Dr. Lisa Grant, OMD

I cried into a napkin for two hours in a very nice restaurant.

It was after my second miscarriage. My dad had booked dinner somewhere lovely to cheer me up. White tablecloths, real china, waiters in tuxedos, the kind of quiet where everyone can hear you. I sobbed through the entire meal while I told him how frightened I was, how angry I was at my own body, how betrayed I felt by it.

What if I could never have children? What then?

Nobody could tell me why it kept happening. Testing was not what it is now, and my doctors had nothing to offer me. No cause, no plan, nothing to try. Wait and see what happens next time.

I went on to have two sons. I also had a third miscarriage along the way. And I have never once forgotten what that helplessness felt like.

That is the reason I do this work.

What I did not know then

I wish I had known, during those years, what I know now about what acupuncture and Chinese herbs can do for fertility.

I found out by accident. During my fifth pregnancy I had morning sickness so severe I could not look at food, smell food, or think about food without heading for the bathroom. The anti-nausea drugs did not work. Then I read an article about acupuncture helping chemotherapy patients with nausea and booked an appointment the next day. Nine treatments later the nausea was under control and I carried that pregnancy to term.

A few years after that, acupuncture resolved a digestive problem so severe I was nearly blacking out from pain when I ate. Three weeks in, the pain was gone. Three months in, I was eating normally.

Somewhere in the middle of that treatment I realised the thing I actually wanted to do with my life was not law school. I enrolled in acupuncture school instead.

Why I work the way I do

You are not a set of ovaries. Your uterus and your follicles are not walking around independently of the rest of you.

Fertility sits at the top of your health, not off to one side of it. Your thyroid has a say. Your gut has a say. Your sleep, your stress, your training schedule, and what you ate this week all have a say. Which is why I will not treat you without looking at all of it.

You spend one hour a week with me. The other 167 are where fertility is actually won or lost. My job is to make sure you know exactly what to do with them.

That is also why your first appointment is two hours: one for a full health history, your bloodwork, and a plan you can actually follow, and one for treatment.

Acupuncture opens the door. You walk through it.

Credentials

• Fellow, American Board of Oriental and Reproductive Medicine (FABORM). Two years of post-graduate work in fertility.
• Nationally board certified by NCCAOM in Oriental Medicine, including acupuncture and Chinese herbs.
• Licensed Oriental Medicine Doctor (OMD) in the state of Nevada.
• Appointed by the Governor of Nevada to the State Board of Oriental Medicine, where I served as Secretary/Treasurer. I retired from this position 3 years ago after 6 years.
• Master's in Acupuncture from Tai Sophia Institute, Maryland, with post-graduate certification in Chinese herbs.
• 15+ years treating fertility and women's health, plus specialty training in pain, stress, anxiety and depression, immune conditions, and needle-free technique.

I keep training in fertility specifically, because I know what it is to want a child and be told there is nothing you can do. There is a great deal you can do.

Away from the clinic

Two children, two cats, and twelve years in Japan, which is why I speak Japanese. I have also lived in California, Texas, Florida, Iowa, Ohio, Maryland, Okinawa, Germany, and England.

After forty years of moving, Las Vegas is where I stopped. I am here because this work needs me here, and the Spring Mountains are the most beautiful thing I have ever lived next to.

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