By AFEA member Beverley Reeves
My five-element acupuncture journey began 15 years ago when my husband and I were struggling to conceive. We had spent 4 emotionally (and financially) exhausting years undergoing gruelling IVF treatment without success and western medicine, having been unable to ascertain why I couldn’t conceive, had unhelpfully labelled my condition as ‘unexplained infertility’. I had fallen pregnant naturally between the 2nd and 3rd round of IVF treatment but had suffered a miscarriage at 8 weeks. It was a devastating blow.
When our final attempt at IVF also ended in failure, my husband and I gave ourselves a 6 month window to try other, less conventional approaches before we would have no alternative but to conclude that children were not destined to be in our future.
At that time, I remembered having read a magazine article entitled ‘Acupuncture made me pregnant’ which extolled the virtues of an acupuncture master by the name of Gerad Kite. I could not imagine how acupuncture could possibly help a person become pregnant but, to be honest, there was nothing left in the arsenal to try and at that stage, we were desperate.
It was with considerable scepticism therefore that I arrived for my appointment the following week, convinced that I was wasting my time and yet more of our money on this hopeless quest. However, Gerad was able to identify from my wrist pulses that there was an energy block within my system which was compromising the temperature of my uterus and therefore rendering any pregnancy unviable. With a few carefully chosen and painless needles (which were inserted and then immediately removed), he cleared the block and announced that I had every reason to feel optimistic that my next cycle would be a productive one! I left his practice feeling calm, stress-free and hopeful, feelings that had become alien to me amidst our IVF journey. Within just 5 weeks and having had just one treatment, I had indeed achieved a positive pregnancy test result! 9 months later, our beautiful daughter entered the world and transformed our lives.
I wrote to the magazine to thank them for their article which had ultimately led me to Gerad’s door and they asked if I would be prepared to appear in a photo shoot and interview for a follow up piece they were conducting on five-element acupuncture. They told me that, as a direct result of their article, 13 couples had now been delivered of healthy babies. When I met those couples at the photo shoot, my admiration for this system of medicine grew further still. There were a few whose problem, like mine, had been unexplained infertility. But there were others whose obstacles seemed completely insurmountable and yet, following treatment with five-element acupuncture, they had been able to have a baby. I remember talking to one man whose sperm count had been rendered at near zero following a motorcycle accident and yet, within a few months of starting five-element acupuncture treatment, it had increased to over 80%! I met their new son that day. For another couple, the wife’s body saw the husband’s sperm as the enemy and killed it off. Again, following a few months of five-element acupuncture treatment, she had conceived and had enjoyed a problem-free pregnancy and delivery. For me, our story had been an extraordinary one but meeting those other couples had really opened my eyes to the beauty that this system of medicine could offer, even when everything else had failed. I knew then that I too wanted to be able to replicate the kind of magic Gerad had performed on me for others – and I wanted him to be my teacher!
A few years later, Gerad launched an apprenticeship programme in five-element acupuncture providing a degree level qualification to successful candidates upon completion. It was the life-changing opportunity that I had been waiting for and I didn’t hesitate to enrol. It has been a true privilege to have been trained by master acupuncturist Gerad Kite himself. I am committed to life-long learning and development and regularly attend his post-graduate training seminars.
It is such a joy to witness the magic that these tiny needles can produce and to see my patients transforming during my treatments. I have been lucky enough to help my patients with issues such as migraine, anxiety, bulimia, weight loss, stress, sciatica, back pain, grief, lack of motivation and general malaise. Just last week, one of my patients, who had come to me for infertility help, contacted me, full of delight, to announce that she had fallen pregnant following her treatments. Such wonderful news was truly a beam of sunshine for us both in what has been a pretty dark and miserable time for us all.
Very often, patients come to me for treatment of one symptom and find that others they had learned to live with over many years resolve alongside their main complaint. Five-element acupuncture restores balance and harmony within a patient’s physical body, mind and spirit without them having to be aware of which area is struggling. This is a system of medicine like no other and I look forward to helping you return to your best self using the magic of five-element acupuncture.
