When would you start wondering about implantation issues?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. By severe I mean that all of my results were highly abnormal--my NK cell activity was incredibly high, for instance. All my other results were high/bad. In other words, what is happening is that my repeat implantation failure is so severe that I'm not even getting to the miscarriage/chemical pregnancy stage. I have not done the clotting panel yet, just the immune panel. On the immune tests when they added the IVIG to my cells the values didn't budge really. I didn't want to get that many vials drawn at once so just started with the immune panel. I was with GW before, they quoted me a 20% chance of a birth before. Now my chances of a birth are much lower. I feel really depressed and can't believe this is happening after such an easy time getting pregnant/easy pregnancy.

So previously they quoted you a 20 percent chance and you had a baby?

I thought you could take medicine to treat immune issues.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. By severe I mean that all of my results were highly abnormal--my NK cell activity was incredibly high, for instance. All my other results were high/bad. In other words, what is happening is that my repeat implantation failure is so severe that I'm not even getting to the miscarriage/chemical pregnancy stage. I have not done the clotting panel yet, just the immune panel. On the immune tests when they added the IVIG to my cells the values didn't budge really. I didn't want to get that many vials drawn at once so just started with the immune panel. I was with GW before, they quoted me a 20% chance of a birth before. Now my chances of a birth are much lower. I feel really depressed and can't believe this is happening after such an easy time getting pregnant/easy pregnancy.

So previously they quoted you a 20 percent chance and you had a baby?

I thought you could take medicine to treat immune issues.

OP here. No, I got pregnant easily with my first child, no need for infertility treatment. With my second, I have been at GW. With IVF they quoted me that I have a 20% chance with one IVF to have a baby. I thought that was very low. Now I have immune issues and that 20% is even lower.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. By severe I mean that all of my results were highly abnormal--my NK cell activity was incredibly high, for instance. All my other results were high/bad. In other words, what is happening is that my repeat implantation failure is so severe that I'm not even getting to the miscarriage/chemical pregnancy stage. I have not done the clotting panel yet, just the immune panel. On the immune tests when they added the IVIG to my cells the values didn't budge really. I didn't want to get that many vials drawn at once so just started with the immune panel. I was with GW before, they quoted me a 20% chance of a birth before. Now my chances of a birth are much lower. I feel really depressed and can't believe this is happening after such an easy time getting pregnant/easy pregnancy.

So previously they quoted you a 20 percent chance and you had a baby?

I thought you could take medicine to treat immune issues.

OP here. No, I got pregnant easily with my first child, no need for infertility treatment. With my second, I have been at GW. With IVF they quoted me that I have a 20% chance with one IVF to have a baby. I thought that was very low. Now I have immune issues and that 20% is even lower.

Are you sure about this? I'm not entirely following the percentages you keep posting. First off, without immune issues they have no idea whether you have a 20 percent chance or not. Can't you take medication for immune issues? I wouldn't get all hung up on the statistics. Fwiw I tried to have a baby for four years and got pregnant the first time trying IVF. All you've done is IUI which doesn't have very high success rates and it simply a step above normal intercourse. You act like you've tried and tried but all you've done is try IUI twice. You should look into treatment for immune issues and try IVF.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. By severe I mean that all of my results were highly abnormal--my NK cell activity was incredibly high, for instance. All my other results were high/bad. In other words, what is happening is that my repeat implantation failure is so severe that I'm not even getting to the miscarriage/chemical pregnancy stage. I have not done the clotting panel yet, just the immune panel. On the immune tests when they added the IVIG to my cells the values didn't budge really. I didn't want to get that many vials drawn at once so just started with the immune panel. I was with GW before, they quoted me a 20% chance of a birth before. Now my chances of a birth are much lower. I feel really depressed and can't believe this is happening after such an easy time getting pregnant/easy pregnancy.

Are you still at GW or changed to Abassi for treatments? Is she the one who quoted you less that 20%?

[Anonymous]

It may take a high dose of IVIG or IVIG plus other treatments. The test results are for NKs added to the test tube, not to your body. Besides that my NKs actually spiked the first time I had IVIG even though my suppression was good. So do a couple of rounds of IVIG and check your numbers again. You might be surprised. Also do the clotting panel. We got my IVIG covered because I had APS.

[Anonymous]

PP here what was your suppression with IL? My successful pregnancies I didn't have IVIG, only IL plus prednisone and Neupogen.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:PP here what was your suppression with IL? My successful pregnancies I didn't have IVIG, only IL plus prednisone and Neupogen.

PP, what was your regimen with Neupogen? Which days of the cycle and how much?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PP here what was your suppression with IL? My successful pregnancies I didn't have IVIG, only IL plus prednisone and Neupogen.

PP, what was your regimen with Neupogen? Which days of the cycle and how much?

1mcg/kg of body weight starting 5dpo until 12w. I had to bump up to 1.5mcg with my last pregnancy early on because my Tregs were still low. So that dosage can change based on your numbers, but Dr. Abbasi didn't prescribe it, Dr. Braverman did.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It may take a high dose of IVIG or IVIG plus other treatments. The test results are for NKs added to the test tube, not to your body. Besides that my NKs actually spiked the first time I had IVIG even though my suppression was good. So do a couple of rounds of IVIG and check your numbers again. You might be surprised. Also do the clotting panel. We got my IVIG covered because I had APS.

OP here. My husband doesn't want me to do the treatments for immune issues. He feels it's too risky for my health because I would need the IVIG plus other meds and a high dose due to how severe my immune issues are. He wants to just stop treatment now and be parents of an only. There's no point in pursuing IVF at this point because I've been diagnosed with the immune issues, it wouldn't have worked anyway unless I treat the immune issues. We're both concerned about why my NK cells are so high. There must be a reason for it, right? Like my body is fighting off a tumor or something. He feels like it would be risky to my health to suppress this high NK count. I think I'll speak to a regular immunologist as my next step.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It may take a high dose of IVIG or IVIG plus other treatments. The test results are for NKs added to the test tube, not to your body. Besides that my NKs actually spiked the first time I had IVIG even though my suppression was good. So do a couple of rounds of IVIG and check your numbers again. You might be surprised. Also do the clotting panel. We got my IVIG covered because I had APS.

OP here. My husband doesn't want me to do the treatments for immune issues. He feels it's too risky for my health because I would need the IVIG plus other meds and a high dose due to how severe my immune issues are. He wants to just stop treatment now and be parents of an only. There's no point in pursuing IVF at this point because I've been diagnosed with the immune issues, it wouldn't have worked anyway unless I treat the immune issues. We're both concerned about why my NK cells are so high. There must be a reason for it, right? Like my body is fighting off a tumor or something. He feels like it would be risky to my health to suppress this high NK count. I think I'll speak to a regular immunologist as my next step.

Depending on how high your NK cells are, you may want to consult a rheumatologist.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It may take a high dose of IVIG or IVIG plus other treatments. The test results are for NKs added to the test tube, not to your body. Besides that my NKs actually spiked the first time I had IVIG even though my suppression was good. So do a couple of rounds of IVIG and check your numbers again. You might be surprised. Also do the clotting panel. We got my IVIG covered because I had APS.

OP here. My husband doesn't want me to do the treatments for immune issues. He feels it's too risky for my health because I would need the IVIG plus other meds and a high dose due to how severe my immune issues are. He wants to just stop treatment now and be parents of an only. There's no point in pursuing IVF at this point because I've been diagnosed with the immune issues, it wouldn't have worked anyway unless I treat the immune issues. We're both concerned about why my NK cells are so high. There must be a reason for it, right? Like my body is fighting off a tumor or something. He feels like it would be risky to my health to suppress this high NK count. I think I'll speak to a regular immunologist as my next step.

Did Dr. Abbasi send you to another doctor for more tests based on your results? Your numbers may be stubborn with the suppression they tested in a tube but that does not mean they won't budge, especially if you use IVIG or IL along with other therapies. IVIG alone did not work for me, I had to combine other meds in order to have success. Not doing the immune treatments does not mean that you are more or less likely to get an autoimmune disease in the future. Clearly your first pregnancy triggered something that you were already predisposed to. Please also consider that there is a genetic component to this which means you didn't *do anything to cause this. I have the KIR-AA haplotype which makes it easier for my body to fight infection and other illnesses. Great in general, but definitely makes my immune system over active at times. Is that a terrible thing? Probably only when I'm trying to stay pregnant.

I don't want to convince you one way or the other, but I would like you to have all the information you need to make an educated decision.

How high are your NKs? What was your TNF?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It may take a high dose of IVIG or IVIG plus other treatments. The test results are for NKs added to the test tube, not to your body. Besides that my NKs actually spiked the first time I had IVIG even though my suppression was good. So do a couple of rounds of IVIG and check your numbers again. You might be surprised. Also do the clotting panel. We got my IVIG covered because I had APS.

OP here. My husband doesn't want me to do the treatments for immune issues. He feels it's too risky for my health because I would need the IVIG plus other meds and a high dose due to how severe my immune issues are. He wants to just stop treatment now and be parents of an only. There's no point in pursuing IVF at this point because I've been diagnosed with the immune issues, it wouldn't have worked anyway unless I treat the immune issues. We're both concerned about why my NK cells are so high. There must be a reason for it, right? Like my body is fighting off a tumor or something. He feels like it would be risky to my health to suppress this high NK count. I think I'll speak to a regular immunologist as my next step.

Depending on how high your NK cells are, you may want to consult a rheumatologist.

OP here. NK cells were 33%. I'm worried about what this means for my general health, pregnancy aside. I don't have any personal or family history of autoimmune, thyroid or allergy problems. I'm perplexed quite frankly. And I get sick plenty--sick with a bad cold right now in fact and I get the flu almost every year as well.

[Anonymous]

OP here. To answer the other question, TNF is 30. What does this result mean? IFN is 15. My leukocyte antibody detection panel is negative, which I don't understand because I already had a baby. All my values for leukocyte antibody detection panel are all 1.0. Can anyone help me interpret these results? Additionally, when they added the IVIG some of the results got worse (higher). What does this all mean????

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. To answer the other question, TNF is 30. What does this result mean? IFN is 15. My leukocyte antibody detection panel is negative, which I don't understand because I already had a baby. All my values for leukocyte antibody detection panel are all 1.0. Can anyone help me interpret these results? Additionally, when they added the IVIG some of the results got worse (higher). What does this all mean????

Is could just mean that your body isn't so great at making B cells, which is what the LAD test looks for. Mine were in the 90th percentile so that probably has something to do with why I don't get sick very often. Being on either end of the spectrum is probably not a good thing when you want a "normal" immune response to pregnancy. Doing a few rounds of IVIG might take care of both the TNF (which isn't super high - I've seen some people with TNF that is 60-70) and the NKs. Once your immune system is in check you will be more receptive to an embryo implanting. The numbers can get worse because IVIG can seek out hidden infections and cause your body to fight those as well. Mine spiked initially on IVIG and then over the course of 4 doses my numbers were great, it just turned out that I needed the Neupogen too so once we added that I was able to get and stay pregnant.

From the limited amount you put I would say yes your NKs are high but there is no reason to think that with a higher dose or with several doses of IVIG that those numbers might not come down. Otherwise there isn't anything about your situation that strikes me as particularly difficult or unique from an immune patient standpoint. I'm just saying the treatments could work for you if you decide to try them. I understand your husband has reservations, mine did too, but in the end you have to evaluate if the treatments (which many on here have done) are going to keep you from trying. I was scared when I started this process too. I had a lot of fear about the treatments and side effects and all of that is completely normal. Doing my first shot of Neupogen was stressful and I was one of the first to try that treatment! I kind of used this as an opportunity to learn more about myself and my immune system and then hopefully if something comes up as I get older I won't be starting from square 1 learning about it.

I'm not sure if it helps or not but my great grandmother had a first born male and then no other pregnancies. She lived to be 94. Genetically I believe what I have was passed through this side of the family. I'm just saying it doesn't have to be an indication that there is something wrong with you or that there will be in the future.

[Anonymous]

OP here. Thanks for all the helpful info. My family history is incredibly fertile, and I have 14 first cousins who all had 3 kids each, and most of them are boys. In addition most of my female relatives were very fertile naturally into their mid 40s. I got pregnant right away with #1 and assumed I was also very fertile. Now it's been almost 18 months trying for #2 with not a single pregnancy and I definitely am infertile now. It's just really strange about my immune test results. How can I find out if I'm genetically predisposed to this immune issue? I have no history of autoimmune issues in my family and I don't have any autoimmune issues. I feel the results are accurate based on my whole situation but just am having difficulty understanding why this is happening. I feel like Mother Nature is telling me that I should not have a second child--it's going to take multiple rounds of IVF plus immune treatments just to have a chance (and a very low chance) of becoming pregnant again. The thought of putting myself through all that, plus possible ICSI, assisted hatching, PVD testing, etc. all seems like too much medical intervention.