Archives for April 2010

IVF Fertility Specialist Surprises

April 15, 2010 By Carol 1 Comment

I recently went to the effort of booking two appointments with two new fertility specialists in a desperate bid to get a second opinion. One at a new clinic and the other with a different Doctor at the same clinic I currently attend. I mentioned in a previous post that I had been frustrated that I have not had any success with IVF as yet and that I felt my Doctor had not been proactive in recommending changes in my treatment protocol.

The first doctor I saw told me my chances of getting pregnant were very low but that he would treat me. There was no variation in the treatment in what I had done previously. The only major change was the change from transferring at Day 2 instead of Day 5. The benefit of going to him was that I would have the same Doctor treating me. The downside was that the clinic’s location was more difficult for me to attend and that I would have to go through the process of getting lots of paperwork transferred from one clinic to the next. I walked out of that office quite upset and depressed for the rest of the day.

The next doctor I was intending to see was not available until the end of May works at the same clinic as my current Doctor! I therefore decided to maintain my appointment with my current Fertility Specialist. I am stunned. He spent more time with me than normal, reviewed my files and recommended two major changes to what I had before. The first was:

Embryo biopsy to see if there is any reason why I haven’t gotten pregnant
Trying the Colorado Treatment protocol

I am stunned. Just when I was getting frustrated with my lack of success and made appointments to see other specialists, my own makes a change! Its a big clinic but I wonder if somehow he found out that I wanted to change or whether he knows from experience that women on a mission to get pregnant will stop at nothing.

IVF Over 40

April 7, 2010 By Carol Leave a Comment

Whilst IVF can be very a wonderful thing when it works, it can also be a frustrating experience when it doesn’t – particularly if you are over 40 years of age. The trouble is that your body clock time bomb is clicking away and unfortunately the quality of your eggs declines rapidly at this time. In fact, while the quality of embryos declines from about the age of 32 (yes 32), the decline is much more rapid at age 40 and above.

How do I know this? I visited a new IVF fertility specialist today. As kindly as what he was in delivering the bad news it was devastating to hear the facts. I had gone to him in hope only to be delivered bad news. At least it was more realistic than what my current Doctor tells me. My current fertility specialist tells me don’t worry you will get pregnant. Even though I know the odds are stacked against me it keeps me in hope. Hearing the facts from the new specialist made me upset. My age and the fact that 99% of my husbands sperm is abnormally shaped is a key problem. I had gone to him looking for a solution. Although I don’t think this is what I got.

On the positive, he told me his clinic did things differently. For a start, he would be the doctor who treated me – not like the clinic I currently attendwhere I get treated by whoever is scheduled to treat me on the day (a major plus). He told me that this particular clinic only did Day 2 embryo transfers not blastocysts. He thought the fact that I had lost so many embryos at Day 5 was wasteful. Interesting – a debatable point amongst the world’s experts.

It seems there are two schools of though in IVF – Day 2/3 transfers versus Day 5. My current clinic does either day 3 or Day 5 but this clinic doesn’t. In any case, I was directed to the patient co-ordinator and we set up some appointments to begin my next cycle. The first thing that happened was that I was informed that as I was deemed medically infertile, I would not be eligible for the medicare rebate and as such my total costs would be $12,800 with no hope of rebate. I was shocked. I went back to the Doctor to check this and discovered he had made a mistake. Phew – was I relieved. One hurdle down. However my next hurdle made me question why I was changing clinics in the first place.

When I analyzed the treatment protocol what I discovered shocked me. What shocked me the most was that he was recommending an Antagonist cycle with the same medication as what I had previously been on. He was also not convinced on the Colorado Treatment protocol. As far as I could see, there really wasn’t any major difference between the treatment protocols which clearly was not working for me. The only difference was the day the embryo got transferred.

With this in mind, I had to question why go through the heartache of change. The steps I would need to take to change clinics would mean I would need to get all the paperwork on police record checks and child protection checks from my current clinic. My husband and I would also have to go through counselling all over again. The clinic locations were not as easy and accessible for us to get to. All these steps would mean another delay to my treatment.

On reflection, I don’t think this clinic is offering me anything different. I can choose to transfer an embryo on day 3 instead of day 5 at my current clinic. Personally, I am not convinced that there is a hell of a lot of difference between Day 2 and Day 3 embryo transfers. Ours all seem to survive to Day 3. So I think I should just save myself the heartache and continue with my current clinic but still explore another doctor in that clinic who I know will offer a different protocol to what I am currently doing. Heck I might as well even try a day 3 transfer. At 40, I might as well try and preserve what embryos I have.

The IVF Colorado Protocol

April 3, 2010 By Carol 2 Comments

I recently learnt about a technique called the Colorado Technique which is geared towards older women and those women with multiple failures. It is used to improve the lining of the uterus to aid implantation of the embryo.

Sounds like this technique was made for me. I am older, have had multiple failures and implantation seems to have been an issue. In fact, a work colleague who did IVF swears by it. Using this technique helped her conceive her baby boy at age 43!

The protocol varies by stage and individual Doctors may vary it slightly but in the general protocol works something like this:

STAGE ONE
1. Commence Baby Asprin (Astrix, Cartia, Cardiprin) when you commence Syneral / Lucrin.

STAGE TWO
2. Your husband commences Doryx 100mg twice a day for 7 days when you commence Gonal F / Puregon.
3. You stop Asprin on the day of your first ultrasound.

STAGE THREE: The day after the Trigger Injection (Pregnyl)
4. Commence Prednisolone 25mg at night for 5 nights.
5. Commence Augmentin 500mg orally twice a day for 5 days.

STAGE FOUR: The day after egg pick up.
6. Crinone (Progresterone gel) one application each morning.
7. Apply two Estraderm mx patches 100mcgm to the buttock (one on each buttock). Change alternative days.
8. Recommence Baby Asprin.
9. Have intercourse the night before embryo transfer.

OTHER

Continue Asprin, Crinone/Estraderm Patches until the pregnancy test.
If the test is positive, treatment continues to 6 weeks.
If the ultrasound shows a viable pregnancy, continue all tyreatments until 13 weeks are completed.
The Asprin continues to the 34th week of the pregnancy.

I can’t guarantee the accuracy but this seems to be the general idea. I guess I will find out more when I see my new Fertility Specialist next week.