If you’ve been trying to conceive for over a year and want this level of detective work on your case, apply to work with me and my team here: drjanelevesque.com/application.

It takes about 5–7 minutes to complete. If we can help, we’ll invite you to a free Fertility Clarity Call with one of my team members. On that call, we’ll go through your story, see what’s been missed, and walk you through our simple 3‑step Clarify → Correct → Conceive process that’s helped over 70% of our clients finally bring home a healthy baby.

Episode Summary

In this episode, I walk you through Amanda’s story: 38 years old, endometriosis, one failed laparoscopy, two years of trying, and told IVF was her only option. We dig into what everyone missed – her gut, toxic load, inflammation, nutrient depletion, blood sugar, immune system and her partner’s infections – and how supporting all of that plus a second, better surgery transformed her resilience and allowed her to conceive naturally. If you’ve been told “we removed the lesions, now you just need IVF,” this will give you a completely different framework for what’s actually possible with endo.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• Surgery alone rarely fixes endometriosis if the environment is not addressed
• Endometriosis is a full body inflammatory condition, not just a reproductive issue
• The male partner can silently carry infections that keep her sick
• Prepping the body before surgery changes everything
• A miscarriage can still prove your body is capable of conceiving naturally
• Treating the couple together transforms the relationship and the fertility
• If IVF feels like the only option, nobody has put all the pieces together yet

About Dr. Jane’s Practice

I’m a Naturopathic Doctor and Natural Fertility Expert. My team and I work 1:1 with couples who’ve been struggling with infertility for 1+ years to get to the root cause of their fertility issues so they can conceive and bring a healthy baby home, using advanced lab testing and personalized protocols.

Our mission is to make science-backed, natural fertility care the standard so more couples can build healthy, thriving families.

If you want this level of support on your own case, apply here: drjanelevesque.com/application

If you have endometriosis, heavy and painful periods, you're exhausted and

0:05

bloated, and you've been told that IVF is your only option, this episode is for

0:09

you. I'm Dr. Jane Lvak, and this is the Natural Fertility with Dr. Jane podcast,

0:13

where we help couples uncover the real reasons behind their fertility

0:17

struggles. Today, I want to walk you through one of my patients story

0:21

endometriosis. She struggled to conceive for over two years. She had laparoscopic

0:26

surgery that did nothing for her. and she was told that IVF was her only

0:30

option. And here is how we challenged that. We found what everyone else

0:35

missed. We supported her through another surgery and we supported her recovery.

0:40

And then she went on to conceive naturally. I'm going to share that full

0:43

story with you. And here's the big idea. Endometriosis is one of the leading

0:48

causes of infertility. And surgery alone is rarely enough because we need to

0:53

address the environment that caused the endo to be there and to spread. Now most

0:59

of you who have endometriosis or maybe you strongly suspect it because you have

1:05

heavy periods or you have light periods but there's still a lot of pain and

1:09

discomfort. You have painful bowel movements. Maybe you have pain during

1:13

sex. You have this bloating that's constant also known as endo belly.

1:17

fatigue, brain fog, mood swings. You may have been told that surgery is the only

1:21

option and that will that will just fix everything. So then you go through the

1:25

surgery, but your symptoms or your fertility haven't really changed.

1:30

Something is being missed. And I'm going to show you how most people are

1:34

approaching it and why this actually fails. So what most people think is if I

1:38

just find the right surgeon and remove the tissue, everything will go back to

1:41

normal. The reason that you think that is because your doctor is telling you

1:44

that. And I want to challenge that belief because that's not what I'm

1:48

seeing in real life and in practice. And some of you might be thinking, well, I'm

1:53

already eating clean and I am seeing a functional doctor or a naturopath. Uh,

1:57

if I'm not pregnant, then it must mean that, you know, IVF is the only option

2:02

or that my body is broken. And a lot of women don't want to admit that, but they

2:08

do deep down feel that their body is broken and something is different with

2:11

it. And that's what breaks my heart and that's why I'm here. Because here's why

2:16

thinking like that or approaching endo just from a surgery standpoint actually

2:20

fails us as women. If we treat endo like a purely mechanical problem, we're

2:26

completely ignoring the fact that, you know, gut health, detox, inflammation,

2:31

and even the male partner are the things that we need to address in order to get

2:37

rid of the root cause of the endometriosis.

2:40

And then if you are working with a naturopath or a functional doctor that

2:44

doesn't specialize in fertility, they likely will miss the nuances that are

2:48

very specific to fertility. So improving your health will absolutely improve your

2:53

fertility. But fertility has so many different nuances around not just the

2:58

surgery but the different procedures that are involved and then the different

3:02

systems that are involved from your thyroid to your immune system to blood

3:05

sugars to gut to vaginal microbiome that when you have a generalist from a

3:12

functional medicine perspective or a naturopath perspective they don't tend

3:16

to look at all the intricacies in how everything is connected let alone

3:21

understanding what happens on the conventional side from the different

3:25

procedures that you might need in order to help you get, you know, get to um to

3:30

the next step in your fertility journey. So, I find that just seeing a general

3:34

practitioner isn't enough, especially for a chronic fertility issue like

3:39

endometriosis. So, here's what I want to propose that endometriosis is not just a

3:44

reproductive issue. It is a full body inflammatory and immune system

3:49

condition. So, we have to address the environment. We have to look at the gut.

3:53

We have to look at your nervous system. We have to look at your immune system.

3:57

And we have to look at your partner. This is probably the biggest blind spot

4:01

I see in the fertility space where we just do not treat the partner because

4:06

you're the one that has endo. He's fine. Um, and I'm going to share example with

4:11

you today when he was fine, but he was carrying so many different infections

4:16

that was causing her to stay sick while he was not really feeling any of it. I'm

4:21

going to go on a quick side tangent why this happens. This happens because a

4:25

woman with endo is highly inflamed and she is very sensitive. Her immune system

4:31

is very sens sensitive. So, she is going to pick up on things around her

4:35

environment that most people won't, let alone men. And I say this because most

4:41

men are just not in tune with their bodies in the same way like women are.

4:44

But an endowoman, I think, is highly sensitive to her environment. This is

4:49

what I'm seeing in practice with my endo women. So even though the men is fine in

4:55

the case that I'll share today with you, he had so many different infections

4:59

going on that she simply cannot and they were the same ones as hers. And

5:04

obviously now we can't tell who started it, but she just couldn't clear it in

5:08

her body until he also cleared his. I think that, you know, surgery is such an

5:13

important part and can be absolutely needed in your fertility journey, but

5:18

without addressing the gut and the detox and the hormones and the toxins and your

5:22

partner, that same environment that grew the lesions is still there and it's just

5:28

going to continue to regrow and typically worse because now you have the

5:34

surgery and the scar tissue formation and that can cause a lot of issues for

5:38

women as well. I find that in my practice for our women, the real unlock

5:43

is when we have a really great surgeon, but then we also treat endometriosis

5:49

with this full body root cause approach and we get the partner involved. It's

5:54

not and or we do this. We have to do all of these pieces for endometriosis

6:00

because it is such a chronic condition and so highly inflammatory and so highly

6:06

dependent on the environment. So surgery will remove the tissue, but I often use

6:12

the analogy of the garden. If you have a weed and you just cut it without getting

6:16

the roots, that weed is just going to keep coming back. So we want to make

6:20

sure we actually pull the roots out. And for my gardeners out there, you also

6:24

want to make sure you optimize the soil. So you have to you have to rehydrate the

6:28

soil, you have to put certain nutrients in it, and you have to plant other seeds

6:32

so other things can grow um and take those nutrients instead of the weeds.

6:37

So, we need to change the environment. Let's go into this case. So, Amanda was

6:41

uh 38 years old when we met. She has endometriosis. She had heavy periods.

6:45

She was very bloated and tired, moody. She had very sluggish digestion. Um and

6:52

she had a surgery that basically did nothing for her. She had very minimal

6:56

relief and then was just told she needs IVF. They've been strugg struggling to

7:00

conceive for over two years. So, here's what we found together. Now, we always

7:04

assess both partners, and I'm going to explain to you exactly why in just one

7:07

minute. So, for her, she had a lot of issues with her gut. She had a leaky

7:11

gut. She had significant candida overgrowth. By the time I see candida in

7:16

the gut, I'm thinking that this is a very systemic systemic candid candida

7:20

infection. Her liver uh markers were all off. Her inflammation markers were

7:24

really high. Her nutrients were really, really low. So, she had vitamin D that

7:28

was low. Her iron was low and depleted because of the heavy periods. She had

7:33

very low amino acids. Her copper and zinc ratio was off. Free copper was very

7:37

high which is actually a sign of inflammation. Her zinc and magnesium and

7:41

malibdamin were all low. It's like she was very very depleted. And then her

7:46

hormones including blood sugars were very disregulated. Her so HBA1C was at

7:51

5.8 and I ideally wanted below five. So she essentially was pre-diabetic even

7:57

though she did not have a lot of extra weight. She was very surprised by that

8:02

to be honest. And then we also did a toxic load panel and she just had so

8:07

many toxins in her body. Her system was just very very overwhelmed, very

8:12

depleted and very very inflamed. So when I look at someone like that, I don't

8:17

think that she needs to be trying to conceive. We need to do some prep work

8:21

and repair and just optimize like bring the body up so she doesn't feel so

8:25

exhausted because pregnancy is the hardest thing that you will ever do. And

8:30

there was no way like I told her I'm like could you gain 30 pounds right now

8:34

and you know then push this baby out and breastfeed and she's like no I can't

8:38

imagine doing that. So she really wanted to be pregnant but how fatigued and

8:42

exhausted and fragile and weak she felt. There was no way she was like no I can't

8:47

gain the weight and I can't carry the baby like I can't see myself doing that.

8:51

So, um, we really anchored into who does she need to become in order to be the

8:55

mother, not just to get pregnant and to be able to do all those things that are

8:59

going to be required of her when she's pregnant. Then when we tested him, he

9:03

had even more candida than her. So, he had really high levels of candida. He

9:09

had a leaky gut. He had eczema that he just got used to living with. So, to

9:13

him, it was like, "Oh, it's whatever. I just put cream on and he was just

9:16

putting steroid cream on it, which obviously doesn't address the root cause

9:19

of why the eczema is there in the first place. He had also some low nutrient

9:24

levels. He just wasn't as low as her. And then he also had really disregulated

9:28

blood sugar the same. They were at 5.8. So when I test partners, there's

9:32

partners who are very complimentary and then there's partners who are very

9:35

opposing. They were very complimentary, meaning like their labs looked very

9:39

similar with only a few kind of differences. And you know that's a

9:43

perfect example of how when we live together when we share the environment

9:47

like our microbiome mimics that and typically the nutrient levels for

9:51

example they were low on the same nutrients because they're eating the

9:55

same foods. They might be eating at different times or different volumes or

9:59

slightly you know variable. But that's one of the reasons why addressing the

10:03

partner is so important is because you are sharing the environment. So this is

10:06

the first time they were assessed together and this is the first time they

10:10

had a real plan. So, we weren't just following advice on the internet. Now,

10:14

they already had a clean lifestyle. Uh, you know, they already took handfuls of

10:18

supplements that were recommended by their other functional doctors, but now

10:22

this was data. They also actually both gotaura rings. They didn't get them

10:26

right off the bat. They got them probably about 6 months in. But it was

10:29

super helpful to see that data, especially for the men that say they're

10:32

fine because I can then dig into show me the sleep quality, show me how many

10:36

times you're waking up, what's your stress levels throughout the day, what's

10:39

your HRV, what's your heart rate, and then I know what the optimal numbers I'm

10:43

looking for, and then I can really help guide my male partners with data instead

10:48

of like, okay, good, you're sleeping well. And I'm essentially just trusting

10:51

and believing that they are sleeping well. We started, we had this whole

10:55

plan. they were, you know, started to feel better almost immediately in terms

10:59

of her digestion and her mood and her energy. His eczema went away. Her eczema

11:03

on her hand started to go away and then after 5 months of working together, she

11:07

conceived naturally and this baby taught us a lot. Um, obviously they were really

11:11

excited, but this is the first time she got a positive pregnancy test in like 2

11:15

and 1/2 years. When if that has happened to you, first of all, you know that

11:18

that's a magical moment. If it's never happened to you, that's something

11:21

literally that you wait for uh to happen. and she just couldn't believe

11:25

it. She couldn't believe that her body could do it. Unfortunately, she

11:28

miscarried at 7 weeks, but they did decide to do a chromosomal testing

11:33

because she wanted to see if there was any issues and there wasn't. So, her

11:37

intuition said that there's something still not right and she probably needs

11:41

another surgery. And truthfully, we were thinking about doing another surgery,

11:44

but then she just got pregnant naturally and we're like, "Okay, let's see if this

11:47

pregnancy sticks." So, once she miscarried, she was like, "I think I

11:51

need that other surgery." Uh we of course took the time to grief the

11:54

pregnancy and all the lessons that she learned and this baby really showed her

11:59

that getting pregnant naturally is a possibility for her. I saw that as a

12:03

clinician in her shift. She went from, you know, we just want to try everything

12:07

that we can and then if we need IVF, we're open to it to like, no, I can do

12:12

this. My body can do it and I'm going to do it. So she had this like new fire in

12:17

her um in her soul and in her eyes, if you will. So she found a better OB, she

12:22

found a better endosurggeent. We already did all this beautiful prep work where

12:26

we decreased the inflammation. We were getting rid of, you know, the candida

12:30

and inflammation and her nutrients were so much better. Now we went into surgery

12:36

and then postsurgery. She recovered really, really fast. So she felt

12:40

stronger within 2 weeks than months after the first surgery. And she was

12:45

shocked. She just couldn't believe how resilient her system was. And I love

12:49

those examples because it's very rewarding. Like sometimes when we're

12:52

waiting for the baby, it's so rewarding to go through these experiences and to

12:57

be like, "Oh, I am so much more resilient. I do have so much more

13:00

energy." And a lot of my couples when, you know, I'll interview them on the

13:04

podcast if they decide to come on, they'll have to go back to their initial

13:07

consultation form that they filled out with me. And typically, it's like, you

13:11

know, 1 to two years after because however long it takes us, 9 to 12 months

13:16

to conceive. And then I don't invite them on the interview until second or

13:19

third trimester. So, it's been a really long time. They have to go back to that

13:22

initial consultation form and be like, "What were we struggling with again?"

13:26

And I love that because they literally don't remember the things that they were

13:30

struggling with. Like her partner doesn't remember that he had eczema. He

13:33

doesn't remember that he had brain fog or that his digestion was off because it

13:38

at that time that was the thing that was bothering him the most and now that's

13:41

not a problem at all. So, I think that's really cool. And for her, it was just

13:44

such a big like reward to recover this quickly after surgery because she always

13:48

just felt, you know, frail, if you will, and she wasn't sure that, you know,

13:52

conceiving naturally was an option. Here's the big lesson, you guys.

13:56

Endometriosis surgery might still be the thing that you need, but the real root

14:01

cause approach work where we test both partners, we look at the environment, we

14:05

look at the immune system, the nervous system, the gut, the vaginal microbiome,

14:08

all of these components, it can really change the entire trajectory even when

14:13

IVF was presented as the only path. So I find that the conventional care will

14:18

often miss looking at the root cause of endo. Like they literally do not think

14:21

about why is endometriosis there. they're just thinking about how to

14:25

override it and what cocktail of drugs to give you. The general functional

14:30

practitioners, uh, you know, your naturopaths that don't specialize in

14:34

fertility or your functional medicine doctors that don't specialize in

14:37

fertility, they often miss the deeper intricacies when it comes to the

14:41

microbiome health. So whether that's your gut microbiome, vaginal microbiome,

14:45

uterine microbiome, uh they tend to detox way too hard and they don't look

14:50

at the methylation or the mitochondria or the nutrient depletion that can come

14:54

with that. And they often don't involve the partner because well endometriosis

14:59

is a woman issue and if he doesn't want to, I'm not going to get him involved.

15:03

Now I don't want to be a tyrant and say like we only work with couples, but we

15:07

only work with couples because I'm not interested in just helping you get

15:10

pregnant. I want you to have a healthy pregnancy and I want you to have a

15:13

healthy baby. And in order for us to be able to do that, we need it takes two

15:18

people. So, we need the partner on board. And this couple is such a perfect

15:22

example where he was fine and she kept trying to push him into doing stuff, but

15:26

like he just didn't have enough symptoms to do anything about it. And it wasn't

15:30

until she was like, "Listen, this doc requires you to show up." And he shows

15:34

up and he's like, "I'm happy to do whatever. I just, you know, like I don't

15:37

really have any symptoms." And I said, "That's totally fine. do you mind if we

15:40

just test all the things and then I'll tell you what we need to focus on? And

15:44

we tested the gut, we tested the nutrients, we looked at the methylation,

15:47

and we did a really good blood work. We tested all those things on her, but we

15:50

did a little bit more because um you know, she had a couple more things going

15:54

on. And there was so much stuff that came up when he saw that data. It was

15:58

really easy for him to follow supplement protocols. It was really easy for him to

16:02

like make the diet and lifestyle changes because not only did he feel different,

16:07

but he understood how his involvement was important in her healing journey and

16:12

he didn't want to see his wife struggling anymore. One of the things

16:15

that was um their primary symptoms is she was quite moody and they were

16:20

fighting a lot and she would be moody in that second half of the cycle and she

16:23

would be nagging him to do things and he would do it but he didn't want to do it.

16:27

So, it's like he did it because he loved her, but it did put a strain on the

16:31

relationship. And one of the first things that improved within like the

16:34

first one to two months of us working together is her mood drastically changed

16:38

and they were no longer fighting. They felt connected. They were going for

16:41

walks together. They were cuddling all the time. They were making food. They

16:45

were laughing and they were so much more joyous within the first couple of

16:49

months. It's like in if I just told Amanda like, "Okay, Amanda, it's

16:53

endometriosis. I'm just going to treat you." that transition never would have

16:58

happened. And that transition from being like negging and upset and tension

17:03

within the couple to like oxytocin release and dopamine and just feeling

17:09

deeply connected. We can't miss out on that. There's so many benefits of that

17:14

and their research and they're well studied. So this is why I involve the

17:17

partner and I think what the the general functional doctors typically miss. And

17:23

you know when you address all of this together and we actually look at end

17:27

endometriosis as this full body inflammatory immune system condition

17:30

your symptoms will improve and resilience will change and then your

17:34

fertility will follow. So I want you to remember that surgery is a tool but it's

17:38

not the whole plan. with the right prep and recovery support, it can absolutely

17:44

change the game and change your fertility journey. But if you have

17:48

indometriosis and you're doing all the right things and you're still being told

17:51

that IVF is your only option, it's usually not because you need another

17:56

surgery or that you know you're broken and you're not meant to have children.

18:00

It's because no one has put all of the pieces together for you. And this is

18:04

exactly what we did with Amanda and what we do every day in our maximize your

18:08

fertility program. So if you want my team to look at your history and your

18:12

labs through this holistic fertility lens, go ahead and click the link down

18:16

below, fill out an application, and then my team will get back to you if we can

18:21

help. Thank you so much for listening, and I see you next week.