Dr. Yvette Dellanini Ward has become a pioneering force in integrative reproductive endocrinology, with 25+ years of clinical experience as a fertility acupuncturist, herbalist and primary healthcare provider in California. She is the founder of Joy of Life University and educator of The Joy of IVF program, providing both clinicians and patients with tools that enhance understanding, engagement, and continuity of care. Learn more at https://www.thejoyoflifeuniversity.com/.
Fertility acupuncture sometimes gets presented as a narrow protocol: a handful of reproductive points applied uniformly across patients. What this case reinforced for me: The most powerful work happens when we read the whole picture. The hormone data, the constitutional tendency, the sleep, the digestion, and the menstrual pattern, so we can treat the environment the ovaries live inside.
Mast cell activation syndrome (MCAS) affects more than 15% of the U.S. population but evades most practitioners’ radar. Just five years ago, it wasn’t even on my radar, despite already having 20 years of experience as a clinician at that time. The more I dug (similar to leaky gut and post-COVID syndrome), the more I found my patients were suffering from this disorder.
The motivation behind our practice of medicine is important, impacting not just our experience but also the experiences of those we treat. It is perhaps for this reason that the aspiration to help not just some, but all beings heal, has historically been an important part of the medical tradition. To explain this, we need to consider how medicine is interwoven with other social domains.