a uterus. These are my tubes, right? The embryo transport system. Right. So the embryo goes down the fallopian tube and lands in the uterus.

Lorne Brown:

So for our audience, I will let you know that she’s given us a visual, but they’re going to be listening to this as a podcast. However, if you want the visual, because it is a good one, if you go to Lorne brown.com, we put up the video on our website in Lorne brown.com and Dr. Aimee, I’ll send you the embed code too. So if you want to put them up as well, it was a nice image. So we got T for tubes, U for uterus,

Aimee Eyvazzadeh:

And then S for sperm, right? Sperm is 50% of the embryo, so we want the sperm to swim straight. We don’t want them to be dizzy off of booze or marijuana or too hot because they’ve been in the sauna for too long. So getting your sperm checked. They also have the balls method, those that’s for guys. And each of these has a website. You can go to balls method.com and learn about the guy stuff too. And then the H is for the hormone. So that’s looking at your ovarian reserve like your FSH, estradiol am H, and I always throw in your TSH, your vitamin D and your preconception labs as well, like the maybe infectious disease labs, your blood count, your blood type, if you’re a little bit on the curber side or think you might have PCOS do that kind of workup at that time.

Lorne Brown:

And you mentioned the guy side of it. We’ve had Dr. Paul Turk reproductive urologists here. We’ve had Olivia Poer, a medical doctor, acupuncturist, who’s written a book on working with male fertility. And what they’re sharing is, like you said, 50% of the DNA and they share that men have been underdiagnosed and underserved and too much emphasis on blaming females. And that unexplained infertility, recurrent pregnancy loss often is attributed to the men. Even though their semen analysis looks normal, there’s other issues. So do you also like to do DNA fragmentation tests that seem to be coming more common in 2023 at clinics?

Aimee Eyvazzadeh:

Absolutely. So DNA fragmentation and DNA methylation, so I refer my patients to path fertility.com and also to, I think it’s Get Legacy or give legacy.com. So that’s a home. These are home kits that you can have delivered to you without dealing with big tanks like we used to send patients in the old days to figure out and get all squared away and sent off.

Lorne Brown:

And I’m curious as we talk about testing and then we’re going to move into treatment like PRP in our practice, our naturopathic doctors that do naturopathic medicine and functional medicine, they love to do a deep dive. So they do like a thyroid panel. They don’t just look at TSH and T four, they go into the antibodies free T three, free T four, they do the gut microbiome looking for issues in the gut. They look for other inflammatory markers and triggers. They just seem to be doing a lot of extra testing looking downstream to see what could be going on holistically in this body where you’re practicing now as of 2023 as a physician, but where are you with testing? Are you still kind of just mostly mainstream or do you also encourage or access the functional medicine testing as well? I’m just curious. I know you’re a very integrative holistic style, but I don’t know where you’re with testing.

Aimee Eyvazzadeh:

Yeah, it just kind of depends on the patient. So I like to get to the root cause leaving no stone unturned before I design whatever the treatment protocol is going to be for them so that whatever we do, we don’t wish we had not figured something out beforehand that could have helped us achieve our goals for some patients. I do micronutrient testing, I do that through Quest Diagnostics. They have this huge panel of micronutrients that I can now test patients for. I do microbiome testing, not gut per se, but I do it. So I don’t have them send off a stool sample, but I do it inside the lining of the uterus. So there are tests like the Emma, the Alice, I also do tests for silent endometriosis and sometimes for receptivity with the ERA test. So that’s all part of my egg whisper diet, which is what I call my recipe for IVF success.

And of course, success doesn’t mean unfortunately always being pregnant, but success could also mean feeling like you did everything you can in a cycle. So that’s all part of getting your diagnosis done, designing an IVF cycle, applying what you’ve learned to your cycle protocol and then embryo transfer prep and really making sure you’ve done all those tests. And if you need to meet with an immunologist or functional medical doctor, that’s the perfect time to do it as well, even if you haven’t done it before. And then the T is the transfer. So all things and stages, and that’s how I kind of compartmentalize the journey with patients. And I always tell them, for example, I’ll meet a patient now and I’ll say, I just want you to know that I think we’ll be getting a transfer in January just so they have that expectation. It’s not going to be next month. It might take two to three months, but we’re going to move things forward and we’re always going to be doing things so that we feel like, again, we’re giving ourselves our best chance.

Lorne Brown:

So not every, and this will tie into PRP, then not every patient. It’s like a rush. We got to do this next month kind of borrowing it from the Chinese medicine style, that quote that says, nourish the soul before you plant the seed, which we interpret as preconception care. Get the egg in the sperm in the Ute environment to their peak fertility potential and then retrieve those eggs or go for the transfer. And so that’s kind of your style as well.

Aimee Eyvazzadeh:

A hundred percent. You need to be able to run a 10 minute mile before your transfer. That’s my new thing actually. I say that now. I feel like so many of us have been so sedentary through what we’ve been through over the last few years. It feels like everyone has gained anywhere between 10 and 30 pounds. And I’m like, let’s start working off that weight and get ourselves cardiovascular fit for this marathon, which is called pregnancy.

Lorne Brown:

Great. And the reason to my listeners here, why I wanted Dr. Aimee here is in our practice, and you’ve had on the egg whisper show we do acupuncture and you’ve had acupuncture on there. My colleague, Dr. Lee Hon Rubin’s been on your show and there’s a meta analysis just came out of July, 2023 showing acupuncture leading up to transfer on transfer day, increased live birth rates, and really that’s what our patients are after and what you’re after. So there’s acupuncture you can do, there’s low level laser therapy. I love doing that In my practice. I’ve been a big fan advocate, I should say, bringing that from Japan and the Netherlands to North America. And I know you’ve talked about that. You’ve had me on as a guest and I know you recommend patients LLT because they come back saying, Dr. Aimee wants me to get an LLT machine in Canada, PRP is only as far as I’m aware, is only being used in the uterus.

I’m not aware of clinics, I don’t know if they’re not allowed, but nobody’s really doing PRP in the ovaries in Canada. So when people ask, what else can I do? Because you said leave no stone unturned. So we’re doing diet herbs, acupuncture, mind body, low level laser, and I’m like, well, there’s PRP and I send them to your website to get educated and I want to share with you and to our listeners, wow, do they love your intake? They say that you spend time with them, you answer their emails, they just feel so heard and they feel that you give them so much information to think about. Right? You’re really, so just thank you for that. The feedback has been wonderful. And then the ones that have gone so far have really enjoyed their experience with you and again, felt really taken care of. And so now we’re going to talk about why are you doing PRP into the ovaries? What is PRP and what are you seeing?

Aimee Eyvazzadeh:

Yeah, so I think that every single woman should be offered PRP before egg donation. And the reason is that it might give a woman a chance to have a baby with her own eggs, and if she doesn’t do it, she would never know if it would’ve helped her. That’s my bias. And this is for people who still want to try with their own DNA for people who are ready to move on and pivot. I don’t think that they should consider PRP. They shouldn’t delay their timeline. They should go ahead and just move forward with let’s say donor egg or donor embryos or whatever their journey might involve that will get them to baby faster. And the reason is I’ve had countless, I’ve done over 300 cases and counting, and I’ve seen things that would just blow your mind like an amm H of 0.01.

Then it goes up to 0.7, I extract seven eggs, get two healthy embryos, and then the AMH goes all the way back down within three months and she’s back to where she was perimenopausal or menopausal. So I learned this from a patient of mine. She was 47 years old, she’d been in menopause for six years. She showed up. I hadn’t seen her for a few years, and I had told her, there’s really nothing I can do to help you other than donor eggs. And she showed up with three follicles. I’m like, this is so strange. Where did you get these from? She’s like, oh, I did PRP with Dr. Murky at rejuvenating fertility. I’m like, who is this guy? So then I had to reach out to him. I’m like, who are you? So then we got to know each other. I’m like, you have to teach me what you’re doing because now I have so many patients doing it.

They were flying to New York to see him. And I said, I just want to learn how to do this myself. And so I got all the equipment he taught me, he showed me how to do it, the same procedure that he does that has worked for my patients for so long, and then I started doing it. What I would say is not all PRP is the same. A lot of people, there’s studies that say it doesn’t work. There’s studies that say it does work, in my hands, it does work. I’m tracking data over time for patients, their AMH levels are going up, their FSH levels are dropping. I am seeing a higher mature egg number, a higher blast rate, and what’s most important is the euploid rate and live birth rate. Obviously it doesn’t help everyone. I say that it may help your case may, and I think it’s harder for patients who are, let’s say over the age of 44 for obvious reasons, but I think women can be candidates who have a high egg count and may not have good egg quality for women who have a low egg count for women who are let’s say just over 40 and you just want to start with PRP, you don’t have to go through an IVF cycle and then say, I’m going to do PRP.

If that first cycle doesn’t work, you can do it even before your IVF cycle. And I also do it for egg freezing patients. So let’s say you’re an egg freezer. Your AMH is low or you’re over 40, that’s something that you can start off with before your egg breathing cycle to increase your egg count. And it basically is taking your blood, spinning it, and then taking growth factors from the blood and then injecting it into the ovary. And do we really know exactly how it helps? No. Could it just be the trauma from the needle going in and how I do that possibly. But I also think it’s a combination of infusing the platelet rich plasma with how I inject. Because there is data, for example, that people who do back-to-back egg retrievals, you might have a higher egg count in that second egg retrieval. And I think that might have something to do with the trauma to the ovary and the first egg retrieval that might increase the egg count the second. So it might have something to do with that as well.

Lorne Brown:

So this PRP is not new. They’ve been using this on joints to help regenerate from injuries. And so now you’re putting this into the ovaries to help the ovaries respond better. And I’ve heard some docs say maybe just like the acupuncture and the lasers helping with vascularization in the area, more blood, they’re able to pull out the follicles. You’re able to pull out more than into recruitment because of that blood flow. So you don’t know why.

Aimee Eyvazzadeh:

No, I mean, how is it someone who’s basically menopausal can all of a sudden have three follicles? It just blows my mind. That idea. When the first study came out, it was a doctor in Greece and his pregnancy rate, he was like, one in 800 patients can get pregnant or something like that. And I was like, this guy is a scam artist. I’m like, what the hell is he doing? He is just, I don’t believe it. And so I spent years saying it’s impossible because it is just not something that we were trained to believe because once you’re out of eggs, you’re out of eggs. And then when I saw it for the first time and like, Ooh, I kind of feel bad that I said that about him because he’s a pioneer. I mean literally there are people that have babies right now. And I think actually you might have referred my first life birth from Canada, and

Lorne Brown:

I know who you’re thinking of.

Aimee Eyvazzadeh:

Yes. And so I’m very happy about her story and everyone else’s story. And I feel like had they not had that, had the procedure and they would not have a baby.

Lorne Brown:

So I want to talk about the data. We have all sorts of listeners. I’ll share with you that this one is so fertility focused, so we’ll have those trying to grow their family. But because we’ve been on the Conscious Fertility podcast, we have listeners from all walks of life because interested in this consciousness of bringing more joy into the life regardless of growing their life within is the theme here with the fertility side though, I got to ask some of the questions. We have physicians on here as well, and when I ask other physicians that aren’t using it, they’re skeptical like you are, right? And they go, well, the data’s not there, so I’m going to ask some questions and I have to share that that’s common. The data’s not there because western medicine evidence-based medicine as in it makes sense, we want to see the data.

I remember in Canada, we were one of the first clinics, an acupuncture clinic, so a natural clinic, no physicians in our clinic, medical doctors. And we started doing AMH routinely on our patients. Before it was routine in Canada because of Canadian social medicine, so FSH, estradiol, lh, TSH free AMH is not. So they never recommended it. It was a paid thing. They only recommended MSP and I learned when I was in Europe and then America that you guys were doing it all routinely made sense. So we started doing it and the fertility clinics ridiculed us and said we were taking advantage of them and wasting their money to order this test. Now every patient in Canada gets an NMH tested and they have to pay for it out of pocket. So it was ridiculed. The acupuncture in 2002 when I started was ridiculed. The latest study shows increased live birth rates, especially if you do a series of treatments leading up to transfer and transfer day. The low level laser therapy, we don’t have the data there. We have some cool data out of Japan where double blasts rates and we have small studies, animal studies, some humans here and there, but we don’t have robust data. Where are we with PRP?

Aimee Eyvazzadeh:

I’m getting it for you. I actually have patients input their data. So when they are onboard, we put all their previous levels and then we track them over time. So I keep a log of their follicle count and then two weeks after, right before PRP, they have a baseline AMH. Then two weeks later they have another AMH and follicle count. And then we’re tracking people over time. And so already we know from the patients that I’ve taken care of, we’re seeing the things that I shared with you and we’re hopefully going to publish it at PCS at the next meeting. So we’re hopefully going to publish something here very, very soon. So we’re collecting all the data so that we can write it up for people. And when people say you’re being taken advantage of, I say that the doctor is just a very caring person, but they just haven’t had the experiences that I’ve had.

And not every PP is the same. Some people just use their own tube, they think they’re going to give patients PRP, they’re spinning it. And when I see some of the videos that patients post on Instagram about all the tubes and they have to go in six hours before and then they have to come back six hours later, and I’m like, no, I don’t think they’re really getting PRP. So that’s the issue is you don’t really know what you’re getting as a patient. So making sure you’re going to a clinic that actually can tell you yes, the AMH does go up, the FSH level does drop and I have seen success stories in your age group, then I think that would be the person to do it with.

Lorne Brown:

So you’re measuring and following up, but there’s still not great published data, but clinically you’re seeing a difference. And so many, one of the podcasts we have from a local reproductive endocrinologist, Sean Ragone says he’s the same idea, leave no stone unturned as long as we know it’s safe because patients are looking, they don’t have 10 years to wait. And so just like he uses homeopathy, he likes, he recommends IV therapy, he recommends acupuncture laser, and he thinks the PRP is very interesting. He just says, I don’t see all the research yet, but yeah, I get why somebody would go and do PRP because he uses it in the uterus and he sees changes for uterine receptivity. So why? Of course. But he says, I can’t say that it’s conclusive. I don’t see that kind of data yet, but in time we’ll know.

Aimee Eyvazzadeh:

And it’s not easy, so I use a spinal needle. It’s a nine inch spinal needle. It’s much smaller than an egg retrieval needle. And so that’s the other thing I do differently than other clinics. And it’s not technically a simple procedure like an egg retrieval. Imagine taking, it’s like an acupuncture needle, passing it through the vagina and then just trying to go around the ovary. Technically you have to be extremely careful making sure you’re not getting into anything else other than the ovary. And then in some of these patients, their ovaries are extremely small. And so that’s the other thing I can imagine when people are saying they’re looking at the studies they’re doing PRP, if someone’s ovaries barely visible and they’re using that big needle that people use during an egg retrieval, which is a lot of what centers do, who knows what they’re doing with that PRP? So I highly doubt they’re even putting it in the ovary.

Lorne Brown:

So technique is important. Now, I am not a medical doctor, so I’ve never done a retrieval, so I can’t even visualize this. So I’m asking questions just through my imagination. So the ovary being three dimensional here, are you wanting to put it into just the skin of the ovary? Are you trying to get it into the follicle to impact the egg,

Aimee Eyvazzadeh:

Not the follicle. So I’ll just go around the edge just right below the cortex of the ovary as much as I can all around the ovary.

Lorne Brown:

Yeah, because wondering, because it’s got to spread to those follicles, right? That’s the goal,

Aimee Eyvazzadeh:

Right?

Lorne Brown:

And so there could be eggs somewhere on the other side that it may be difficult for you to,

Aimee Eyvazzadeh:

Right. Yeah, I’m not getting the entire surface area,

Lorne Brown:

But the more surface area, it would be better. You shared that even the needle, and we know this from retrieval to transfers, they’re constantly changing the needles and the tube for transfers and they get better results. They study this. So the needle, how you’re doing the needle will impact your PRP results?

Aimee Eyvazzadeh:

I think so, and I think it makes it safer for patients, less complications. So I tell patients it is actually less invasive than an egg retrieval, like doing a facial for your ovary. Basically you just show up, no prep, you have to take your pants off.

Lorne Brown:

Then the other part is I think it was Greece that’s doing a lot of this, or was it Brazil, Greece, right. So it seems like there’s two conflicting pieces of advice, and I want to know what your advice is. One advice is do it and you have to do an IVF to try and get pregnant right away. And the other one is to do it. And you got to allow three months to allow the recruitment and all that stuff to happen over time, what are you seeing? What are you recommending? I have heard it from both ways.

Aimee Eyvazzadeh:

So you don’t know until you check every patient’s response is going to be different. So that’s why I just tell patients every couple of weeks to come in. So after the PRP, get an AME check if it’s gone up, depending on what’s next, either your period start or ovulation, do a follicle check next and then see if you should start to stem. I started to stem, and that’s the other thing, luteal phase ovarian stimulation. When I was in training for that second wave, we used to laugh at people that talked about it like that. There’s another wave in the ovary, you can actually start stimulation then. Now, that’s my standard protocol for women over the age of 37 because for whatever reason, egg quality is better if you start to stem right after ovulation for a lot of patients. And so your egg count might be higher. So that’s why I will check their follicle count at their next period or ovulation, whichever comes first if I see a bump in their AMH, and then we’ll talk and compare that follicle count to our baseline and then ask ourselves, does this look like a good cycle for us to start with?

The answer is yes, we go for it. I mean, just today I did anju on someone that I did PRP on and she’d never gotten more than two eggs and I got her six. So it’s like it’s doing something

Lorne Brown:

Again. My mind’s going, so I got more questions for those that are local and those that are not local. Again, a lot of the western thinking medical western medicine thinking would be let’s do one PRP and we’re done, right? Because it’s easy to study, it’s convenient, et cetera. And then my mind is like, okay, let’s figure out what works and then try and study what works versus let’s try and make something fit into a study. And so if somebody came to me and said, because this is quite common, let’s just do acupuncture and transfer day or just give me one laser treatment and acupuncture treatment. I wouldn’t be expecting amazing results from that. I would expect that I need to do a series of treatments to help correct the imbalances, whether they have PCOS, endometriosis, poor blood flow, they’re overweight, all these things you’re talking about lack of sleep, constipation, gut, there’s so many things we want to correct.

So it’s not the treatment. Does the treatment correct the imbalance? And so when I think of PRP, and it was just because a lot of patients go in and they get one PRP, I think of the recruitment that the follicle goes through that contains the egg, and it’s almost a year, but it seems like the last a hundred days seems to be really crucial for that follicular development for the follicle, which contains the egg to reach its peak fertility potential. So theoretically take time and money out of it. I would think you’d want to do a series of treatments during those a hundred days leading up to ovulation or retrieval because you’d want to keep impacting the follicle during its follicular genesis. That’s just me thinking out loud.

Aimee Eyvazzadeh:

Yeah, I mean there are doctors that just tell patients, commit to two sessions 30 days apart and then start your retrieval 30 days later. But I’m not the most patient person. And so for patients who have easy access to me or a clinic that I can coordinate follicle checks with, then I encourage them to track and monitor things and if things look good, just go for it. And I have seen beautiful results from just one PRP. So I do have patients that I’m like, you know what? Let’s do a second 30 days later just because I’m not seeing as much of a change that I would want to right now. And then we see a beautiful difference a month after that second one. And I have patients that have done six ovarian PRPs with me because they’re banking eggs or embryos over the course of let’s say a year.

And I just completed an entire session with a patient of doing this for her. She has a very unique situation, and her last egg retrieval was the highest number of eggs she’s ever retrieved. So absolutely, I mean, you’re right. I mean take money time, all of that out of it is very possible that there could be a cumulative benefit to doing it over the course of a year, every two to three months. Who knows? But no one’s going to do that study. No one’s going to minimize two groups of people. And then I actually have a cohort that comes to me for menopausal symptoms. They have meno, they’re in menopause, they’re having hot flashes, they don’t want to take hormones. I do APRP. They have three months of relief and they feel amazing

Lorne Brown:

Rejuvenating or supporting those ovaries.

Aimee Eyvazzadeh:

So

Lorne Brown:

Let’s set some expectations for the people that would be listening to this because there are people that are going to be listening to this and I’m thinking this now that we’ve opened up Pandora’s box, we said this. They’re thinking they’re going to have to go every week or do something like that because people get desperate. Understandably, the desire to want a child and to grow your family is inconceivable, no pun intended. It’s crazy. And so people can get onto this and it becomes unhealthy of how much they stop living and how much they’re doing to try to improve their fertility. And so can we manage the expectations here? And what do you think is realistic if somebody’s coming to see you where it’d be an opportunity to move into donor eggs? Because most of the ones that I’m sending to you, they’re told, please do donor eggs. And then they come to me and they go, is there anything else we can do? And we talk about what we’re doing at our clinic, the natural stuff. And I said, there are some people that are doing PRP. What’s that? And then I connect them with you. So what’s the expectation they’re going to do 1, 2, 3, PRPs over a period of time. What would you say is realistic in general? And then obviously there’s individual cases.

Aimee Eyvazzadeh:

Yeah, on average it’s one.

Lorne Brown:

Okay, good. That’s great. So on average you do APP and you see results.

Aimee Eyvazzadeh:

Absolutely. I see results after one. I do. And then how I counsel patients is I say this, I say, don’t have high expectations. There’s a high likelihood this will not work, but you will never look back and say you didn’t try everything before you moved on to egg donation.

Lorne Brown:

There’s two ways to look at this from a very materialistic left brain, logical, they would say, well, the patient’s desperate and were taking advantage because it won’t work. But you’re saying no, you’re not saying it won’t work, it’s just it may not work and you are seeing some work. And now let’s talk about where western medicine takes the head off the body often. So it’s just a body Chinese medicine, there’s a mind body. We know that so many people before they move to donor eggs need that kind of closure. It used to be that they needed to do one more cycle just to know that it’s time to move on to donor eggs when they’ve been told not to do one more cycle. And now you’re saying some women can do PRP and if it doesn’t work, it allows ’em to know that I’ve done everything I can now I can move on to my donor cycle or stop trying to conceive. And like you said, some of them in this process end up conceiving with throwing eggs.

Aimee Eyvazzadeh:

Absolutely. I have doctors who call me and say, Aimee, I don’t know what else to do for her. She’s done five IVF cycles. She doesn’t even make a blast assist. She doesn’t want to do egg donation. Can you do ovarian PRP for her? And I’m like, sure, but I should say at the same time, I do all the things that you do for your patients. I do the L-L-L-T-H-G-H, look at all the things, and then I take her through a protocol. Is it the PRP that helped this patient make blasts that she’s never made before that are old? I don’t know, but I think it might have something to do with it.

Lorne Brown:

In Chinese medicine, the latest research, they’re talking and Lee Holler Rubens, who you had on your podcast, whole systems, traditional Chinese medicine, were rather than just acupuncture, our protocol, it’s whole systems. What do we do clinically? We do dietary therapy, stress reduction. We had supplements, we had herbal medicine. We’re doing a series of acupuncture. That’s where she saw a significant increase in live birth rates. And so same thing. You’re doing human growth hormone, you’re doing PRP, all these things. And it’s probably not just one thing to rejuvenate and to take somebody from subfertile to fertile thus far. We don’t have a one pill that works, right? We have to do multiple things. I wanted you to tell the story about reversing menopause. This is how I got into low level laser therapy. And then I got more PRP questions for you, but it was Dr.

Ro in Japan where he was treating somebody. He’s a pain specialist medical doctor treating pain, back pain in menopause age 55. And her cycle came back and it happened to another woman. Her cycle came back, and then they did a pilot study and then a larger study with women diagnosed with infertility where this ties into PRP. Why did I bring that up? The stories are similar, right? Most discoveries are by accident, right? New discoveries like this one are in the orthopedic world in the injury, pain and injury world. Often now they’re combining the PRP with low level laser therapy. So prepping before and after, and my patients that I’ve been telling them about you that have gone to see you, that’s the thing that I love combining, because again, it’s that compound effect. There’s in my world, holistic whole systems, Chinese medicine, I could be just doing acupuncture, then I can add dietary therapy to it and I can add supplements and I can add Chinese herbs. And then there’s laser and PRP. To me, it’s like it has that cumulative compounding effect on the body. And so are you also doing PRP and also

Aimee Eyvazzadeh:

Recommending

Lorne Brown:

Laser,

Aimee Eyvazzadeh:

That thing, they bring their laser with them when they come here.

Lorne Brown:

I’m going to tell you now also something that’s on our show that nobody knows. I’ve kept a little secret, so I have some really good professional laser systems. And so most people are familiar, I have BioFlex systems in my clinic, but the Giga laser out of Denmark, people love and they want us to do a study with it. And so I have that in my clinic in Vancouver, I’m playing with that. So we have that in the clinic and hopefully we’ll open that up to patients as well to use as well. So I’m excited about that as well. And the PRP and the giga to me, I get excited about.

Aimee Eyvazzadeh:

Yeah, totally.

Lorne Brown:

So when somebody comes from, I’m thinking now selfishly of the people that I see in Vancouver, but our listeners are from all over the world, you are located in San Francisco, so people are in the San Francisco, San Francisco area. They know how to find you. But so do the Canadians, the VANCOUVERITES in particular, but in Canadians, if they’re coming to see you, is there a time in their cycle that you prefer to see them? Many of them may be planning an IVF cycle. Is there a time that you want to see them then to work with their IVF cycle?

Aimee Eyvazzadeh:

No, it’s not cycle day dependent. So I just say I do it only two Wednesdays a month. And so I just say, pick the Wednesdays the most convenient for you, and then we’ll just start tracking things after that.

Lorne Brown:

If somebody’s going to start stems next week, is it beneficial to do it or wait for a motorcycle?

Aimee Eyvazzadeh:

No, I would say try and do it two weeks before you start to stem. But if that’s my only option, I would potentially do it then even if it’s a week before STEM starts. I’ve had patients where I’ve done a egg retrieval and APRP at the same time on them,

Lorne Brown:

And

Aimee Eyvazzadeh:

Unfortunately the IVF lab that I work with will not allow me to do the surgery center that I do PRP at is different from the IVF lab that I do my egg retrievals at. And that’s all, it’s just how the world is. I can’t get everything I want everywhere and that’s fine. But if I had my way for patients who are, let’s say embryo banking, I would do their first egg retrieval, do PRP, and then just see if that could help improve things. Well, I don’t think it would hurt for the next egg retrieval.

Lorne Brown:

And you’re looking at AMH and day three FSH estradiol after you do the PRP to see if there’s a shift?

Aimee Eyvazzadeh:

Yes. And volatile count

Lorne Brown:

And antral follicle count. And how long is it when somebody comes in? It’s an in and out procedure.

Aimee Eyvazzadeh:

So they’ll basically check in an hour before their procedure time, nothing to eat or drink after midnight. We ask them to hydrate really, really well the day before because it’s about 60 ccss of blood that we draw in one big tube that gets spun, it takes an hour. And then we take the five ccs of PRP in a procedure that’s just like an egg retrieval. So we go into the or I’m there, ultrasound machine is there. Anesthesiologist just puts you under just a very light nap. So it’s unconscious sedation. So you’re not talking to me listening to my really stupid jokes. I’m kidding. I don’t tell stupid jokes. I just concentrate on what I’m doing and I’m constantly saying to myself, careful and gentle. Careful and gentle. I just have these things that I do to make sure that I do

Lorne Brown:

Mantra.

Aimee Eyvazzadeh:

Yeah, totally. They just recover and they’re gone in two hours from the time they check

Lorne Brown:

In. And because they’re sedated, they can’t drive away from your clinic then if

Aimee Eyvazzadeh:

They cannot. No. So if you don’t have a support person to travel with you, if you’re coming from another country and you don’t have another person, there’s a nursing service that you can hire. Alternatively, I can do it very, very well with just fentanyl and no propofol. If you add propofol, you have to have a companion pick you up. If it’s just fentanyl, you can leave the clinic on your own.

Lorne Brown:

Yeah, because in Vancouver, a lot of the clinics just use fentanyl and then somebody often leaves with you because you’re out of it. They still don’t get you to drive away usually.

Aimee Eyvazzadeh:

Right. Can’t drive yourself. No.

Lorne Brown:

Uber.

Aimee Eyvazzadeh:

Uber.

Lorne Brown:

Alright. And are there any side effects? Are there any concerns that people should be paying attention to as they start to think about this and do their homework?

Aimee Eyvazzadeh:

Yeah, I mean, as with any procedure can have a reaction to the IV placement, anesthesia, medications, you can have damage to organs like blood vessels, bladder, bowel. Luckily, like I said, I’ve done hundreds of these now and haven’t had a single complication, but nothing is risk-free in life. So you just have to think about those risks, make sure that you’re willing to undergo them for the likelihood of success in your situation and then move forward with that information.

Lorne Brown:

And then just to recap, what I heard is usually individuals that are doing this, they’ve tried a lot of things and they’re not willing and ready to move into donor eggs and they want to leave no stone unturned. It’s usually one PRP protocol that you do. But sometimes people will do two PRPs in general, and after they do PRP, how soon after do you then want to see Antra, focal follicle count AMH? How soon after do you test?

Aimee Eyvazzadeh:

Two weeks after the PRP is the first test. And depending on what that level is, then we make a decision as to whether they should come into the clinic for a follicle count or not.

Lorne Brown:

So if the AMH, is there a reason you would tell ’em not to? If the AMH hasn’t changed, will you go and look at the,

Aimee Eyvazzadeh:

I mean, I’ve been really lucky. Most of the time it actually has gone up. So we’ll have them come in and then we decide the best timing, whether it’s at period start or ovulation start, whichever comes first. That’s the next time we’ll check.

Lorne Brown:

And what’s the variation that you would see? Because 0.1 to 0.7, is that something to really be excited about? I asked for this reason. Can I tell you why? Before I got to tell you? What happened is I did a talk once in, I think we were either in Germany or Tel Aviv. It was in Tel Aviv. And I’m on a panel with a reproductive endocrinologist from Switzerland, and he won’t test AMH because he used to. And he said that he took three vials from one woman and he sent two vials to the same clinic, changed the name and another vial to a different clinic. And all three vials had different results. So he lost faith in it being a predictable measurement. And so when somebody sees a change in their stuff, sometimes if antra focal changes by one per cycle, that’s just normal variation.

Aimee Eyvazzadeh:

Yeah. So 0.1 to 0.7, I would be jumping up and down 0.1 to 0.2 or point, if you’re undetectable 0.01 and I can get you to 0.04, I’m like, oh my goodness, I can get a follicle to grow that woman at 0.01, undetectable. There’s no follicle there. And I actually do the same thing. I draw my blood. I’ve been doing it for years. And then recently, this is a true story, about two weeks ago, I sent it to three different labs I sent to Quest. I sent it to Nova Infertility, so it’s block paper. And then that same company took my serum and they’re running it on their platform. Every single one was the same, exactly the same. So I think the exercise that he went through was really helpful because he needs to know which lab he trusts. And so I know which labs I trust because I did that for myself. So I feel like I have consistency and I trust the AMH levels that I’m getting. If he doesn’t trust it, it makes sense. Why would he do it if he doesn’t trust it, but he has to find someone that he trusts.

Lorne Brown:

Yeah. So you’ve shown it was reproducible. You have confidence in your lab. So that’s a key point. Not all labs are equal. And so for you, you are seeing reproducible results. And then for our listeners, we have people in Canada and Europe all over when she’s 0.1 to 0.7, the Americans love to have their own measurement. I think you guys, what are you guys doing? Nanograms and something.

Aimee Eyvazzadeh:

What are you

Lorne Brown:

Doing? What is

Aimee Eyvazzadeh:

It? Nanograms per deciliter,

Lorne Brown:

Right? And most of us do PP per liter, right? Per

Aimee Eyvazzadeh:

Liter.

Lorne Brown:

So it’s different. So just so you know, you got to do the conversion because it’s a different measure. They use different measurements for their estradiol and for their AMH. So those that won’t transfer. Exactly. It’s like when we talk to our American friends from Canada and we say it’s 20 degrees today, it’s hot. And they’re like, that sounds really cold Celsius versus Fahrenheit. So fair enough. The PRP, this is something that you’ve done. You’ve had over a hundred cases, I think

Aimee Eyvazzadeh:

Over over 300.

Lorne Brown:

Over 300 cases.

PRP is not standardized yet. So certain clinics are saying they’re doing PRP, but it’s not like the PRP you’re doing. As you know, it’s becoming obvious to my listeners. I’m very interested in low level laser therapy. I will share that not all systems are equal. People are putting out machines on their bodies, but I’ve tested a bunch and know that they’re not all equal as tested. Can I measure the photons coming out of them? And so just because you’re putting light on your body doesn’t mean you’re actually getting the benefit from the light, low level light. And Dr. Aimee has shared the same thing with us. Even the needles she’s using are different from some clinics. And then how they spin the blood, all that stuff impacts it. So you’ve been trained by somebody and you feel that you’ve been following your data, so you’re feeling good about what you’re seeing, but there’s no big RCTs yet on this. Correct. Am I understanding?

Aimee Eyvazzadeh:

Yeah. There are clinics that are performing their own RCTs, and I think it’s just for their own internal. They’re just doing it internally to see if it’s something that they should offer patients or not. But I haven’t seen any published results.

Lorne Brown:

So that answers the, why aren’t all clinics doing this?

Aimee Eyvazzadeh:

Well, I think clinics are so impacted by patients, they just don’t have the bandwidth for it. And honestly, if someone has, let’s say a two to 3% chance of pregnancy with their own eggs, a lot of people just aren’t invested in that patient’s success anymore. And I am just not that person. I just get fired up about each and every case and each and every patient that I see, I’m sure just like you

Lorne Brown:

And the RCTs aren’t there yet for some clinics. There’s pioneers and then some clinics wait until all the other clinics are doing it or they have the comfort with the data to move

Aimee Eyvazzadeh:

Forward. And I’m training at other clinics. So I have about three or four clinics. I’ve actually been to a clinic in Canada. And then I am training physicians here, showing them how I’m doing it, introducing them to the team of folks that I use for the equipment. So I’m trying to get it to be something that more and more clinics will offer.

Lorne Brown:

And anything else you want to share as we wrap up here, we got to let them know how to find you because you are on a lot of different platforms because of the outreach you’re doing and the education. Again, thank you for that. And just your approach. I shared it a couple of times, but you are a fan of integration and as you can see, you’re powerful and I love it. That same thing with the laser systems. I put it on my brain for stuff. I am always experimenting on myself before I ever use it on my patients. But I love it that

Aimee Eyvazzadeh:

Do you check your testosterone? Are you checking your teeth? No, I

Lorne Brown:

Have not. Oh,

Aimee Eyvazzadeh:

No. So Tucker, have you heard of Tucker? You know who? Tucker Carlson and testicular tanning. Did you hear that

Lorne Brown:

With the LT stuff?

Aimee Eyvazzadeh:

Oh yeah. It was all over the news. It was hilarious. And he was putting on his balls and he went on his campaign about how men aren’t manly enough because their testosterone levels aren’t high enough and red light can fix that. Yeah.

Lorne Brown:

Well, I would be for my fertility patients, red light can give off heat. And so you don’t want to cook your balls. So it doesn’t mean it will. It’s all theoretical. But some systems give off more heat than others where the laser systems may be different that we use. So that one I just want to share too is the study that I looked at to improve libido and testosterone was laser. They did it over the brain.

Aimee Eyvazzadeh:

Oh, interesting. Wow. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Lorne Brown:

Because think about it, you always think it’s got to be local. Dr. Shero with his low level laser therapy, his approach was not over the ovaries. He did a carotid stent, ganglia out to turn on the parasympathetic that caused blood flow head to toe. That’s why he did it for the two menopausal women with back pain. If I can bring blood to the back, it’ll accelerate the healing and then he locally did the back.

Aimee Eyvazzadeh:

Yeah,

Lorne Brown:

That makes sense. And then we have other studies that we do both in our clinic anyhow, we’re doing the sacrum, we’re doing the ovaries, the gut microbiome, and we’re doing around the carotid and sella ganglia. So we do multi areas. And as you know with the brain, it starts here to communicate to the pituitary, to communicate to the ovaries to get things going. So there may be other ways to raise that testosterone other than cooking your balls. But if you’re, don’t forget

Aimee Eyvazzadeh:

To the red light, don’t tan your testicle.

Lorne Brown:

If you’re done with fertility, it’s a cool idea, go for it. But if you are still trying to conceive with that sperm, I would be cautious. Well,

Aimee Eyvazzadeh:

Now I’m wondering if you should get a red light helmet, get one for the back of your neck, lower back and ovaries and just sit there.

Lorne Brown:

Well, in my clinic, they’re getting all that when I do the low level laser in our clinic. And so we’re using LED systems, but professional LED as in, so we can, in the half an hour, an hour that they’re there, we can get enough photons and we’re using probes as well. And as I mentioned, I have the giga laser, which we plan to hopefully use, and we’ve got the BioFlex giga, and we can do a little study with maybe more than one arm. So to see what this is doing, and maybe we’ll figure something out with the PRP, I’ll send

Aimee Eyvazzadeh:

Some

Lorne Brown:

Canadians to you and totally. So how do we find you? Where should they go to find you?

Aimee Eyvazzadeh:

Yeah, anything egg whisperer. So if you just put it in, you’ll find me on YouTube. My website is Instagram. And I love just teaching people about all my different methods. So one of my favorite things is my classes. So egg whisper school.com is where people can sign up for my IBF classes and freezing classes and tushy method classes.

Lorne Brown:

Love it. Okay. We’re going to have, as this evolves, this is so in its infancy, 300 plus cases. I hope we can have you back to talk more about the PRP.

Aimee Eyvazzadeh:

Totally. Thank you.

Speaker:

If you’re looking for support to grow your family contact Acubalance Wellness Center. At Acubalance they help you reach your peak fertility potential through their integrative approach using low level laser therapy, fertility, acupuncture, and naturopathic medicine. Download the Acubalance Fertility Diet and Dr. Brown’s video for mastering manifestation and clearing subconscious blocks. Go to ACU balance.ca. That’s acubalance.ca.

Lorne Brown:

Thank you so much for tuning into another episode of Conscious Fertility, the show that helps you receive life on purpose. Please take a moment to subscribe to the show and join the community of women and men on their path to peak fertility and choosing to live consciously on purpose. I would love to continue this conversation with you, so please direct message me on Instagram at Lorne Brown official. That’s Instagram, Lorne Brown official, or you can visit my websites, Lorne brown.com and acubalance.ca. Until the next episode, stay curious and for a few moments, bring your awareness to your heart center and breathe.