cigarettes and male factor infertility

if you ever doubt the impact of not taking a new patient into your practice because they don't think they need to do the work or "believe" that smoking (cigarettes) really has an effect on  their health...particularly semen quality...try being completely honest.  i point blank would not take the patient on in my practice if he wouldn't even attempt to stop smoking...clearly there was a male factor fertility issue as evidenced by semen analysis conducted by his reproductive endocrinologists office...and yes his wife had read on the Internet about the ill effects on semen quality...but that wasn't "real". after telling the patient that i seriously would not accept him as a patient in my practice and that ICSI was not the be all end all for his situation...he was told the same thing on his re eval with his RE. so guess what? you guessed...he quit...BUT IT WAS HIS DECISION TO QUIT! one of the last calls i received before heading to Austin for the ABORM exam was a call from his wife to let me know that she was pregnant...and thrilled that she wasn't spending $18,000 for her scheduled IVF cycle next month. this was over a three month period of the wife being under care (acupuncture and herbs) and the husband not smoking...so it was a brief process of re balancing and detoxing ...BUT by laying the cards on the table from the get go made a life changing impact on this couples life. its not brain surgery you know...its Chinese medicine and being honest about the facts. lets not forget about the ongoing new possibilities for this man's health and life because he gave up the pack as well.