New findings on alternative therapies and IVF

Being a scientist has some advantages when you deal with IF. First of all I can access most scientific journals with the latest reports, stats and outcomes of new protocols. Then of course the is the "need to know" everything in details. I don't know if I had mentioned in the past that I met another IFer attending my same clinic when I was doing my intralipid and we got talking about our protocols. Well, she new nothing about hers, didn't know what type of protocol she was doing either (mind you she had a failed cycle on her cv, so you'd think she'll be motivated enough to understand WTF happened and could she do anything different) and she was describing to me her meds by the colour of the packaging so tat I could guess...ah well...I'm sure it's not just me that NEEDS to know as much as possible about this journey, but I know that my background gives me some sort of compulsion to learn the scientific inside outs of the process. At our last ET we even had a session with our embryologist!

So, I get by emails regular updates on newly published articles which can be related or not to what I'm actually researching to earn my salary, and mostly they are not. Last friday I got one of those updates and I quickly scan through the headlines and one definitely caught my attention. It titled "In Vitro Fertilization Less Successful With Alternative Fertility Treatments". Now, you can check the link, this is just a "lay" summary of what the real article talks about. So I went to the source and got the origianal paper to get the full picture with my own eyes. This is a 2009 paper, so it's quite fresh on the shelf. I don't think you'd have access to it so if you are interested in the full paper email me and I'll send it to you as pdf. So it seems true, 30% LOWER ongoing pregnancy/live birth rate for people that use alternative therapies (specifically the top three are reflexology, herbal supplements and acupuncture). I actually was shocked. I have gone to acupuncture myself spending a good few bobs on it for the past year and I may actually have lowered my chances?? Alright, I'm a special case, two fresh cycles ended up in a pregnancy which was just in the wrong place. Two FET cycles didn't really work (ok, I had a chemical pregnancy the second time) but I believe the reason is that my body didn't respond well to the medication. So overall I got SOMEWHAT pregnant evey fresh cycle, and overall 75% of the time I had a transfer. I did acupuncture for my first 3 attempts and switched to a milder reiki/acu this last time. Also the number of sessions I had in the first 3 attempts was much higher as I went also during the 2ww. What will I do at my next cycle? Mmh probably not much! A part from the onoing pregnancy rate the paper reports several other data from the two groups of women such as the number of eggs retrieved embryos produced and embryos transferred (correlated to the amount ofdrugs taken); they are statistically the same. There doesn't appear to be a single area where alternative therapies helped. The number of IVF/ICSI cycles is even higher in the group that went for alternative therapies!
I know we are doing everything we can to get a cycle to work, but what if we are doing the wrong thing? The scientist in me, alhough always very open to alternative therapies, may be reverting to pure science...