Acupuncture for Fertility, Pregnancy, Women’s Health and Wellness in Oakland, CA

The research community has been working to legitimize acupuncture in fertility care for years.

We never needed the validation. The results always spoke first.

This is the baby wall at City Pulse. Fifteen years at City Pulse Acupuncture in Oakland.

To every fertility acupuncturist with their own version of this: you know.

📍 City Pulse Acupuncture | Oakland CA
🔗 Link in bio to book

#fertilityacupuncture #IVF #acupuncture #TCM #chinesemedicine

Acupuncture and IVF.

Not because Western medicine said so. Because thousands of years of clinical practice and fifteen years of watching it work say so.

There has been a lot of noise recently around studies attempting to legitimize acupuncture as an IVF adjunct. The research is genuinely meaningful and growing. But Traditional Chinese Medicine has been a clinical practice for thousands of years. The studies are welcome. They are not a surprise.

When timed correctly to each phase of your cycle and your protocol, acupuncture is an active clinical intervention, not a passive add-on. It improves blood flow to the ovaries and uterus, supports follicle development and egg quality, regulates the hormonal environment, reduces the physiological stress response that can interfere with implantation, and supports uterine receptivity around transfer.

Swipe through for the full breakdown of what acupuncture does at each phase of an IVF cycle, who should consider it, and what the research actually says.

If you are preparing for a cycle or currently in one, I would love to talk about how acupuncture can support your specific protocol. And if you are working with an RE, the conversation about acupuncture as an adjunct is worth having.

📍 City Pulse Acupuncture | CA
🔗 Link in bio to book

#IVF #acupuncture #fertility #TCM #chinesemedicine

Dragon Boat Festival is not just joong (zongzi) and dragon boats. In Traditional Chinese Medicine, it marks one of the most significant turning points of the year.
The festival falls on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month, right at the height of early summer. In TCM this period was historically considered dangerous: peak yang energy, rising heat, and the start of summer dampness, conditions believed to bring out pestilence and illness. Many of the festival's oldest traditions exist to protect against exactly this.

Ai Ye, mugwort, is hung on doors during the festival. It is warming and is the same herb burned in moxibustion, meant to protect the home from damp, heat laden air. Chang Pu, calamus root, is often hung alongside it, aromatic and used to resolve dampness. Together they represent a very old, very practical seasonal health practice.

Even joong fits the pattern. Glutinous rice is warming and tonifies Spleen qi but can be heavy to digest, especially with rich fillings. The bamboo leaves wrapped around it are traditionally considered cooling, balancing the richness inside.

Enjoy your joong. If you tend to run damp or have sluggish digestion, pair it with something warming like ginger tea and avoid eating it on an empty stomach.

📍 City Pulse Acupuncture | Oakland CA
🔗 Link in bio

#dragonboatfestival #joong #zongzi #TCM #chinesemedicine

Growing up Cantonese, Dragon Boat Festival meant one thing in our house: joong. You might know it as zongzi.

Joong and zongzi are sticky rice dumplings wrapped in bamboo or reed leaves and steamed for hours, eaten during Dragon Boat Festival in honor of Qu Yuan, a poet and statesman from over two thousand years ago. Legend says villagers threw rice into the river to keep fish from eating his body after he drowned himself in protest. Joong are the descendants of that rice.

The version I grew up with was savory: glutinous rice, mung bean, lap cheong, and salted egg yolk, sometimes with pork belly, all wrapped tightly in bamboo leaves and steamed until everything melts together. The salted egg yolk is the part everyone fights over.

Every ingredient has a clinical story. Glutinous rice tonifies Spleen qi. Mung bean clears heat and resolves dampness. Salted egg yolk nourishes yin. Lap cheong warms the channels. The bamboo leaves are cooling, balancing the richness of everything inside. Food as medicine was never separate from how we ate growing up. It was just dinner.

Happy Dragon Boat Festival. Do you call it joong or zongzi? I would love to hear about your family's version.

📍 City Pulse Acupuncture | Oakland, CA
🔗 Link in bio to book

#dragonboatfestival #joong #zongzi #cantonese #chineseamerican

Ten days studying TCM in Hangzhou, China 🇨🇳
 
Ginseng with one of the world’s foremost experts. Facial acupuncture and scalp therapy. West Lake, the tea plantations, and a palace dinner straight out of the Tang Dynasty. Clinics, lectures, and meals that were quietly doing more clinical work than most supplements.
 
50 CEUs and a lot to bring home to Oakland.

I also want to take a moment to thank @yina.co for organizing this retreat. It gave me something I did not know I needed: a spark to fall back in love with this medicine all over again again, and the inspiration to start creating content that actually reflects why I do this work.

The China 🇨🇳 series is officially complete, but I want to know what you want to see next. Drop a number in the comments:
1. Fertility and IVF support
2. Women’s health and hormones
3. Postpartum care
4. Chinese heritage, culture, and food
5. TCM seasonal living
6. Behind the scenes of my practice
 
Until next time.
 
📍City Pulse Acupuncture | Oakland CA
 
#TCM #chinesemedicine #hangzhou #china acupuncture