Infertility

Their mom Darcy tried for years before they were born to get pregnant, but even with in-vitro fertilization was not able to conceive.

So Darcy decided to team up the breakthrough medical treatments with acupuncture treatments to improve the odds of having a baby.

Darcy turned to Dr.

Claudia Harsh, an ob/gyn and licensed acupuncturist, for help.

Studies show that tiny needles placed under the skin appear to help prepare the body for pregnancy.

Harsh said, "We're finding that it changes the pressure of the blood vessels in the uterus, and we're finding that it increases the quality and the quantity of the eggs and follicles that are produced." Harsh said that acupuncture also has a positive impact on fertility in men.

"I've done some sperm tests before and after acupuncture treatment and I've seen counts go up tremendously.

One was 86 million to 200 million, and the morphology or percentage of sperm that were normal went up from 4 percent which is border line to the 10 to 15 percent range," she said.

Whatever the impact, Crociata says her struggle with "If there is something I can do to help someone else that goes through it end up with what I ended up with,  I feel like it's worth it," she said.

Some health insurance plans do cover acupuncture with a co-pay; o...

A multi-center international prospective study conducted by researchers at the University of Milan, several additional facilities in Italy and St.

Elizabeth Medical Center in Brighton, MA evaluated capsule endoscopy's ability to detect villous atrophy, the flattening of the villi, in patients with suspected celiac disease compared to an upper GI endoscopy.

All 43 patients in the study underwent both upper endoscopy and capsule endoscopy.

Gastroenterologists were blinded to each patient's upper GI and pathology results when evaluating the capsule endoscopy findings.

Authors concluded that 32 patients had mucosal changes compatible with celiac disease.

The results showed that the capsule led physicians to make a correct positive diagnosis in 87.5% of the cases where upper GI had confirmed villous atrophy.

Specificity (the ability to avoid a false positive), positive and negative predictive values were 90.9%, 96.5%, 71.4% respectively.

Additionally, capsule endoscopy correctly diagnosed celiac disease in one patient where upper endoscopy and biopsy had ruled out disease.

What was initially thought to be a "false positive" from CE turned out to be a "false negative" on the part of upper endoscopy and biopsy.

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