Conventional IVF

[Anonymous]

Anyone do multiple rounds of IVF with ICSI and not get eggs to make it past three days?

This round we are going to try to flip flop follistim and menopur doses (225 follistim and 150 menopur instead of the reverse) and then let the sperm find their way to the egg instead of ICSI?

Any advice?

[Anonymous]

How many rounds did you do? Honestly, after multiple rounds they should come up with more than toggling these specific meds. WHich practice are you at?

[Anonymous]

I've been to Columbia for 7 rounds and 4 at Shady Grove.

[Anonymous]

Those are high doses of meds and might be why you aren't getting anything to day 5.

We switched from SG to Cornell for this very reason - they refused to change DW's protocol despite several miserable cycles. Best decision we made. I know many people have success with SG - we weren't one of them.

We did have success working with Dr. Davis at Cornell and Dr. Braverman. I'd recommend you look into Cornell and co-culture.

[Anonymous]

What doses of meds did your wife do? Neither of us has any abnormal for our age things wrong--normal AFC, normal AMH, get 13-16 eggs a cycle that are mature and fertilize.

I'll look into co-culture.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What doses of meds did your wife do? Neither of us has any abnormal for our age things wrong--normal AFC, normal AMH, get 13-16 eggs a cycle that are mature and fertilize.

I'll look into co-culture.

I’m in the same boat, OP. I’m hoping my RE can come up with something new to try because Gonal F, Menopur and Cetrotide gets me tons of eggs but zero blasts.

[Anonymous]

I would suggest ubiquinol for 90 days prior to your next cycle. If you are not all in for conventional then ask for a 50/50 split conventional/icsi.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I've been to Columbia for 7 rounds and 4 at Shady Grove.

If all they come up with is toggling the meds you need another opinion. I did not cycle at Cornell for logistics and financial issues, but I went for a consult and found it useful. Dr. Davis suggests a low dose protocol which starts with either Femara or Clomid and then adds injectables.

You can try to do that with a local doctor. Also, if you are at columbia, have you done immune testing, and tried any additional meds like IVIG, prednisone or metformin during stims and transfer?

[Anonymous]

Started at Columbia and tested for immune stuff--nothing substantial came back. Abbasi put me on Doxy and Prednisone etc for a cycle and we did a 3 day transfer with shitty embryos...obviously nothing happened.

We are splitting this group up 80% with be conventional ivf sperm finds its way and 20% will be donor sperm to see it we have an undiagnosed (impossible to diagnose issue). If the sperm donor eggs make it to blast which is what Dr. O'B thinks then we will have found the problem. I believe none of them will make it again and I just have all the right AMHs, AFCs, FSHs,TSHs, etc but my eggs are actually just some shit and it was pure LUCK I ever had a baby.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Started at Columbia and tested for immune stuff--nothing substantial came back. Abbasi put me on Doxy and Prednisone etc for a cycle and we did a 3 day transfer with shitty embryos...obviously nothing happened.

We are splitting this group up 80% with be conventional ivf sperm finds its way and 20% will be donor sperm to see it we have an undiagnosed (impossible to diagnose issue). If the sperm donor eggs make it to blast which is what Dr. O'B thinks then we will have found the problem. I believe none of them will make it again and I just have all the right AMHs, AFCs, FSHs,TSHs, etc but my eggs are actually just some shit and it was pure LUCK I ever had a baby.

Don't mean to belabor the point but what have you done to try and improve your egg quality? Suggest you read the book it starts with the egg.

[Anonymous]

Accupuncture, COQ10, Ubiquinol, Thermalogix products, Braverman products, Took 3 months off work to destress, yoga, spinning, sleep more, eat healthy, lost weight, black strap molasses....When I first started this I took the whole list Abbasi gives everyone....I took those religiously for 6 months.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What doses of meds did your wife do? Neither of us has any abnormal for our age things wrong--normal AFC, normal AMH, get 13-16 eggs a cycle that are mature and fertilize.

I'll look into co-culture.

I don't remember exactly, just that it was super high doses of both follistim and menopur. I want to say we were using like 4-5 vials of 75 units of Menopur. At Cornell, the doses were much lower for both meds.

The other nice thing about working at Cornell is that the REs themselves do the monitoring, and they tweak the meds really specifically leading up to ER.

[Anonymous]

I was on 4 vials of menopur and 225 of follistim for most of the cycle. Switching that now.

[Anonymous]

Many REs use less Menopur - it tends not to be good for quality. Seems odd that you've always done more Meno than the recombinant FSH. Meno has equal amounts FSH/LH, whereas Gonal F and it's equivalents have only FSH.

But, as many have posted in response to your posts before, no/few blasts isn't that uncommon (even if you had a kid easily before), it's not likely a sperm issue and trying lower doses of meds would be the way to go if you're going to keep going. But, I hope ditching ICSI works for you anyway. There is still quite a bit of luck involved!

[Anonymous]

I would go one less vial of Menopur still (75).