PICSI for Male Factor - posting in case this helps someone
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shibes219
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Hi All - I wanted to post the results of my latest PICSI cycle in case it helps someone else. I know I was trolling this discussion board and others for advice and didn't see too much written on PICSI. So we have a severe male factor due most likely to undescended testicle as a kid and varicocele veins. Our first IVF cycle we did ICSI - had 12 perfect 3 day embryos, but by day 5 we only had 1 blast that was BB, and then one that caught up on day 6 and made it to freeze - both BFN. The hypothesis was that it was the sperm since the embryonic genome takes over embryo development more at day 3.
My husband had a varicocele surgery which improved his motility and morphology a bit (3-4% morph and like 45-60% motility). Count actually went down from 2m to 1.4m. So next cycle we tried PICSI to try and pick better sperm. I did absolutely nothing different on my part. Unfortunately - I started to ovulate before retrieval so we ended up getting only 10 fertilized eggs. The 5 day report came yesterday and I was more nervous than waiting for beta results! 5 blasts - three of which were hatching and excellent quality and two of which were still growing. Then 2 others that were in the stage before blast. I imagine this was a combination of the PICSI and his surgery, but I credit the PICSI more since his numbers didn't change that much after the surgery. We're in the TWW now with a perfect fully hatched blast transferred yesterday - praying that this is the one for us! If you are in a similar situation with a severe male factor - I encourage you to ask about PICSI. At SG it doesn't cost anything extra. Good luck and hope this helps someone reading! |
Anonymous
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Good luck, OP! Sounds promising.
FWIW, I'm in the middle of a PGS cycle at Shady Grove, and according to my nurse, it is standard to use PICSI if you are doing PGS. |
Anonymous
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Shady Grove now routinely does PICSI for PGS. We got more normal blasts with PICSI than with regular ICSI so there may be something to it.
Our first cycle, we did not plan to do PGS so they did ICSI. We tested the blasts from that cycle along with those from the next two cycles where PGS was planned. The only normals were from the PICSI cycles. There were slight changes to the doses of meds as well so it may be a combination. |
Anonymous
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We supposedly* did picsi for our 2nd ivf cycle. We had borderline morphology (4%) and no blasts our first cycle with regular icsi. We couldn't appreciate any difference... Still no blasts the 2nd round either.
*I do wonder if SG actually did it or not though because there was no mention whatsoever of it when we requested copies of our records after the 2nd cycle. |
Anonymous
They should have mentioned it at the time of retrieval. The REs who did the procedure both times showed us a form and marked off the things that would be done. PICSI was listed. |
shibes219
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| OP here - happy to hear it's becoming more the norm - especially with PGS. My first cycle was back in August and it was not suggested to me, but I feel like if they are showing better blasts when using it for PGS (and it doesn't cost extra) it should be recommended always over ICSI - unless I'm missing something. Still a full week left in the brutal TWW but we did freeze 5 perfect blasts! So 60% top quality blasts vs. 12% for my first cycle. Hopefully one of these little ones give us our first baby! Oh - also we learned that with PICSI, only 10% of his sperm bound and all were selected from the bound sperm. This shines light on the stats from our first cycle since it appears at best we only had one normal embryo that time around. And, as I mentioned - my protocol was exactly the same, I was on the same supplements, etc. Nothing different on my end except for being 6 months older! Good luck to anyone reading with MFI! |