Cases Against Reproductive Immunology

[Anonymous]

I would love to hear from people who, despite having endometriosis or anti-thyroid antibodies or the like, which normally point to immune protocols, didn't go down that path and still had success.

The debate over going this rabbit hole or not is really wearing on me. I do believe there is something there, but it's hard for me to pull the trigger to move on to an RI because I just don't think the field is as stable as it needs to be. I do believe we're just at the beginning cusp of it all, but is it worth it to go down that path if you're not willing to do the "experimental" protocols?

Are they any people out there who had multiple IVF failures/miscarriages, didn't go down the RI rabbit hole, and came out with a happy, healthy baby?

Looking for something here!

[Anonymous]

Me. I had hypothyroidism, no antibodies and had a child 2 years ago. I the. Developed hashimotos and have the antibodies- thought about going down the rabbit hole for #2, but just really focused on my TSH and I had success. No immunology stuff.

[Anonymous]

I have endo and am 11 weeks pregnant with donor egg. No immune treatment. Although if this doesn't work out, I will consider it.

[Anonymous]

I have endo and got pregnant on my 5th IUI attempt (2nd with injectables) the first time around. This time, it appears pregnancy + BFing for 15 months treated my end a bit, because I got pregnant quickly and without help.

[Anonymous]

We were unexplained and we only went minimally down the rabbit hole* before we turned around and tunneled our way back up to the sunshine. We moved to adoption and now have two beautiful daughters from China!

* (Well, compared to some people; we did 3 IUIs and 1 IVF.)

[Anonymous]

You do realize those are not the only things that would point to an immune issue right? Plus there are treatments that have an impact on your immune numbers that are fairly standard treatments depending on your issues. Case in point the immune impacts of metformin and just happens to also help PCOS patients. I'm afraid you are trying to separate areas that could be inherently intertwined. Also there are varying degrees of endo where one requires treatment and others do not. If you just have endo maybe you don't need treatment but if you have endo plus APS then maybe you do. I just don't think it's as cut and dry as you think it is.

If you know where to look on pubmed you can find lots of studies dealing with RI. Or just look for Coulam or Kwak-Kim and you'll find lots of supporting publications.

[Anonymous]

I had two kids naturally with undiagnosed Hashimoto's.

[Anonymous]

My sister had RPL, and I don't know how extensive of IF testing she got. She has vitiligo which is an auto-immune disease, but not necessarily associated with IF issues. The only "treatment" she did was baby aspirin for her two successful pregnancies. She had a late 1st trimester loss between those pregnancies where she didn't take baby aspirin, so I think there's at least some indication the baby aspirin helped with support.

Have you been pregnant before?

[Anonymous]

OP here. I have an almost 4 year old son conceived naturally. Didn't have any issues during his pregnancy except a small SCH which cleared on its own. Back then I didn't even know I was stopped to be freaked out by that. We also conceived naturally a year after he was born but it turned out to be ectopic and that's what led us to where we are now 3 years later with only a m/c to show for 4 transfers with 3 PGS normals.