Allison is a Traditional Chinese Medicine Practitioner and Integrative Health Practitioner based out of Vancouver British Columbia. She is a fellow of the American Acupuncture and TCM Board of Reproductive Medicine (ABORM) and a member of the Obstetrical Acupuncture Association (OBAA). With additional training in fertility and reproductive health as well as her personal experience with stage 3 endometriosis, Allison is particularly passionate about treating endometriosis and chronic pelvic pain. Website: https://www.seaofqihealing.com/ Instagram: @sea_of_qi_healing Tik Tok: https://www.tiktok.com/@sea_of_qi_healing For more information about Michelle, visit www.michelleoravitz.com The Wholesome FertilityFacebook group is where you can find free resources and support: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2149554308396504/ Instagram: @thewholesomelotusfertility Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thewholesomelotus/ Transcript: Michelle:[00:00:00]Welcome to the podcast, Alison. Allison:Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here. Michelle: Well, I'm so excited to have you on and I thoroughly enjoy your Instagram, by the way. Allison: Oh, thank you. Michelle: you guys got to check out her Instagram. I have it in the episode notes. You have so much great information. Allison: Oh, thank Michelle: You're, you're really knowledgeable about your topic. Allison: Yeah, I, love doing any kind of, I love the social media part. I love educating. I love trying to have like a fun humorous spin on it too. So I have fun with my social media. Michelle: Awesome. So for the listeners , I would love it. If you can give us a bit about your background and how your own personal journey really got you to the work that you're doing. Allison: Sure. So I'm an acupuncturist and integrative health practitioner based out of Vancouver, B. C. And I have, special interest in kind of fertility, reproductive health, hormone health, menstrual cycle stuff. I was kind of thrown into that field of work upon graduating school. And[00:01:00]that's kind of when I fell in love with it, when I started learning more about the menstrual cycle and hormones and fertility. Allison: And I realized how much there is to know and how, how many, People who menstruate don't know about their hormones and fertility and so I thought it was such an important aspect of health to to educate more on and it wasn't until a few years into my practice that I was actually diagnosed with my own kind of hormone issues as well. Allison: So that's when I was diagnosed with gynecological condition and Andever since then, I've just been obsessed with learning everything I can about endometriosis and hormones and trying to help people that are kind of in the same shoes that I am. Michelle:  So,so tell us, well, how, how did you actually get into it? Did you, did you work for somebody who specialized in fertility? Michelle: When you got out of school, Allison: Yeah, so the clinic that I wanted to work at that I was kind of interning atin transitioning[00:04:00]into that was their kind of their their bread and butter. So they did a lot of fertility and women's health. And so upon graduating and starting to work there, it was just kind of part of my education of like all my program. Allison: You know, extended learning and mentorships and stuff were under people that specialized in fertility, so I had this, like, really great knowledge base and, you know, experience right off the bat, which was really crucial for specializing in this, and it was, yeah, it really, really helped a lot. Michelle: that's awesome And so I know that we hear a lot of common myths I mean one of the things I think that was eye opening for me is like Menstrual cycle like pms and all of the things that we have are actually not normal Even though they're common you don't realize this until you learn what you learn And that's when you're like, oh my god, this is actually not normal and it's It's an imbalance and we can work