Hi,
Sorry for not coming to this board for a while. Finally, after about 6 months of tiao by this sinseh at Marine Parade (I suffered a blighted ovum in August last year 2014, and that was my 5th miscarriage), I conceived in early April this year. Tested positive (BFP) on May 7. As my menses usually came on time, and his clinic is closed on Monday (May 4), he told me to go to consult him on May 3, if do not see AF. I went to consult him, he felt my pulse and said that fertilisation has already occurred, and told me that the next few days will be crucial, so I just bed rested from May 4 to May 6. I consulted him the day that I tested BFP on clearblue HPT. He immediately felt my pulse, and said that I was pregnant, and then gave my hubby and I a detailed list of what to expect for the next 9 months (for example: when will I see baby's heartbeat, and get to know the sex of the baby etc), and foods and drinks to avoid during pregnancy; and remarked that he would see me through the 9 months, and any issues, just phone him if too troublesome to go to his medical hall to see him. He just prescribed me one packet of antai herbs and said that that will last me till week 13, and to drink the brewed chicken breast soup every day, until I see the baby's heartbeat, then no need to drink so often, maybe every 2 to 3 days. At week 6, I suffered from minor vaginal bleeding in the middle of the night, and went to TMC, their 24 hours clinic for emergency, in which the nurse phoned Dr Loh SF, and told him about my condition (by then, it was only spotting). Dr Loh told the nurse to give me a progesterone jab to antai, and to see him the next day morning (Wed), and discharged me home, and told me to observe the bleeding. The next day, during ultrasound, Dr Loh said that the embryo was 6 weeks and 2 days, that there was fetal heartbeat (about 150 beats per minute) but then there was subchrionic bleeding. When my mom requested that I be admitted for bed rest, Dr Loh strongly objected, and eventually, as they do not have any single beds available, I was told to bed rest (fully) at home. I called the marine parade tcm sinseh the next day, told him about the subchrionic bleeding. He told me that it is no big deal, just that when the embryo was formed, a water bag was also formed, and will disappear within the next few days, and refused to antai for me. The next few days, there was then no spotting/bleeding, then on Sat, I discovered brown colour spotting when I wiped (which my mom said was not a good sign), and the brown spotting turned to red on the following day Sunday at 4 p.m. My hubby immediately went to TMC their 24-hours clinic, so that the nurse could contact Dr Loh SF for me. Dr Loh ordered the nurse to immediately do blood tests for me, to check for blood clotting disorder, including D-Dimer; and thank God all came back normal, and I was discharged back home. As the next day was Vesak Day public holiday, I only managed to see Dr Loh at his clinic on the following day (Tue). Dr Loh did a transvaginal ultrasound, said that it was not a good sign as the embryo never grew in one week, the CRL had shrunk, though there was still heartbeat, so he hoped that I could save the pregnancy, with progesterone tablets and progesterone injection every 3 days. The next day, Wed, I called the marine parade tcm sinseh as soon as his clinic opened. When I told him about my pregnancy issues, he just rudely replied me that embryo grew or not is decided by my gynaecologist, and not him, and again refused to antai for me, loud and clear.
To cut the long story short, on recommendation of my previous personal trainer, I went to consult their tcm in North Bridge Road, Crawford Court (Tai Choon Foh Medical Hall). The sinseh felt my pulse, said that there was embryo heartbeat, but then it was not stable, so told me to bed rest a lot. He prescribed me 5 days of medicine to antai and also to stop the subchrionic bleeding, and to see him 5 days later. When I saw him 5 days later, he felt my pulse and said that the embryo was still okay and got a heartbeat. However, 2 days later, when I wiped after the first bowel movement in the morning, I discovered brown colour spotting (is that from the demise of the embryo) or from the progesterone injection, I do not know. Anyway, I continued to take the spare medicine prescribed by this sinseh's wife, to stop the bleeding and to take the antai medicine 2 hours later, 3 times daily. However, another 2 more days, on June 12, when I went to pee at 11:30 a.m., I discovered fresh bleeding, just like the start of period bleeding. I was freaked out, and immediately went to consult the sinseh at North Bridge Road. He felt my pulse, said at first that I already miscarried the embryo; then felt my pulse again, and said that he would try his best to antai for me, though the prognosis is not good, and to call him or his wife if anything. That day, I lied mostly in bed at home, the bleeding stopped. However, after a quick shower at night, the fresh bleeding started again. As my hubby was having a very bad cold by then, and my mom was afraid that he would pass it to me, so I went to sleep with my mom at night. The next morning, when I woke up, the urine became red in colour. As I could not get through the telephone of Dr Loh's clinic, my hubby went down first and my mom and I went down later. Dr Loh was in surgery, and his partner Dr Dr Mariette saw me instead shortly. She immediately did a transvaginal ultrasound. Said that it did not look good at all, that the embryo has shrunk and was abnormally small for its size, and some more, the heartbeat was gone, so told me to expect miscarriage. She said that since I was already bleeding moderately, I could choose to naturally miscarry, or to insert the cytotec vaginal medicine to induce miscarriage (I chose this method during the blighted ovum last August, and ended up with excessive bleeding, and so am scared to use it again), or to do the d and c. After suffering an agonizing tummy ache at home at 3:30 p.m. for 1.5 hours, I eventually passed out the unhealthy embryo tissue at 5 p.m. when I went to pee.
This is the number 6th miscarriage I had in 3.5 years, and Dr Loh could not find an explanation of why I could conceive easily naturally (I did one cycle of IVF back in July 2011, and failed); but could never last longer than 6 weeks mostly. He suspected that it might be something to do with my immune system.
Here in Singapore, the tcm and Dr Loh also do not believe very much in the old fashioned treatment of injecting my hubby's white blood serum under the folds of my skin (each treatment is 3 months), to correct my negative blocking antibodies. In Guangzhou of China, the doctors there believed that this is the main cause of my unexplained recurrent miscarriages.
Anyway, the North Bridge tcm sinseh did say that the main issue with my recurrent miscarriages is that my uterus is weak, and so cannot hold the embryo. He advised that I go back to him 10 days after my miscarriage, and he will use herbs to start strengthening my uterus and to improve my negative blocking antibodies. Each course of treatment is 1 month, and I will need to have 4 months of treatment before I can try to conceive again. He is hopeful of my case, as he recently managed to treat a 24 year old Chinese mom married to an American man living in the USA. The young mom miscarried 4 times, and went to consult him. He gave her 4 months of herbs to strengthen her herbs and told her to bring them back to USA. The 2nd month, the mom called long distance to her, said that she was pregnant, the sinseh told her to finish the course of herbs. And she recently gave birth to a baby boy, and sent the family photo to this tcm, to express her gratitude and thanks.
As I caught a cold during shower and shampoo on the night of my miscarriage, and still got dry cough after one week and profuse sweating even after stopping taking the chinese medicine yin qiao capsules given by my mom as the sinseh's wife said that that could be the cause of my profuse sweating, when I called last Sat evening. She said that I could see her hubby the tcm sinseh on Monday. The sinseh felt my pulse, said that I do not cough that much anymore, but still got cold sweat, so prescribed me 5 days of herbal medicine to help relieve my stress levels and to help me sleep better at night. True enough, after taking the herbs, I managed to sleep through the night, and also the face colour looked a lot brighter too.
I did tell the marine parade sinseh that after my blighted ovum last Aug, my AF became less, reduced from the usual 5 days, to at most 3 days or 2.5 days, but he did not seem concerned. However, in my personal view, I think that this can be the cause of my miscarriage, as it means that my uterine lining is not strong yet.
Thinking about going back to this marine parade tcm sinseh during the 4th month, to get herbs to induce ovulation and also to aid implantation.
So be warned that this marine parade tcm sinseh seemed more keen in getting a woman pregnant, but may not take into account that she has a weak uterus, which can eventually lead to a miscarriage.