Transcript as follows:
Happy New Year! Welcome Dr. Kim!! Dr. Kim Abog, ND is here today with Melissa from Tripod Fertility discussing how she treats infertility patients, especially PCOS patients.
Tripod Fertility: Today we have, Dr Kim. She is a naturopath in the Toronto area. Hi Dr Kim!
Dr. Kim: Hey Melissa, thanks for having me here!
Tripod Fertility: Oh you’re very welcome. Thanks for taking the time out of your day to come on and discuss your area of expertise so can you tell our viewers a little bit about your field and what you do.
Dr Kim: Sure! So as you mentioned, I am an integrative reproductive health expert and naturopathic doctor by profession. I practice naturopathic medicine. That’s what it means and I can let you know a little bit about what naturopathic medicine is. It [Naturopathic medicine] is a system of primary health care where we use a combination of modern medical and scientific knowledge and natural therapies in the prevention and treatment of illness because we believe that the body, when encouraged, it can heal quite well with these supportive therapies.
Tripod Fertility: Okay great thank you for that! So how can you help patients that are experiencing infertility?
Dr. Kim: Sure. I help people facing fertility challenges or just general overwhelm with, you know, their reproductive health issues by providing informational and practical support on how they can overcome their challenges. My expertise enables me to connect them with a variety of tools based on their individual needs. The way I kind of describe it is that we work together to first identify what obstacles are affecting their health. Then we can consider incorporating some tools that are evidence-based to improve their markers of health. We provide education and counselling so they have a clear understanding of how we can meet their goals.Â
And when I say we come up with a management plan, that always takes into account someone’s unique needs – for example, physiological, structural, psychological, social, and other factors that can really affect someone’s experience of their health. Depending on the person you’re working with, their comfort and inclination, I also suggest incorporating things that are integrative in nature. For example, things like botanical or plant medicine. I am a big fan of providing support for modifying diet and lifestyle that’s realistic of course. Acupuncture is a big one among my fertility patients as well. I am also a big fan of nutritional supplementation and body work and so you know those are just some of the things that I include in my treatment plan. Ultimately it’s a well-rounded type of support wherein we address those needs and we you know we check in and we can scale up or scale down depending on how those things fit their needs that makes sense.
Tripod Fertility: Yeah no that’s really great. You provide a lot of different services which would be quite helpful. Can you take me through your process if you were to treat someone that had PCOS and how would you go about assisting them?
Dr. Kim: Yeah, so PCOS as many of you may be familiar with. We have to remember that PCOS is a very complex hormonal disorder and so this means that we have to identify what factors that someone may be facing when it comes to their own unique experience of PCOS. What I do is I take a deep dive at someone’s fertility and reproductive health history, then review all available lab work. We assess their overall health history as well and what that does is it allows us to gather enough information in this portion of our work together to piece together clues on what may be the dominant hormonal or other health issue that could be stalling someone’s success with fertility in pregnancy for PCOS.
What I commonly narrow down is whether or not someone’s case may be driven primarily by things like insulin resistance or high testosterone or androgen levels. Or you know, if it could be like an under-managed thyroid issue, an under-managed stress issue, inflammation, and so on and so forth. So once we are able to determine more clearly what that main driving issue is then we can formulate a management plan that honors those needs. We restore fertility in the process and promote a healthy pregnancy.
Just a little side note with PCOS: sometimes there is that implication that someone’s experience of pregnancy may also be impacted based on their pre-pregnancy history. As I previously mentioned, the plan can also involve several integrative therapies – again it could be a combination of diet and lifestyle; supportive modifications on nutritional supplementation; comprehensive lab work, in which I often include fasting insulin; acupuncture; body work; and so on and so forth.
Tripod Fertility: Yeah great! No, I really appreciate that overview. That was really helpful I know a lot of people are going through PCOS, so you’re kind of assistance and kind of plan that you could help them would be really good for them.
Dr. Kim: Definitely.
Tripod Fertility: So what resources would you recommend for those going through infertility
Dr. Kim: That’s a really good question andI don’t think there’s a right or wrong answer because ultimately resources will look different for everyone.
So if you’re looking for informational support there’s lots of fertility and reproductive health and medical authority societies that offer short lists of information that you are looking for in particular. I often refer to the Fertility and Sterility Resource page for more scientific gists of things.
Maybe an easier way to digest those things is going through fertility sources like fertilitymatters.ca and Resolve Foundation. But if you’re looking for more digestible pieces of information that’s communicated in a more friendly manner or less technical way, I actually really like The Egg Whisperer Show virtual podcast and their YouTube channel. I like Ashley Levinson who is also PCOS Gurl and PCOS Gurl’s Guide to Life.
Depending on how you feel about things like forums, sometimes social media forums can be an invaluable resource for those looking for Community Support. I also want to promote my own Resource page. I’m actually in the process of revising my own little page of fertility resources, currently under construction, but I’ve often referred to the fertility clinic websites like Tripod Fertility in this regard. So it could be really depending on what you’re looking for to be quite honest.
Tripod Fertility: Yeah it’s true.
Dr. Kim: It’s very specific in the sense of what each patient wants to gain as well. But those are some great examples I know.Â
Tripod Fertility: Patients are always asking for different types of resources so it’s good to have those examples that you suggested. Thank you. So how would we get in touch with you?
Dr. Kim: Sure so I am reachable via my website which is https://kimabog.com/ and email as well. There’s many ways to send a message, and to that I respond directly. I’m also quite active on my social media pages, particularly on Instagram and Facebook, and slowly in YouTube as well and then maybe in the next few months through Tripod Fertility.
Tripod Fertility: Right definitely. Okay great! Well thank you so much for your time we really appreciate it. I know you’re quite busy with different patients but thanks for coming on, and I’m sure we’ll be in touch soon.
Dr. Kim: Thanks Melissa it was great to be here and just talk to you!