Arvigo Abdominal Therapy for Period Pain and Fertility (Episode 424)

Full Transcript: Episode 424

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: Welcome to the Fertility Friday Podcast, your source for information about the fertility awareness method and all things fertility. I’m your host, Lisa Hendrickson-Jack. I’m the author of The Fifth Vital Sign and the Fertility Awareness Mastery Charting Journal. I’m a certified fertility awareness educator and holistic reproductive health practitioner with nearly 20 years of experience teaching women to connect to their fifth vital sign through menstrual cycle charting, balancing hormonal health, and optimizing the menstrual cycle without hormones. I’m outspoken about hormonal birth control and its impact on fertility and overall health because you have the right to know how your body works and how artificial hormones disrupt that natural process. I teach women’s health professionals how to utilize the menstrual cycle as a vital sign in their practices. And I host live coaching programs to help you achieve optimal fertility and health because it’s important to have healthy menstrual cycles regardless of whether or not you want to have babies. I’m also a wife and mother of two beautiful boys. I know, I’m a busy girl, but I managed to fit it all in. This podcast is designed to empower you to take full control of your cycles, your fertility and your overall health. And I’m so excited that you’re here with me today.

I thought it would be nice to conclude the period pain series by sharing an episode with Dr. Rosita Arvigo, founder of Arvigo Abdominal Therapy. Dr. Arvigo is joined by Donna Zubrod and they share the results of the study that they conducted on the efficacy of Arvigo Abdominal Therapy and how it impacted cycle parameters, even cervical mucus production, which is one of the things I find really interesting. There’s a really good discussion on the importance of having good blood flow and the role of abdominal therapy modalities in supporting proper uterine alignment, improving blood flow to the ovaries, which then has and can have a direct result on hormone production, and also the importance of abdominal therapy modalities as a possibility for women who experience pelvic pain, endometriosis, and a variety of symptoms related to their period. And so this episode is a really great introduction if you are not familiar with Arvigo therapy. And one of the main differences between Merciér therapy and Arvigo is the incorporation of vaginal steaming. Dr. Arvigo refers to it as uterine lavage. And of course, it’s a controversial topic because there are plenty of outspoken doctors and different practitioners who are kind of adamantly against it. But on this podcast, I’ve had a number of episodes related to vaginal steaming. I’ve interviewed a number of practitioners and the application of it as a way, a gentle, a very gentle way to improve the period itself and a variety of specific period symptoms is one that shouldn’t be overlooked. So if this is the first time that you’re hearing about it, I think that you’ll appreciate today’s episode. So without further ado, let’s go ahead and jump into today’s episode with Dr. Rosita Arvigo and Donna Zubrod.

And I’m really excited to have them both on the show. I interviewed both guests in previous episodes so I will make sure to link those episodes in the show notes page. Dr. Rosita Arvigo is a doctor of naprapathy, an ethnobotanist, spiritual healer. She’s the author of eight books on traditional healing of Central America and she’s the founder of the Arvigo Techniques of Maya Abdominal Therapy and the Arvigo Institute. Donna Zubrod is a nationally certified North Carolina Licensed Massage and Bodywork Therapist. She is a DONA certified birth doula and a certified practitioner and teacher of the Arvigo Techniques of Maya Abdominal Therapy and her practice Seven Generations Massage and Birth offers support towards positive reproductive and digestive health experiences and outcomes from menarche through childbearing years to menopause and beyond. And in today’s episode, one of the topics that we’ll be talking about is your recent observational study, which I think it’s really fascinating, a study where you actually measured some of the effects of Arvigo therapy on the menstrual cycle parameters. So I know our listeners will be really excited to hear about that. So maybe we can start there, and then you can tell us just a little bit about what prompted you to do it, what is an observational study and just kind of get our feet wet in our understanding about what prompted you to do this?

Donna Zubrod: So as part of becoming an advanced teacher with the Arvigo Institute, we’re required to do a clinical observational study on a particular topic. And for some time now, whenever a client approaches you about your work, they say, you know, “What’s the evidence? What’s the research say?” And it’s very difficult when you’re dealing with natural healing modalities, because there’s so many variables that are involved in the healing process and the body, and to be able to isolate them and to study certain parameters and to remove all bias and to introduce a lot of randomization, to adhere to that gold standard research is very difficult. But anyway, I tried to see if I could do a like a pilot study to see if it warranted further investigation. So that’s what I did. And often the topic is, can abdominal pelvic massage improve your time to conception? Can it help you get pregnant? And you know, I always learned from Rosita that no, we don’t discuss it that way. And the second prize is conception. So that’s where always the focus is. So then I started to look at this even further and to say, well, then I want to change the story, change the game. This is not going to be, does abdominal therapy help you get pregnant faster? It’s like, how does it improve your health? And let’s see if I can focus on some parameters that are known to be important for conception. So for example, good quality and ample amounts of cervical mucus as an example, right? And that’s what I really focused on. What are some of the specifics that you’d like to hear about the study, Lisa?

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: Well before we dive into that, I mean, a lot of my listeners are familiar with abdominal therapy modalities, because I’ve done several episodes on Arvigo specifically, as well as other abdominal therapy modalities. I mean, again, the listeners can always go back and listen to the previous episodes. But just think about those listeners who maybe this is the first time they’ve heard of Arvigo. Also, there are a lot of women who are skeptical. The more that I talk about Arvigo therapy and pelvic abdominal therapy and also vaginal steaming, the more people come out the woodwork. You know, what is this? Where’s the evidence? Is it dangerous? All of those types of things. So I’m not sure if Dr. Arvigo if you’d like to talk, just tell us a little bit about what the therapy you know is and just kind of — I know it’s hard to be brief about something like that — but just give us some information for the listeners for whom this is new information.

Dr. Rosita Arvigo: Well, my abdominal therapy addresses the entire abdomen — all of the arteries, the veins, the lymph flow, the nerve innervation, and chi as well. So we start in the upper abdomen just under the rib cage with our massage to ensure that the diaphragm muscle, which is the seat of all anxiety and tension in every human being, because we’re all under some element of stress, the diaphragm muscle often tightens around the descending thoracic artery that lets blood supply flow downward. So that’s the first place we begin — is to loosen that diaphragm muscle to ensure that good supply of red blood, which carries nutrients, oxygen, hormones — make sure first of all that’s getting to the abdominal digestive organs. And then we move further, coming down from the pubic bone upwards, to see if the uterus has shifted out of its primary position. Our work is all external. We have very good success with the uterus if it has moved forward, downward, side to side. Those uteri that are posterior or leaning backwards, we have very special techniques for those. So that’s our basic approach — number one, to ensure that the entire abdominal region — which is really, other than the brain and the heart and the lungs, that’s everything in the body, the rest is muscles and bones — so we want to ensure that all the digestive organs have arterial blood supply, venous drainage, which carries away the waste material, deoxygenated blood, and then the lymphatic flow is moving in and out, that the nerves are working and functioning properly from the spinal column and the sacrum — so our work is both on the front and the back — and then of course the energy flow, the chi, which in Maya is known as Chulal. So if that’s a nutshell, that’s my nutshell.

Donna Zubrod: And yeah, and our goal is simply to focus on normalcy. We like to focus on homeostasis, which is balance within the body, and hemodynamics, which is unimpeded flow of blood in the body. And central to our work is that we teach our clients self-care because, you know, healing doesn’t happen in one session. And it’s the little things that we do every day on a regular basis that are going to promote our healing.

Dr. Rosita Arvigo: Yeah, and let me just interject that Donna’s study was small, but extremely well done on 10 clients, nine of whom completed the study. And there was clear evidence that the cervical fluid was improved and had more days to be present, and then also that the luteal phase — which is so important to hold and to achieve pregnancy — was also lengthened. We know, and you know from all of the studies and work that you’ve done on this podcast and your own book, that the days of the luteal phase when progesterone is active in the body is extremely important to maintain pregnancy. In my own practice in Belize, one of the primary factors was that women were often getting pregnant, but if they had a 9, 10, or 11-day luteal phase, the progesterone flow was insufficient. Often with the abdominal massage moving upward — and just the way it’s difficult to describe verbally — but with the pelvic massage, we are able to stimulate ovaries to do a better job of manufacturing progesterone. So that is one of the reasons that those two biomarkers were so improved with Donna’s nine clients.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: Well I just want to kind of open up a part of the conversation around because this is a very different approach than our traditional medical system. And so a lot of women find themselves struggling with whether it’s issues with their periods, issues with their cycles, issues trying to conceive. And so in our kind of paradigm, the most common paradigm, the thought is that we need to take medication, we need to regulate the cycle with the pill and all of those types of things. And I get a lot of pushback because I’m very outspoken about the pill. I get a lot of pushback especially from women who have very difficult periods. So for example, in the case of severe endometriosis where there’s a lot of pain. And often women are being told that the only way to treat — in air quotes — or improve these conditions is through drugs. So I just want to point out right off the bat that this modality is a completely different approach because we’re looking at the body itself, looking at the alignment and placement of the uterus, and actually interacting with the body in a very physical way. I just wanted to know if either of the two of you would like to speak on that because I think it’s really important just to get that across, especially for women who’ve been struggling with issues and really feel like there is no other alternative.

Donna Zubrod: If there’s something that’s preventing that plumbing from working perfectly, whether it’s a lot of internal scar tissue, adhesions, inflammation — I mean, these are physical structures. And if something is pressing up against something, it’s just not going to flow, right? And in the body, all this plumbing lies right up against your muscles. That’s kind of like one way that I can explain it. And again, it’s not going to happen quickly, but the idea is that your body is the wisdom, and it knows how to come into balance as long as you have no obstructions of blood — as Rosita talked about — arterial, venous, lymph, nerve innervations, and chi. And that’s just a hard thing because culturally we’re just too disconnected. What Donna is talking about, again, is homeostasis and hemodynamics. You must have proper hemodynamics — dynamic, unimpeded blood flow — in order to have homeostasis, which is balance within.

Dr. Rosita Arvigo: And we give thanks for them when we need them. But as an alternative physician who’s been involved in natural healing with women for 42 years, I know that we should always try the natural way first. If it doesn’t assist, if it’s not working, then it’s time to go for the big guns. But also people need to be aware that they often do not do what they’re meant to fix. So they’re necessary at times and we’re grateful for them also, but I don’t think that it should be the first call. I think my teacher, Donna Liscio, always said it’s only natural to go to a doctor after natural herbal remedies and massage has not helped. So that’s my take on that. We’re grateful for the drugs, but I don’t think it should be the first response. And it’s also not one thing that fixes something. You know, our bodies are integrated. We have a physical level, emotional, mental, and spiritual, and all of those are involved in your healing process and your health. The drugs address the chemistry, basically, and there is so much more going on than the chemistry of the body.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: Well, I love the description of the plumbing. I had to have a little chuckle because, again, it’s exactly what you said. We’re so disconnected from our bodies that we don’t even understand. We talk about hormones all day long, right? Hormones this, hormones that. How does the hormone get there? Through the blood. Exactly what you said. And I think for a lot of people, that was a really important “aha” moment, because you could have a problem where it’s showing up on labs and all this kind of stuff, and it could quite literally be an issue with the flow of blood to your actual ovary, and none of the medications that you put in your mouth or supplements are necessarily going to take care of that physical issue. And the ovarian arteries and veins in females and the testicular arteries and veins in males lie right along the psoas muscle, and the psoas muscle is the muscle of the soul — it’s your muscle of fight or flight. And most of us have very tight psoas muscles, and there you go. You’ve got an imbalance in the making.

So this brings us to the study that you did. I’d love to hear more about it. So from what I was looking over, two of the kind of main outcomes that you were paying attention to were the cervical fluid as well as the luteal phase, which as Dr. Arvigo mentioned, are obviously both crucial to natural conception. But share with us just a little bit about the participants and also what you actually did. So kind of take us through what it is that you were doing for how long and then how you are measuring these effects.

Donna Zubrod: Okay. So I wanted to track a group of 10 people for a period of four to five months. And I wanted to first, in the first month, the approach was to get a baseline of what their cycle looked like now. It was just on a daily basis. This wasn’t any really specific method that I was using, just what are the days that you’re bleeding. I told them, gave them some parameters about looking at cervical fluid and mark those down on those days. And then oh, by the way, if you’re experiencing any other signs — pain, breast tenderness, moodiness, urine leakage, pain during intercourse — just had them add that. And those are all things that as an Arvigo practitioner that we always ask our clients anyway.

And then they would come see me the next month after, when their period came again. And then they would receive a professional session from me. I would review their chart with them, they’d receive a professional session from me, I would teach them the self-care, and then they’d come at least two more months after that. And some people, they came for three more months. So some of these people I was tracking as long as five months and I had five cycles.

So in any kind of study you really want to remove bias as much as possible. Just the fact that people are attracted to me and the work that I do is introducing some bias and I was aware of that, so I just very put it out there on Facebook — hey, I’m doing this study, contact me. So I wasn’t just out there amongst my friends. I told everybody. And then I had a set of criteria — you know, I want basically you’ve got to be willing to learn this. I need to know that you are not trying to conceive at this time. You’re not taking any medications. You’re gonna let me know if you’re sick. And so try to reduce all possible things that could get into this, and don’t make any big diet changes. And so in that way, I tried to reduce bias as much as possible. So out of 40 people who contacted me, 10 met the criteria, and nine of them completed the study.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: And so when you were describing it, so did they have kind of one initial session with you, like a physical session?

Donna Zubrod: Yes, yes.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: Then you taught them the self-care. So the study kind of mirrors what an actual client interaction would look like.

Donna Zubrod: Oh yes, yes. But it was only the self-care massage. We weren’t doing anything. I wasn’t doing castor oil packs, weren’t doing no supplements. No, there was nothing else that was going on. It was just — and I wanted them to minimize as much as possible anything else, or to let me know if they were. So the first month was charting your cycle, bring it in, let’s make sure you know what you’re doing. The second month was receive an hour session from me, learn the self-care, continue to track your cycle. The third month, receive an hour session from me, continue the self-care. And we did that for several months, and we would look at and talk about the changes and how things were going.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: Okay, so they had like a monthly session with you and then between sessions they were doing the self-care. One other question, because of course I’m an educator, so I’m curious about the mucus. When they were tracking mucus, were you just tracking the number of days of mucus or were you tracking the type and how many times per day? How were you doing that?

Donna Zubrod: I had them check their cervical mucus every day when they stopped bleeding. And the particular criteria that I was looking at was — any part of it, how did it feel when they wiped? Was it slippery? And if they could pick something off the toilet paper, was any part of it clear, and or did it stretch greater than an inch? So those are the criteria that I was looking at.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: Okay. So you basically had these participants, they were going through Arvigo, they were seeing you in person monthly, they were doing their self-care, and you did your best to minimize any other factors. So the goal was to measure just only the abdominal therapy and if it could have any impact on the cycle itself.

Donna Zubrod: Right. I felt it was important to, I mean, from a global perspective and not just focusing on Arvigo therapy, does abdominal pelvic massage improve reproductive health without the other things? Just that. So you’re right, it wasn’t a full integrated Arvigo session because we would be talking about castor oil packs and diet and vaginal steaming and things like that.

Dr. Rosita Arvigo: And can I interject — it has always been a stumbling block for us because we do the abdominal massage, we recommend the vaginal steam, we recommend some emotional, spiritual components for the people to undertake, sometimes a dietary change. And so there are always too many factors in our treatment. And the rainforest remedies, the herbal formulations. So Donna narrowing it down simply to the abdominal massage made the study possible.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: Yeah, because that’s definitely a lot of factors. And it would be an interesting — this is the thing — if we had unlimited money, like if Arvigo therapy was a drug that you could like, right, then you have all of this stuff happening. And this is one of the challenges in this space. Whenever you have a natural therapy that doesn’t have research behind it, I think sometimes people forget that the absence of research does not mean that a thing doesn’t work. It means that there is no research yet. There’s a difference.

Research itself is not infallible. When you’re doing research, all researchers have bias no matter how much they try not to. And you can have different people looking at the same data and come to different conclusions about what those things mean. And then you have huge companies that conduct multiple studies on drugs that they are incentivized financially to promote. And if you do 30 research studies and five of them show really negative results, you may never see those five. So I think we all have to be adults and have our heads on when it comes to research.

One practical question that I have for you, because you also measured the luteal phase length in your study, is how are you confirming ovulation and how were you calculating that luteal phase length?

Donna Zubrod: I think that that’s probably the one part of the study that if I were to do it again I would do differently — I wasn’t confirming ovulation. So I was looking at where there was a drop off and getting at the peak day, the last day of any kind of high fertility cervical mucus, and then measuring it from there to when they started to bleed again. And I didn’t confirm ovulation.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: And that would have been done with basal body temperature or an OPK, or something to confirm. Well, that’s interesting that you say that because when you look at a lot of the studies that exist regarding the menstrual cycle that discuss luteal phase length, there are many studies that actually do use the ovulation predictor kit and the increase in luteinizing hormone as a way to confirm ovulation — which is ironic. I mean, the most scientific are the daily ultrasound and also the blood draw to confirm progesterone. But anyways, we don’t need to pick everything apart. I’m just curious. And of course as you know my listeners are going to want to know that. So tell us what happened.

Donna Zubrod: So again, you know, being doing this work for almost 10 years now and tracking the clients that I work with — because I’m teaching them a bit about their cycle, basically for observing and tracking, not really necessarily to conceive or to avoid — but you would hear, man, my cervical mucus, I had so much of it this month after I’ve been doing this session. I can’t — it’s so different. And it’s been like that since I’ve been working with you. Or, my luteal phase is longer now. I can see it, it’s longer. So in the study I wasn’t confirming it, but you know, you have the anecdotal evidence from years and years of working with clients telling you that.

There was an editorial that was written in the International Journal of Therapeutic Massage and Body Work in 2018 by Sara Fogarty, where she says fertility massage — an unethical practice. And in it she talks about unethical — there’s no evidence linking — and that was another thing that really inspired me. Dr. Jennifer Mercier has concluded studies in a similar vein. And again, this is one of the challenges. Neither Dr. Jennifer Mercier nor you and Dr. Arvigo have access to like multiple tens of millions of dollars to do these gigantic clinical studies. So there are very real barriers to having this very important research done. I think that it’s really important. We’re going to see more of it as more women come into the health space to actually do these types of grassroots studies. Obviously it’s not the same caliber as a double-blind placebo-controlled trial with all the money and all the participants, but this is the beginning. And you can build on these studies, right, as more interest and more funding comes along.

So let me tell you about some of the results. First off, doing a study like this was feasible. I had high participation and adherence to the inclusion criteria and to the self-care massage. On average, they were doing it at least a minimum every other day of their cycle — which, you know, none of us are always great at self-care. So I think that is a nice accomplishment. Improvements in cervical mucus quality and duration of days in the cycle where it was observed at the higher fertility. Again, the luteal phase length — there was some indication, it’s questionable, but there was some indication. And because I was open to outcome and we were tracking a variety of signs, what really also showed very strongly was less painful menstruation, less painful periods, less dark blood during their cycles. And we know that dark blood isn’t quite healthy — it’s old blood. And less clots. And so to me, that was really important and really showing about how the work is improving reproductive health signs.

So the statistical analysis that I did — I applied a t-test to gauge the statistical significance of small sample size, and the probability that the changes that I was observing were not by chance. Would need of course bigger numbers to improve, but these really stuck out there. So to summarize: more higher quality cervical mucus for a longer period of days in the cycle, less period pain, and less dark blood.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: Well, and so obviously, we are discussing very openly and honestly the limitations of the study. So for anyone who’s listening who’s like, that’s not statistically significant — we are acknowledging and discussing the limitations openly, right?

Dr. Rosita Arvigo: And just let me interject there — Donna undertook this on her own, with no funding, no backing of any organization. We certainly were happy and supported it in the Arvigo Institute, but any other study that would be all conclusive would involve, as you mentioned, probably millions of dollars and some grand big institute behind it, which we are not. We’re a small organization and I think Donna did a really fabulous contribution for all of us.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: Well, I appreciate that, of course. It’s incredible. And I really think, as I was saying earlier, like I feel like this is what is going to continue happening. Because what else can we do in an age where everyone is demanding science? If we don’t have the massive money and the massive institute to back us, we’re going to have to start doing this on our own in the hopes that this is going to stimulate the research that we so desperately need.

What I feel is very interesting about your study is that in my practice — it’s obviously not the same, I don’t do Arvigo therapy, but I work with the menstrual cycle and I have been for years and years and years — it’s clear to me when you look at the cycle parameters that when you make subtle shifts in your diet, lifestyle, and also many of my clients will do pieces of abdominal massage therapy and things like that, you see improvements. But my first initial thought wouldn’t be, “Oh, Arvigo’s gonna improve your mucus or Arvigo is going to improve your luteal phase.” Obviously, this is a bit of conjecture. When you have a research study and then you have these results, as the researcher you’re the one that has to come up with the conclusion and provide your hypothesis as to why this is. And that would stimulate further study. So based on your experience, your training, your history, and then also your participation in conducting the study, why do you feel that these results were what happened? Like, how does abdominal therapy potentially improve mucus production or improve luteal phase length?

Donna Zubrod: I think it improves the quality of the plumbing.

Dr. Rosita Arvigo: When we start in the upper abdomen, the blood supply from the thorax comes from the heart, goes through the diaphragm muscle, which again is the seat of anxiety, tension, fear, worry. And then it gets very tight and it actually squeezes that abdominal aorta so that there is a lessened amount of oxygenated, hormone-rich blood moving downward into the pelvic organs. So we begin there and we loosen that. And that’s where we find so much emotional tension — that’s why our work is both physical and emotional.

When we improve the blood flow — I know we keep saying that again and again, but that’s everything. It’s homeostasis and hemodynamics. The body and the brain know what to do. They are set, they’re programmed, they’re divine machines. They know exactly how to perform, but if they’re not getting the proper nutrients, then they cannot do what was intended to be done. I always liken it to a garden. I’m an avid gardener. And when you’re irrigating your little garden and the water comes flowing in but it doesn’t reach the bottom beds, you know that those beds above where they’re getting proper water flow are going to be excellent producers. And then as the water trickles and the flow isn’t proper going downward, at the very bottom you may have a sprout that lasts for a week or two, then it dries up and dies. And that’s what’s happening to the ovary. If it’s not getting sufficient blood supply — and that artery that goes to the ovary actually is right under the diaphragm — so if the diaphragm is holding tension, and everybody’s does — nobody’s diaphragm doesn’t hold tension, that’s just the way we’re made — then the amount of blood getting into it. And then add the fact that the uterus can be misaligned, sometimes it’s actually laying on top of the ovary if it’s over to the side. So there are these multiple factors that come into play — the blood supply and the alignment of the organs — which is exactly what we address. So this is a drug-free approach to normalization of body function. And we firmly believe that normalization of fertility is one of the primary signs of health within the body. That’s why we say baby is the second prize — return to normal state of well-being and primed health is the first prize.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: And it’s not all just about the massage, it’s also about making other healthy choices. You can’t have a really, really bad diet and be drinking a lot of alcohol and do the massage saying, “Well, I’m doing the massage, it’s gonna work,” right?

Well, I think one of the big takeaways for myself that I’m gonna take away from our conversation is that very visual — because I love connecting women to their physical bodies. Even in the work that I do, when I talk about how to describe and to feel the change in your cervical position — it’s your whole uterus that moves. Like it shifts position, so your cervix can tilt backwards or be down, you know, straight. And that is a concept that none of us — even though we walk around with uteri inside our body — we don’t really understand that they’re dynamic and that they move throughout the cycle. And so when we’re talking about blood flow — say it again, louder for the people in the back — we’re talking about blood flow. That is how your hormones get to where they need to go. It’s not magic. And I love what you said. You’re like, “It’s not Wi-Fi, they have to go through the plumbing.” And so that is a really interesting hypothesis. This is a really interesting place for future research. Does just addressing the physical body and improving the blood flow and improving alignment — does that improve the ability of our hormones to really transport? Does that change how our body can function? Very, very just an amazing concept to really look at.

Donna Zubrod: And the massage is also improving the mobility of the structures too, right? And in so many ways, things can get just stuck in our bodies and not moving, whether you call it scar tissue, adhesions, inflammation. And when you look at the process of conception and what’s happening in the oviducts and the egg tubes and how the sperm is moving and how the egg is moving, you know, if things aren’t moving at a macroscopic level, it’s unlikely that they’re moving at a microscopic level, right? So many things have that whole ability to move, and the uterus being able to contract the way it needs to and flow during different times of the cycle — the abdominal type of massage is going to help that as well. Look at the fallopian tube at the moment of conception: the fallopian tube has to bring the egg from the ovary downward and bring the sperm upward at the same time. I mean, that is a tremendous engineering feat. And it is very well designed to do that if all the other parameters are just normal. That’s all — just normal. Normal is optimum. And so the ovary and the uterus has to have that flexibility to move. And even the function of the orgasm has to do with movement and contraction of the uterus. And of course, the uterus has to move in pregnancy. It has to move in labor and delivery. So the uterus is an organ that is intended and meant to move throughout the body.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: Well, I’d like to talk a little bit about pain. Recently I’ve been posting a lot of interesting things on Instagram and a lot of very interesting conversations have come out of it. And what I find especially — it’s really because I’m one of them — I’ve had a lot of pain over my life with menstruation. And when I was a teenager it was really bad. So I have a lot of empathy and understanding, firsthand understanding of how ridiculously painful periods can be. And I think it was in one of my interviews with Dr. Laura Briden — she was like, “When you describe your pain, I can’t help but wonder if you had a touch of endo.” And we’ll never know. But it was like, for me, it was that bad. So when women are talking about their pain, and really and truly women who experience extreme pain — they really are at the point where they feel that they have no options. They’ve been to the doctor multiple times. They’ve taken painkillers, some of which work, some of which don’t work. They’ve been put on the pill and for many women that has been the only thing that has ever helped. And for some women, even that doesn’t help as much as they would like it to. And many women have gone through multiple surgeries and still — you know what I mean?

So I just want to talk a bit about pain, and between the two of you, your years of experience working with women with different challenges, if you could share a little bit about how Arvigo can help bring us back to that quote-unquote “normal, optimal” place.

Dr. Rosita Arvigo: Okay, well, Lisa, I was in practice for 42 years in Belize and Central America, sometimes in and around the Chicago area during those 42 years. And my practice was primarily women of the Mennonite community who have as many as 18 children. So we’re all about menstruation and fertility in my practice. And I can say that across the board, all of our practitioners around the world, one of the most reliable responses that we know will occur is reduction of menstrual pain. Now, if we separate those who have endometriosis from those who have simply menstrual difficulties or dysmenorrhea not related to an actual medical condition — we see it again, we’re right back to hemodynamics. There, the substance in the body — the prostaglandins — flow through the bloodstream and get to the uterine muscle, and they allow the muscle to contract and relax in a manner that is minimally painful. In our practice, we tell our clients that any more than 30 minutes of mild discomfort is pathology in the menstrual cycle. And across the board, we see that as one of the most reliable improvements in our clientele.

So going from days of miserable pain and maybe not being able to go to work, to no pain. It does require that often there is what we refer to as the uterine lavage. Those people who have painful menstruation and they see dark blood at the beginning of their cycle, dark blood at the end of the cycle, or they see a lot of clots — those people have, from our point of view, a congested uterus. That’s where the abdominal massage is very helpful because it begins to help the uterine muscle begin to move more efficiently. Then we introduce the vaginal steam to get the heat into the cervix and get the essential oils present in the plant working. And it’s like — we refer to it as like Brillo on the uterine membrane, to clean that.

So often the first cycle is minor or no improvement, but there is always this evidence of this uterine flush — a uterine lavage. The word comes from the Latin lavar, to wash. The second cycle, almost always — if we put a percentage, we don’t have the data, but I know from 42 years of practice — 90% of the time, the second cycle, the pain has been reduced dramatically. By the third cycle, there is no pain. How many clients have come to me and said, “I didn’t even know my period came until I felt it flow,” and that was the woman who used to have two days of painful periods. So again, it’s not every single client who’s going to have those dramatic results, but it is so often that we are kicking our heels and patting each other on the back and so grateful to the traditional healers who taught me this massage that I could pass on to others.

So this is something that’s been with women since ancient days. And everywhere I travel around the world, if I talk to grandmothers or aunties, they are all aware that at some point in their history there was a massage for uterine problems. So this is an aspect of women’s health that has always been with us but was forgotten. I have a textbook from 1910, a medical textbook with a whole chapter on uterine displacement. You no longer find it in medical texts. It’s considered old-fashioned medicine that is now irrelevant.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: Well, I mean, there are a few things that of course come to mind. I mean, again, this is a different modality, this is a different way of dealing with it. It seems as though with Western medicine, as soon as with the advent of painkillers, then we don’t really look at the body anymore. Even if a woman is — because I’ve experienced it — it’s a very physical experience to feel pain. It hurts. And it hurts in a specific place. And it often robs and pulls and contracts.

Having gone through labor twice, I can confidently say that period pain is much more annoying because it just lasts all day. Whereas with labor, it depends on everyone’s labor is different, but first of all, it feels like you’re doing it for a reason because you’re having a baby, and also it’s not necessarily this constant pain all the time. So again, a different way of looking at it — we’re looking at this as a physical thing. And something else that you mentioned earlier — it’s kind of like, well, if you have these issues, this is kind of like one of the first things that you can do. And then if it doesn’t work, we still have all of the medical options. It’s not one or the other. There’s no rule that says that it’s one or the other.

I’ve received criticism from a certain small percentage of individuals for making a bold statement that the pill doesn’t treat, fix, or cure anything — especially a huge backlash from women who experience period pain. Because for a lot of women, the pill is the only thing that has ever provided relief. So again, there’s nothing wrong with it because no one should be in pain. Do exactly what you need to do. I just feel that there’s a percentage of those women who potentially someday want to have children, or just want to not have to be on medication for the rest of their lives. And I think that with a modality like this, when you’re actually addressing the physical part of the body, it’s different. Because we’re actually saying, okay, what is actually wrong? And we do our best to address the cause. Drugs and surgery address the symptom. And that’s always been the baseline difference between modern conventional medicine and what we consider traditional healing. So we address the cause, the drugs address the symptom.

Well, and I just thought of a question that I’ve never asked before. So for a woman who is kind of at the end of her rope, she’s been on the pill for a long time, that’s been the only thing that has given her relief. Would she be able to undergo something like Arvigo therapy in all the different facets and forms while on the pill? You know what I mean? Like address some of these things so she’s not just coming off the pill to all this pain.

Dr. Rosita Arvigo: Yeah, well, you know, every human being is unique. We have a 10-page intake form that we ask people to fill out. And I have treated many hundreds of women on the pill. Yes, of course we can treat them if they’re on the pill. And if they’re on the pill for pain, gradually they make the decision themselves to begin weaning off. And if they’re on the pill not to achieve pregnancy, that’s a different story. But yes, the answer — the short answer is yes, definitely. I have treated patients like that, and with success. A hundred percent of the time? No. Because often there are other issues that we can’t see or feel externally. So we never make the claim that our approach is 100% effective. But we are so effective that even we are astounded. And that’s why we’re talking to you now.

Some of the most substantial healing that I saw happen with some of my clients who had really, I mean really like flat out, for two, three days in bed period pain. And we worked together. And I always tell them, you know, that natural healing does take time and that your symptoms can temporarily get worse before they get better. Because the body’s good stuff is going in through the plumbing, but the plumbing is also taking the old stuff and not-so-good stuff out. Right? So that can cause a detox reaction. So often I at the next cycle would warn them — it may be the period from hell, it might even be worse. And the most improved clients I see are those where that second cycle is hell. And then subsequent cycles like that, it’s all uphill from there. It gets so much better. That’s where the most significant healing has happened — when you really physically observe the cleansing that’s happening.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: Well, traditionally, that’s known as the healing crisis, right?

Dr. Rosita Arvigo: Yeah. And every effective natural therapy modality usually includes a healing crisis where it looks like it’s getting worse before it gets better. So we always talk about — give this three months before you say you’re not seeing any improvements. Because on average, the time that it takes for a cell to replenish in the body is three months.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: I’m glad we were able to spend some time talking about pain because it’s very important. And every now and then, whenever I work with clients and also in my Facebook community, I will just ask about pain and a lot of women experience pain with menstruation, and a lot of the time it’s quite significant. So this isn’t just a minor issue. And a lot of women are at the point where they’ve just accepted it — because you’re grown up and you’ve always had some pain with it and you’ve just accepted it as normal and you just live your life, even though you’re gonna rate the pain as a five or six or seven out of ten. For you, that’s just normal. And it’s just what you deal with.

I think it’s really important to have these conversations just to put it out there. Because still, for a lot of women, when I say period pain might be really common but it’s not normal, and it’s not a sign of health, and it’s a sign that there’s a problem — a lot of women are still kind of astounded by that. Because they’re just like, well, I just always thought it was normal for it to be painful. And I just thought it was normal to have to take Advil for a couple of days every time I got my period.

Dr. Rosita Arvigo: Exactly, right. It is common, but it is not normal. Any more than 30 minutes of mild discomfort is pathology and can be corrected with natural modalities in most cases.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: Well, so going back to the study — so we’ve talked about three of the main outcomes that you saw, which are very interesting. The cervical fluid, the improvement in that; the lengthening of the luteal phase; and then the improvement of pain. As we bring our call to a close — what does this mean for women? So what are the implications for moving forward?

Donna Zubrod: You know, I was thinking about the testimonials. Because each of the people that participated in the study wrote about what it meant to them — learning about their bodies, the process of integrating the charting, because you’re not observing something, you’re not aware of something if you’re not observing it. And so becoming a more active participant in your health by tracking, by learning more about your body, learning about the plumbing and that it’s not Wi-Fi, and tracking your cycles and the key indicators is such an important part of the healing as well. And I’ll even think about just the learning of the charting in itself — what role did that play in the healing of these people? Right?

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: I wonder that because they say anything that you monitor improves. And just by monitoring your cycle, if you’re actually tracking and you’re writing things down, you start doing other stuff. You start eating a little better. They’re drinking a bit more water. So it’s hard. This is why this type of research is very hard and it’s very hard to be objective. And then also with the self-care massage that you’re taught, you’re doing a little something good for yourself every day. What role did that play in all of this? Well, and the placebo effect is very real. I mean, over the past however many hundreds of years that we’ve been doing studies, the scientists have inadvertently been proving how incredible the power of the mind is.

Dr. Rosita Arvigo: Well, may I interject again on the Donna study and the result that when women are able to observe that their body’s inner workings can almost spontaneously improve, it really builds faith and it builds confidence in the entire physiological system in which you live. You recognize that your body can heal itself. Your body can regulate itself, heal itself, reorganize and heal. It’s able — it’s set up to do all of that. And when you actually see evidence in black and white on paper that you yourself have recorded, I just think it’s tremendously encouraging for women to be able to see that. So the message is, you know, step up, get involved, get informed, and become empowered. Understand what’s going on. Be an active participant in your health.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: Yes, yes. I find that especially in a world that’s so negative when it comes to our bodies and our menstrual cycles. I just saw an advertisement saying something like — I’m paraphrasing because I don’t have it in front of me — it was like, your uterus wants to make babies, so when you don’t make babies, then your uterus wants revenge, and that’s why you have period pain. I was so annoyed when I read that. The last thing we need is more negativity. But what you said was so powerful because it’s true. And that’s why I’m still so passionate about this work, decades in. But it’s that when as a woman you see that you can do something that can actually improve your cycle and your experience of menstruation and your fertility and your health, when you start to see that the things that you do can have an impact, it changes you forever. And it changes the conversation from having this negative interaction with your body and thinking that it’s betraying you and thinking, “Why is it causing me so much pain? This is so unfair,” to actually starting to understand that, wow, this is a part of me. And my body is actually very capable of taking care of me.

All right, well, any last thoughts, comments for the listeners — what you want them to take most from our conversation today?

Donna Zubrod: I don’t have anything else.

Dr. Rosita Arvigo: Well, I would just like to say that the body is a magnificent, magnificent creation. The female body is able to reproduce, which is a divine action, and that we are set up to do that. And if all of those mechanisms internally are not functionally optimum for you, that there are alternatives, and we do not have to suffer, we do not have to be saddened or grieved by lack of fertility. That there are answers out there, and I just want to encourage everybody to find the cause, not treat the symptom.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: Perfect, words to end on. Dr. Arvigo, Donna Zubrod, thank you so much for being here. I could have stayed in this conversation all day, it was wonderful. Please tell us where we can go and find more information about you, your programs, your services, what’s happening with each of you.

Dr. Rosita Arvigo: Okay, well, our Arvigo Institute website is www.arvigotherapy.com, where you can find all of the trainings and programs that are available to people who are not therapists or are not in the bodywork profession. We have weekends available for lay people, if you will. And my website is rositaarvigo.com.

Donna Zubrod: And sevengenerationswellness.com.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: Okay, and Donna, you have a program coming up. Did you want to tell us a little bit about it?

Donna Zubrod: Oh yes, I’m working with another birth doula in the area and we are putting together an education series — You Can Do It Doulas — and it’s all about providing education to inform and empower you and your uterus. So it’s going to be about pain, how to have a physiological birth, how to manage pain during pregnancy. And I’m going to be doing a sex ed for grown-ups where I’m going to be doing an introduction to The Fifth Vital Sign and fertility awareness. So you can do it.

Dr. Rosita Arvigo: I do one more thing, Lisa. We really would like to erase the word infertility. It is a fertility challenge.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: Yes, love love love. Well, thank you so much for being here. I will link everything that both Donna and Dr. Arvigo shared in the show notes page. So you don’t have to worry about writing it down if you’re on the go. And thank you once again for being here. I know the listeners are really going to appreciate this episode and it’s quickly become one of my favorites. So thank you so much.

I hope that you enjoyed today’s episode. It was a really great opportunity to have a conversation with Dr. Arvigo and Donna Zubrod and to talk about the results of their study, which I think are really fascinating. And again, to connect us with that physical part of our bodies. One of the things I really appreciate about abdominal therapy modalities is that they kind of take us out of our head and bring us into our bodies and really make us think about the physicality of our uterus. Because often what’s lost in the mix of medication, surgery, drugs, etc., is that this is a physical part of our body that may benefit from abdominal massage therapy. And many women do benefit from it, and some of the results are kind of astounding. Because we often think, okay, if I need to improve my hormone balance, I need to eat good food and take certain supplements — which of course is likely true as well — but we don’t necessarily think about going in, having our abdominal therapy done, and improving that alignment so that we can get better blood flow to the ovaries from a physical standpoint, and how that in and of itself can improve our overall hormone balance.

So fascinating interview, fascinating topics. I hope this episode was helpful for you. And so this, as I had mentioned at the top of the episode, concludes the Period Pain series. So we’ll be starting with some different episodes next week. So with that said, I hope you have a wonderful weekend whenever you’re tuning into the show. And of course, as always, until next time, be well and happy charting.