Microdose lupron protocol - has anyone been on this?

[Anonymous]

I am about to start my my 1st IVF cycle. I did some research on this protocol and I get the impression it is a last resort before donor eggs. I am confused as to why I was put on this plan - here are my stats:

Age: 43 (yes - I am old)
FSH: 5-8
IUIs: I had 3 IUIs this year and one resulted in pregnancy (subsequent miscrriage)
Eggs: With IUIs - I was on 150 dosage of gonal for about 7-9 days. I would produce about 3-5 good eggs and a few more smaller ones.

Based on the above (except for age), I don't think I am a horrible responder. Any thoughts? Words of wisdom?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am about to start my my 1st IVF cycle. I did some research on this protocol and I get the impression it is a last resort before donor eggs. I am confused as to why I was put on this plan - here are my stats:

Age: 43 (yes - I am old)
FSH: 5-8
IUIs: I had 3 IUIs this year and one resulted in pregnancy (subsequent miscrriage)
Eggs: With IUIs - I was on 150 dosage of gonal for about 7-9 days. I would produce about 3-5 good eggs and a few more smaller ones.

Based on the above (except for age), I don't think I am a horrible responder. Any thoughts? Words of wisdom?

Everyone responds differently - I had a horrible response to a MDL protocol, but a great response to antagonist protocol. I would really push to ask your RE why that particular protocol vs. others. It does seem like a strange protocol for a first cycle (vs. antagonist or long lupon...).

And hopefully you don't need to worry about it, but Estrogen Priming Protocol (EPP) is the one that I hear most often for poor responders.

[Anonymous]

I was on this protocol several times. As pp mention it isn't the most aggressive. If that was the case you would be on EPP.

[Anonymous]

May be a dumb question, but why isn't everyone put on the most "aggressive" protocol from the get-go? Is there a concern of over-stimulation or impacting egg quality?

[Anonymous]

Everyone responds differently. You might risk overstimulation (which can be serious) or if you are blasting away at your ovaries with high doses of stims then you might "fry" your eggs, resulting in poor embryo quality. In general, the top REs prefer quality over quantity (maybe you need larger #s for genetic testing, etc).

[Anonymous]

Microdose lupron protocol is smaller doses of lupron than than the normal lupron protocol, which suppresses many older patients too much. When you are older, many more of your eggs are not viable, so it is likely that a protocol that increases your chance of producing more eggs gives you a better chance at succeeding. I did not respond well to the EPP, nor the regular lupron protocol, which gave me massive headaches, but I thought the microdose lupron was the best tolerated protocol and I responded best. It varies with each person. I would talk it over with your doctor, but it is not an abnormal choice for them to make.