Let's Talk Acupuncture, Fertility, and Why Your Body Isn't Broken

Hi everybody, I'm Dr. Sanda Moldovan, periodontist and nutritionist. Welcome to the Holistic Dentistry Podcast, the show that gives you the tips and tools to detoxify your mouth for a healthier body as we explore together the root cause of disease. Remember, you're not healthy until your mouth is healthy, so take care of it in the most natural way. Hi everyone, welcome to another episode on The Holistic Dentistry Show. I'm your host, Dr. Sanda Moldovan, and with me, I have the pleasure of chatting with Nam Lee. She's a licensed acupuncturist, a PhD, and a few other degrees that I don't know what they are, but she will explain it to us. She's a highly respected Eastern medicine practitioner specializing in reproductive health, infertility, and women's health. She earned her Master of Science in Eastern Medicine from South Baylor University in Anaheim, California. And since, she has pursued extensive postgraduate training through leading institutions and national healthcare seminars. And for those of you that are on Instagram, I highly suggest that you go to her platform @lee_acupuncture to learn about different ways that you can help your body and your health via acupuncture techniques. And some of them are pressopuncture techniques that you're posting on there. So Dr. Lee, welcome to the show.

Dr. Sanda Moldovanovanova, so happy to be here. Thank you so much for having me. How exciting.

Yes, it is. Especially because, you know, you're the first acupuncturist that I'm talking to on this show. And I am a big believer in acupuncture because I've been doing acupuncture, you know, going to acupuncture to receive treatment for 15 years. And for me, it's such a reboot. I was actually in acupuncture 2 days ago. And, uh, yeah, because I had such tightness of my neck and my upper body, you know, and, uh, I was having some digestive issues, probably stress related. And it really helped. I had acupuncture on front and back. I was there for like an hour and a half, but I felt completely, completely rebooted by the end of the What a treat.

Yes, that's actually, we do both sides.

Yeah.

Lovely.

Yeah. So, so what drew you into acupuncture? Did you always know you wanted to become an acupuncturist?

We're talking about, is it like 20-something years ago? Okay. I mean, but this, I have to tell you, this is my high school dream job. Wow.

Amazing.

So I'm engineer myself. So I graduated from the university as engineer degree, but I always wanted to be Eastern medicine practitioner. And somehow I came to US to actually study holistic medicine and acupuncture. It's kind of a little strange, but there's a lot of story because the, at the Korea, being Eastern medicine practitioner is extremely, extremely hard. I mean, cuz it's such a highly regarded job cuz I'm Korean. So I came here and then also my mom and then my grandma, they're very, very like a well-known the, just folks medicine. So I grew up with acupuncture, also herbs. Probably I love herbs more than acupuncture if I have to choose, but I love them both. But I love, love herbs. So that made me to focusing on holistic medicine. And also I love to come to see here, like America. And then actually came down two together, very strange combo.

Yeah.

I mean, studying Eastern medicine and the Western world. It's a very unique approach, but no matter what, this is truly something I wanted to be in my high school. Always wanted to be an Eastern medicine practitioner.

I love it. You're living your dream. Yes. And you've taken a path into more fertility, correct?

Yeah, we specialize in fertility and IVF support on natural conception and women's health.

How did you start on that path? Is it just because you had a lot of patients that were coming to you for that, or is Is that something you have to study separate for?

So you mentioned I have a, like, a little credentialing behind my name, and there's FABORM, and then they're all acupuncture, uh, specialized in reproductive medicine.

Okay.

I don't know if I choose it or a patient choose me. And I have some story of my patient just hearing from the people to struggle. And then especially going to fertility challenge, it's really moved my heart because I know how, how important or how precious having some, your own child. And that's a woman going through that fertility challenges. And it really made my heart open, but I really have to admit it's a little bit hard specialty as well, because we going through a lot of ups and downs as a practitioner, because we related our patients, not everybody 100% 100% successful at going through this family building. So it's a little bit hard for a lot of people involved in this profession and specialty as acupuncturist. I see how important it is. That's just when it's hard for me emotionally going through this, my patient's journey, the family building, but the end of that, how important it is. So that's probably I'm still keep Waking up every morning, like this morning I was in the surgery center because we go out surgery center pretty much every day and day of embryo transfer. But that keep us up and they keep working and they keep going.

I see. So, so during the embryo transfer, you're actually doing acupuncture?

Yes, before and after. So we do twice.

Okay. That's incredible. I've never heard of that.

Can I tell you about that? A little story about what it is?

Definitely.

So there is some study called the PALUS research. So they did acupuncture and especially frozen embryo transfer. There are different, two different types of embryo transfer. You can do fresh embryo transfer or you can do frozen embryo transfer. In the US, pretty much, pretty much most of people are doing frozen embryo transfer. So they did acupuncture before, right before. So that's why we do at the surgery center and also right after embryo transfer. And then it made a success. Success rate goes up like 16.2%.

Wow, that's something different.

Yes, in the IVF, 16.2% of a successful implantation is huge, especially you just do 2 treatment that day. So that made acupuncture so popular, and there's no complication or no side effects. So all this IVF doctor or IVF center is very open-minded and using this modality. And also a lot of our patients is prepping and help their, let's say, egg retrieval or not only embryo transfer, and then they do postpartum. And then also the prenatal care utilizing acupuncture widely at this time worldwide.

That's amazing. But is that common in fertility centers or not quite yet?

Actually pretty common. It is. And then it's more and more because people got educated. All those, our, the couple, they want to be something, what they can do about it other than just going to get the injection and in the IVF process. So they are requesting and they're demanding acupuncture and then they're asking. So they make actually physician to be even more open-minded at this time.

Perfect. Now let's go back a little bit and look at what is acupuncture exactly and how come it works as an adjunct, as a complementary treatment to so many other things, right? I know acupuncture is used for oncology patients. For, you know, for fertility, for aches and pains, for so many things. So, so what is acupuncture exactly?

I love that. We have to look at acupuncture as a part of Eastern medicine. So Eastern medicine itself is like 3,000 years old and then heavily used in, in the East. Still, it's a major, major treatment option for our patients here. And when, but when you come down to the acupuncture, The acupuncture itself is how to move blood. So it's what you have in your body and then we move around and then it's called a diversion technique. So for example, you said, oh, my neck's tight, you know, or I have a TMJ or something. So there's like a tight muscle inhibiting blood flow to the area and it diminish those functions. So we can use the direct point with acupuncture or cupping or other gua sha. So we release those tension and then move blood to go to where you go. Or we use a totally different place. Like if you have a back problem, sometimes we use point in your hand. So this point triggers blood flow to the where having some problems. For example, like a back problems. So how you can move your blood to the targeted area using point at the local, or we call the distal, is a little far from where the problem is. And then body bring the blood and blood carries all the nutrition and the delicious everything and the more oxygen. And then body heals. That is probably easiest way to explain about how and what acupuncture does for your body.

That's very interesting. I've never heard it explained quite that way. I always thought in my mind it was more an energetic, working on the energy channels, but I like the explanation with like moving the blood.

Because though what we said, Shen, which is your spirit, it can be more energetic for spirit. And then the, your spirit and your energy goes along with your blood. So blood is a carrier. And I think you see as after acupuncture treatment, oh my God, I feel more energetic. I feel more relaxed. So you see a lot of emotional and mental changes. Mm-hmm. For sure. But we have to looking at, yeah, body. 'Cause something I'm a little bit different than, not really different, but my unique understanding, I always looking at the physical body. 'Cause the body, it's a suffering. And then along with your spirit or your emotion. So we can neglect this body part. That's why I'm posture trainer.

You're trained as a pastor?

Pastor. Posture, like a posture.

Posture. Posture.

Yes. I wish I was a pastor. I know.

I'm like, that's the spiritual thing I'm thinking about, but posture, tell me about that a little bit and like, how does it all connect?

So that's a personal journey. I had a horrible back problem myself. So I'm an acupuncturist. I can poke myself like distal point, not the back, because I couldn't really poke myself at the back. And I Did it and then it got better, but I'm getting problem over and over. So I never get rid of this problem and I couldn't figure out why. So I did all this research and then I found the posture, especially it's like a more primal posture we called, how our ancestor moved or the little babies, how they moves. And then we are looking at observing and then we got some wisdom of how body is supposed to be move.

Yeah.

And so I did that training. So now I'm actually teacher. I'm pretty much only one teacher in Orange County and LA County. It changed my life. So one thing about the posture, a lot of people coming to my clinic, they said, I don't have any injury. It's a lot of repetitive motion, cumulative trauma. It's all postural problems. We just don't know how to move our body. Accordingly or healthier way, because we have some ideas what is a beautiful body posture, like S-curve and all those. But you have to remember, it's not really healthy posture. So after I trained, now sometimes I do some stupid stuff and then I got my back pain back. I mean, I get a little bit of ache, but as soon as I aware what is a healthy posture, I can go back to my proper way of position myself, I'm out from the pain. So I actually completely out from pain.

Interesting.

And this is just life-changing for me and my family and my patient. So I'm very, very excited when I talk about posture.

Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up because we have dentists and hygienists and other practitioners that are listening to our podcast. And in dentistry, our posture is horrible. As you know, you know, we're like leaning forward. At least when I'm working, I'm like this, twist. Twisted. So, you know, my shoulder. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Because I work, I did a couple lectures for dental hygienists and a dentist this year, and I know how bad it is. And then also I know how strongly they desire to improve their posture, but there is not much support, unfortunately. And then problem is you guys do every day, or like 5 days, let's say.

So what is one thing we can do, like, pretty much anybody listening to improve their posture? So what is one thing that we can bring awareness to?

Especially for back, because the neck takes a little time. I want my back to be as straight as possible. When you have a chance, touch your back with your hands, the behind of your back, you touch your back. If you see some little bit of a groove, like a little bit of, some people have a lot of sway. Or some people's extremely tuck in. They are both really bad posture. So you want your back, especially lumbar area, a little straight. And the next one is make your pelvis, we call the anteversion.

Okay. So like tuck in your pelvis.

Sitting in the office, everybody, so many people, they are tuck in. They tuck in. When they stand, we try to make my stomach strong, so they tended to be tucking up. And then we call the park fold, make their leg tight. And then that's a kind of strong, like, a posture. But you have a pelvis. Your pelvis shouldn't tuck in, and your lumbar on top of has to be straight. If you have those two ways, straight and then a little bit of an anteverted pelvis, you're not going to have back problem.

Oh, that's so interesting.

There's so many juicy stuff. The bending for dentist, because you guys bend all the time.

Yeah.

Not big bend, small bend, like a slightly bending forward. And if you do right, problem solved.

My goodness. We need to have a class with you on that for sure.

I have to, I have to come down to your office.

Yeah, absolutely. You know, we all need it from dental assistants to hygienists to front desk. To dentists, everybody. But okay, let's go back to traditional Chinese medicine and, and more into your specialty, which is fertility. How does traditional Chinese medicine view fertility differently than Western medicine?

We have to go a little number here. Western medicine, since I'm working at IVF Center, all medicine, all Western medicine is all about the diagnosis. So you have a PCOS, what's your AMH? What's your FSH? What's your age? And we try to find out all those diagnoses. It's a kind of mechanical numbers, but Eastern medicine is more capacity. And then how your chi, as you said, chi moves, your blood moves, and then how your organs are functioning. And in Eastern medicine, we still looking at the people's body very optimistic. And okay, even you have age 35, 37, we really see people can change their egg quality with the proper lifestyle and the proper eating and then better movement and lower inflammation. Western medicine is very strict. As soon as you cross this number, and then there is no way you can reverse. So this is a very different approach. I mean, I'm dealing with every day and then a lot of confusion and an argument. But I think we agree age is the most important here, number-wise, causing some problems. But Eastern medicine is not only about age, we're looking at inflammation and stress and then those more possible. And then we Eastern medicine is more hopeful for people's fertility. And that's a very different aspect. And then also there's a huge number of people we call unexplained infertility. 40% of infertility is unexplained infertility. And these people in Western medicine, because there's a, you can't diagnosis. As soon as you cannot diagnosis in the Western medicine, there's no solution for those patients. But when they come to our clinic, we're looking at so many different suboptimal fertility challenges, and then we improve, and then people can get pregnant naturally or through the IVF. So I think combining at this time, and even IVF setting or IUI, it's a very lovely way. And I'm very happy working with even Western medicine. I'm not against Western medicine, by the way. I love to collaborate all those doctors.

Yeah. I mean, it's nice to have labs, but it's also, I agree with you, like the way that traditional medicine, the way you explained it, it made me think about functional medicine because it has this, um, holistic approach, holistic with the W, where we look at, uh, you know, everything, the whole lifestyle factors. And we know things can improve in functional medicine if lifestyle changes.

Yeah, absolutely. Whole person approach.

That's Exactly.

We kind of always a little joke about Eastern medicine is an early stage of functional medicine because we always had that idea. So I'm very happy to see functional medicine is now coming to the even more like a mainstream slowly. That's great.

Definitely. Do you see a lot of women over 35 for fertility?

That's probably our main group of patients I'm seeing here, and we call the advanced maternal age. It can be age over 35 or 37. And that patient usually go through IVF process or IUI. And that's why they are referred by their physician or they see time is ticking. So they are having a little bit of urgency and then more open-minded to combining Eastern medicine that whatever that they're desiring at this time, or they're pursuing with the IVF process. So in some sense, yes.

What's the oldest woman you helped? Get pregnant?

Naturally or through IVF? I mean, there's so many different story though. Huh? So I, yes, yes. I mean, I love to share. We have to looking at these celebrity people get pregnant in age, let's say like a 50-something.

50?

Very likely they are not their own eggs. They're all pretty much donor egg, especially age after like a 48. They are pretty much almost—

they're done.

So I have patients using their own eggs or they have donor eggs. And my oldest patient using their own egg is actually 45. She was donor egg patient. Very interesting story, isn't it? She came as a failed donor egg patient.

Wow.

So she, she has a donor egg and then she had an embryo. But she can't really get pregnant. So she was working up with us and then eventually she got pregnant naturally.

Amazing.

So after her, I go, okay, so now 45, natural conception, 45.

Yeah.

And when you have a good healthy embryo, pretty much to me, pregnant, if you have a uterus, I think it's slightly easier. So I have patients like age 55 and But then we can tell that's probably not their own biological eggs.

Yeah, makes sense. But what are some key things that women can do to improve egg quality and their hormonal balance if they're thinking about getting pregnant?

I think circulation is very important. So blood. Now we come down to the blood again. And 40% of those patients, or even younger folks, having some egg quality issues, there's a lot of inflammation and then silent endometriosis. And also PCOS. So there's a blood sugar challenges and inflammation and circulation, and then also stress. So there are a couple different things they can focus, but I will make sure easily what they can do their own to improve their egg quality is a blood sugar management and stress management. Because the hormone plays a lot here, even female sex hormone along with the cortisol. As well. And the next one is movement. We live in this world, make our, especially pelvic area, very congested and compressed by sitting for a long time. And all this, our lifestyle, is not really opens up and move blood and then nourishes all these organs, especially reproductive organs in the pelvic cavity. So if you walk, this is a very gentle way to opens up the space. That's why posture is very important. Frame of a house, if our body is a house. So that postural approach, because we do every day. If you do every day, because we eat every day, we sleep every day, and we move our body, and then we sit and we walk. So if you are not trying to make it very exotic, okay, oh, I'm gonna take some supplement. Yes, supplement works, but something you do every day, and if you change the pattern it dramatically improve the outcome of your fertility challenges. So it's all free. This is free.

Exactly.

Exactly. So this is simple. Like we all know, okay, stress is not helpful. Yes. But blood sugar and circulation also, we tend to make our body very cold, which inhibiting circulation of blood because it's more constriction. Cold make body to more constricted. So If you wanna improve more circulation, start drinking maybe a little warm food group or warm spice such as ginger or cinnamon. Very good nutritious and also very good for blood sugar management and then pain, especially ginger and cinnamon. Those two combo is a lovely combo to use to improve your— something easily you can do now.

Oh, that's great. We can actually, that's a great tip also for the mouth. You know, oftentimes Sometimes people are getting work done and they don't have enough circulation in their gums in order to heal, especially like smokers, let's say. Ginger and cinnamon. Excellent idea.

Or Gotu Kola.

Or Gotu Kola. Okay.

Gotu Kola is a more cellular level of a circulation.

And does that happen usually with improved circulation, they have to take it like a few weeks before, or is it pretty immediate type of result?

Yeah, acupuncture is pretty fast, but if we are using it herbs or food-wise, they must be a little bit slow, I think. So that's what we, or we call the stacking. We combine not only one, we stack a lot of stuff all together at the same time. When patients are coming to our clinic, they notice, oh my gosh, these people putting so— you, you and acupuncture clinic. So when you get acupuncture, yes, there's acupuncture, but we do a little bit of a jump cable, like electro, just a little bit of a needle. Hook up with the electrode, but also we use a special light therapy to improve more cellular level or micro— mitochondria function. And also we do front and backside treatment. And also we compounding a little herbs and then we give them some food. So you sticking all those little things, then yes, the result, it can be pretty fast. And time is such a critical component in the fertility game. So we always honor and then try to save some time for our patients by stacking all these little things together.

Yeah. Very important. Now, now let's talk about men a little bit because, you know, we know the sperm quality has gone down quite a bit. What can men do in order to improve the chances of getting pregnant?

Believe it or not, I don't know why, men has a lot of anxiety. In our fertility patient. So yes, first they can manage their stress level and then anxiety level. We have so many patients coming post-COVID and with all this mental, like anxiety problems, and then now they're having some fertility challenges. So they can manage their stress level. The next is alcohol. So many people drinking too much alcohol and then it causes a lot of blood sugar problems and then like all the chemicals. So I see if You can stop drinking alcohol for at least like 3 months. People usually call it 74 days to rejuvenate the sperm. And then that'll be ideal. And not too much hot exposure, heat exposure, like the too tight clothes and then all those things. It's just basic stuff we all know already. And then they can take some supplement. The bar, men, it's a hormone. It's a little simpler than female because they don't have a period. They make a pretty fast recovery. And I think a supplement is a— I personally think a supplement for men, I strongly recommend for like 3 months, and then they can have a CoQ10 or zinc or even maca. And even lowering inflammation, the omega-3 and all those fish oil is greatly helpful for those men's sperm health.

Now, you mentioned anxiety. Does acupuncture help with anxiety? Yes.

We work with a lot of mental health people. The— because I'm in Orange County, People in Orange County, they're sleepless. They don't sleep. To me, so much insomnia and a lot of anxiety and so much stress. I don't, I don't know, maybe LA County too, I guess. So anxiety.

Definitely, definitely a lot of anxiety, but, but I'm thinking, you know, like it would be so great in a dental office, cuz we deal with a lot of anxious patients to actually have an acupuncturist on the team, right? To help patients with especially all the anxiety. Anxiety they're experiencing?

I mean, even you can do acupuncture, but anxiety treatment is actually very effective with the ear. I don't know if you can see the behind here, the ear.

Yeah.

I have a lot of ear chart. So there is an ear point. There's a great, great ear point for anxiety. So maybe when they come, okay, I get your ear crystal. You can put some crystal and then dig.

And there's also those little microneedles sometimes that, you know, I actually had to place in an area of pain on my toe. Do those work for the ear as well?

Oh, absolutely. Yeah. There's a PressTec point. That one, ear seed is actually powerful. I think ear is, because the point is just so tiny and the needle is also tiny. So it's very hard to get the right point with the needling. But seed is a big, bigger than needle. So you will cover that area more easily and people can wear that for a long time. That's the one beauty. It is not just like 30 minutes or hour, and then they can keep that for a couple of days and then they can constantly remind them. That's another important part because they're now aware, I have this, I have this tool and I can improve. And then that really works for many of my anxiety patients. For male or even children because we have a lot of children coming, pediatric conditions.

For anxiety. That's great. Is that something that people can apply to their own ear at home or something that, you know, it requires a professional to apply it?

No, that's why my video got so popular on Instagram because I share them how you can do yourself.

Fantastic.

There's a lot of great— I think that's it. And then And people are constantly asking me, how come you have so many followers? And I made something so easy and that they can do themselves. That's kind of formula. And then they can do over and over. Then they will change and they will see the result.

Yeah.

It's just formula. So anxiety for whoever and then ear, as I said, just make this a little bit big rice patch or I made an ear seed and then apply close by. You cannot figure out, get one more. You double those, triple those, then you will cover them all.

That sounds great.

Yeah.

Now you have, I think, what is it, over a million followers?

Yes, I did last November, 1 million.

Congratulations. I mean, your videos are so practical. And actually, if somebody's interested in finding this anxiety point on the ear, go to your Instagram and then they'll find out exactly how to apply this.

Or this point here. The third eye, yin tang point. And then the two fingers up, these two points. If you have a pet, if you have a doggy or cat, you can immediately test. You just do this.

Do this to the cat? Oh my God, they love it.

Because this is a parasympathetic. This is a point activate parasympathetic nerve. So if you do this, And then just suddenly they'll get melted.

Uh-huh. Exactly. They can't fake it usually, animals. Exactly. Now, what are some early signs of hormonal imbalances that women overlook? But, but you actually obviously can see them when they come to you.

When people having some fatigue, because of the body, it gets just slowed down emotionally and then physically. So I looking at the fatigue. Is also a big problem. And also the sleep pattern. And people waking up 2 AM, 3 AM, this is a huge sign of something changing. And then maybe it can be estrogen drop, but also when people going through depression, anxiety, they tended to have a waking up very early. And then that, and also immune dysfunction, and then weight challenges. And then the joint pain is also another huge to me, people with the early signs of hormone And when you say hormone, you are talking about female sex hormone, correct?

Exactly. Because, you know, females usually have more symptoms than males when it comes to their hormonal changes.

And anxiety and emotional, and also a lot of heart-related problems. I have so many people coming with skin problems, and that's all about estrogen dropping and then the progesterone challenges that they're showing as a skin problem. Problems and also balance problems. It's very confusing for so many people. Like suddenly you are having this palpitation or like a vertigo and then they can really relate with the hormonal problems. But that's a very commonly overlooked condition. So we are trying to pay attention.

Oh, now I, I do wanna bring in the oral health into all this, you know, because, you know, we're talking about women's health and, you know, fertility. And just to add here, since we are at the Holistic Dentistry Show, it is so, so important in this whole mix of things. Yes, circulation, and circulation is also important for gum health and making sure you have no mercury fillings. I mean, you mentioned the 40% of people that are no reason why they're getting—

Unexplained, yes.

Probably some of those, I'm thinking, might be some undiagnosed oral health issues. It could be, you know, infected root canals, cavitations, mercury fillings. So, so important since we're talking about fertility, make sure you detoxify the mouth so it doesn't get transferred, you know, to the unborn baby. 'Cause we know mercury gets there. Now.

That's, this is huge.

Yeah. So speaking of that, acupuncture must be a good way to help people with detoxification.

Because we do, we help organ specific.

Mm-hmm.

So what, which organ detox in your body?

Yeah.

Liver. Liver. Liver, kidneys, large intestine, and also lungs too. Lung does a lot of detox too through skin.

Yeah.

So we specifically emphasize and then each organ's function at this time. And then if we see some people that are lingering estrogen recycling, which is a huge problem for my patients with the fibroid and endometriosis, and then we try to improve that some sluggish organ function, which probably a lot of times the liver function. And then people having the GI-related problems and then they cannot get rid of, then we have a beautiful acupuncture. But don't forget, half of Eastern medicine is herbology. And that's why we have a pharmacy, we compounding just right there for patients. And it's such a powerful tool.

Yes.

So when I start, you ask about what is acupuncture. Acupuncture is something you redistribute inside of your body, what you have. But sometimes we don't have enough. Then we employ this herbs, same as like we having good nutrition or supplement or medication. So herbal medicine is coming out from outside of your body and then we add on, sometimes take it out. So herbology is extremely valuable asset for people with a health problem. If they're IVF, we try not to use too much because they're already going through the huge medication cycle. But other than that, we are fully support patients through herbal medicine. And that is definitely total game changer for so many people.

Yeah. I love herbal medicine. Like, I am a big fan, not only because I've experienced it for myself, but also I use it in our office for oral health. Health. What is one of your favorite herbal medicines?

Depends on what problem though. I love ginger.

As a tea, eating it raw, what's your—

I love tea. I love tea. I love boil and then I make my own some syrup and the ginger syrup or I make a green plum syrup and I make everything syrup with the honey. And also I love so many, I mean, in the East, here in the Western medicine, this is not Chinese herbs, but I love nettle because nettle is everywhere. And I love purslane. Purslane is an amazing, amazing herb for skin problem, but it's a great resource for omega-3. So we have everything here if we know. So there, I just, I can't stop talking about the herbs and then there's a weed.

Yeah, I know. Actually, the sad part is nettles and purslane are considered weeds by a lot of people. But, you know, the truth is that they're amazingly tenacious herbs. Like they grow wild. Like the other, this year actually, there was purslane growing in my garden. I'm like, where did you come from? Sprout in there. I'm like, okay.

But some people don't like it because they're weird.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you could eat them. First you need to eat it raw for sure.

Yeah. I love just all this nature, beautiful herbs and oh my gosh, they're so amazing.

And nettles. I don't know exactly where we have nettles in California.

Nettle is in here, California here. You can go see it right now. It grows in my garden.

Really, I want to get some from you for sure, because I've been wanting to plant nettles. Growing up in Romania, we always went for nettles, and when my mom used to dry them and like she, or she cooks them, right? She, we eat them like spinach because they're so full of minerals.

Love it. Love it. And very good for allergies.

How do you use nettles?

How I use it? We use it as a tea. And then also if I have enough, yes, we can just sauté and then you can make it as like a substitute to spinach. Very nice. That's how you use it. But nettle is now people use a lot leaves, but nettle seed is actually more precious one. Nettle seed is very good for adrenal gland function. And all those seeds are excellent further food and nettle itself is a very fertility-driven food group along with the fennel.

Hmm. Interesting. So nettle seeds, where do you find those?

Now you can't really, I mean, if you have a nettle, because they're like almost like a sesame, sesame seed, they're coming up. You can, that's why I have, it just go out everywhere. But yes, you can't really find nettle seed, but I think there's maybe, I'm not trying to buy those because I have some, but that's, and then you can make a nettle salt. It's like a sesame in the Asian cuisine. They make sesame seed and salt. They mix together and they sprinkle. And that's how they make all those Korean side dishes, but you can do with the nettle, nettle seed with the salt. And so you can make your salad with it.

Yeah, these are definitely not common things that people eat here, purslane and nettles. So I'm glad we got a chance to talk about them.

Farmers market.

Yeah, that's true. Sometimes you just pick your weed and selling at the farmers market. Exactly. This is such interesting information. So, so good chatting with you today. And if there's one final thing I want to mention, if you could give women one daily habit to support better hormone balance and reproductive health, what would that be?

Stop drinking cold water. Stop drinking ice water.

Okay.

And keep your feet warm because the bottom of your, your feet, there's a meridian, like a kidney meridian starts from there. And then they are going to your uterus and ovaries. And then kidney in Eastern medicine is a reproductive organs technically. So keep your feet warm. And also So movement, I mean, we can do yoga. Yoga is a movement, isn't it? Like a Pilates, something move your body in a very happy and gentle way. Fertility challenge for our patients or going through menopause, perimenopause is not fun. But when you move your body and then give some warmth it needs, and then that will respond and then they will start showing the possibility of what this amazing body can do. I think menopause, perimenopause is not an end of, oh my God, no more. Okay, I'm done. No more, only wrinkle. No, no, no, absolutely not. So simple, stop drinking too cold and then keep your body a little warm. And then I'm giving a lot of advice, get less sugar.

Yes.

But yeah, just easy, easiest one is keep your body warm. And then including your GI tract with warm food.

Warm food. Okay. Excellent.

It's easy.

Well, to learn more, you can visit leeacupuncture.com, everyone. And you can also follow Dr. Nam Lee on Instagram @lee_acupuncture to learn more about practical tools, how you can improve your fertility and your overall health and decrease your anxiety. Anxiety. Thank you so much for being here. I've learned a lot.

So much fun.

Yes, definitely. And, um, I'm looking forward to seeing you soon.

Yes, for next month.

Everyone, thank you so much for listening. Until next time, stay healthy and keep smiling.

Thank you so much.

Hey, awesome. Thank you so much for joining me this week. Please make sure you check out the show notes for any links mentioned in the show. If you like today's show, please invite your friends to listen as well. That would mean a lot to me. Do you have a question you'd like me to answer? Message me on Instagram @DrSandaMoldovan. This is Dr. Sanda Moldovan, and remember, your mouth is the gateway to your health, so take care of it in the most natural and best way possible.