Male infertility causes in Jingui Yaolue

Jingui Yaolue, also known as Synopsis of Golden Chamber, ever talked about infertility as follows:

“If a man’s pulse is floating, weak and astringent, he must suffer from infertility. The root cause is that his vital essence and energy are scant and cold.”

This paragraph talks about the relationship between male infertility and poor innate endowments. A disease-free man’s pulse can not be floating without root, weak and astringent for no reason. The weak pulse indicates the lack of fluid while astringent pulse indicates the lack of blood. If an ordinary man with this kind of pulse, it must relate to his poor innate endowments. Scant-cold vital essence and energy, in other words, refers to low sperm count, low sperm motility, bad quality sperm and lack of semen.

Therefore, we realize that men with this kind of pulse or constitution are prone to suffer from male infertility.

The above is just a general cause for male infertility. Specifically, from the perspective of Chinese medicine, there are six causes for male infertility.

Male infertility cause one: Cold sperm

So what does cold sperm mean? Given that Lower Jiao is deficient and cold, and the fire of vital gate is weak, the temperature of the sperm is so low, even as cold as stone, that it is difficult to make the woman pregnant.

Male infertility cause two: Qi depletion

Qi depletion generally refers to the dysfunction of Zang-fu viscera, or shortage of nutrient substance in the body, especially refers to the deficiency of kidney Qi. The deficiency of kidney Qi results in the lack of intrinsic motivation to produce kidney essence, in turn lack of kidney essence finally leads to male infertility.

Male infertility cause three: excessive phlegm

Excessive phlegm usually is related with the function of spleen and lung. Chinese medicine considers that spleen is the source of phlegm while lung is storage of phlegm. Chinese medicine also thinks that spleen is the source for the production and transformation of Qi and blood. If dampness-phlegm stagnates in the space of spleen-stomach, it must lead to shortage of genuine Qi and consumption of essential Qi, which thus causes male infertility.

Male infertility cause four: hyperactivity of ministerial fire

The so-called hyperactivity of ministerial fire refers to excessive fire due to yin deficiency. Because of excessive fire due to yin deficiency, the sperm is forced to ejaculate. Chinese medicine considers kidney is Zang organ of yin nature, which contains both water and fire, such as kidney-yin and kidney-yang. Physiologically it needs to maintain a relative balance between fire and water. If kidney-yin is deficient, kidney-yang would become excessive.

In this case, men would suffer from symptoms such as hypoactive sexual desire, nocturnal emission, and premature ejaculation and so on, which thus results in male infertility finally.

Male infertility cause five: low sperm count

Low sperm count refers to deficiency disease and lack of semen. This kind of male infertility might be caused by congenital deficiency, or intemperate sexual intercourse, which thus leads to depletion of vital essence.

Male infertility cause six: stagnation of Qi

Stagnation of Qi is one kind of syndrome of stagnation. It is caused by depression of emotion and folded liver Qi. Stagnation of Qi can result in blood stasis, erectile dysfunction (ED, “male impotence”) and ejaculation problems, which thus lead to male infertility finally.

Tips for treatment of male infertility

Since we already know the above-mentioned six causes of male infertility, the rest for us is to choose the corresponding treatments based on the specific symptoms. Anyway, as I have repeated many times that there are no invariable drugs for any diseases with Chinese medicine. So the same is true to male infertility. Clinically most cases of male infertility are of deficiency type. However, male infertility can be both of deficiency type and excess type. Knowing the causes of male infertility is just the start, next I would continue talking about the specific common treatments for male infertility with Chinese herbs and acupuncture. Stay tune.