I met Olivia Shaw through my then boyfriend, now husband, D. I needed treatment as I have PCOS and wanted to sort out my very irregular periods, with a view to eventually getting pregnant.
I was really unsure what to expect, and my husband, who is a conventional doctor, was initially quite skeptical about the whole thing.
After my initial session and introduction to acupuncture (I had never had a session before), I felt deeply relaxed and felt that I was benefiting in some way that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. I had initially bonded with Olivia as a friend, but found that it was easy to slip into a more professional practitioner/patient relationship with her when we were having our sessions. She has a very gentle way about her, always sympathetic and compassionate.
I decided to go ahead with a fairly intensive three-month programme involving an acupuncture session initially once a week and Chinese herbs (these I had to boil up myself and drink the resulting concoction daily). I was also to take my temperature every morning on waking and then mark it on a graph (Basal Temperature Chart) to see what it was doing. My temperature became a very good gauge of how my body was responding to the treatment.
When I started the treatment in early Feb 2007 I hadn’t had a period since the previous December and my temperature was see-sawing all over the place. By the end of March, I’d had my first period, and from the way my temperature readings were beginning to regulate, it was clear that my body was responding positively to the treatment. Interesting to note, my initially skeptical soon-to-be-husband was quickly being won over! I also felt a lot better in myself and looked forward to the feelings of relaxation that the sessions would leave me with. The needles were never painful – Olivia is very gentle and tells you exactly what she is doing so it’s not scary in any way.
D and I got married at the end of June 2007, and we immediately began to try for a family. Because of my history of PCOS and irregular periods, we assumed that we would be in for a long wait, but to our surprise and delight, I fell pregnant a month after the wedding. Our baby was born the following April – a beautiful baby girl!