DNA Fragmentation / TESE

[Anonymous]

My husband and I are looking for a RE in the DMV who takes DNA fragmentation seriously. We've had 3 rounds of IVF. The first two at CCRM failed to make a blast. The third round at SGF produced 3 blasts, all normal thankfully. The first FET of the normal blast was BFN and we're prepping for transfer #2. There appears to be no egg issues.

Both our CCRM and SGF doctors would not entertain conversations on DNA frag, but we did get the test done at SGF and husband's came back at 35.

As we prepare for transfer #2, we're thinking of next steps if this fails again. Is there a doctor in this area who will have a serious conversation about TESE or other avenues related to this?

Thanks in advance.

[Anonymous]

Abbasi.

[Anonymous]

I had no luck getting GW to take it seriously. I still wonder if it's why we always had beautiful day 3's that could never make blast, but alas, too late for us.

Unrelated, what was the difference in protocols between rounds 1 and 2 and round 3? Or what else do you think accounted for your much better results? Good luck, BTW!

[Anonymous]

I also didn't have any luck getting GW to take it seriously. I was thinking of making an appointment with Shady Grove because I heard they at least do testing. Or do they make that difficult to get?

I did read on prior posts that Dr. Dean, a urologist at GW, does testing.

[Anonymous]

We also could not get GW to take it seriously. They told us over and over that it didn’t matter. After 5 failed cycles, DH saw a urologist at Shady Grove who felt DH’s high frag was to blame and that he should do TESE. GW have a urologist at that time. Reported back to GW and they said that they’d recently hired Dr. Dean and DH should see him for a second opinion. DH saw Dean, and Dean unsurprisingly advised that the high frag wasn’t a problem and TESE wasn’t needed.

It seems like they just categorically don’t think sperm fragmentation matters. It’s always the eggs.

[Anonymous]

Meant to say that GW didn’t have a urologist at the time DH insisted he wanted to see one.

[Anonymous]

3 normal blasts is not a bad round. If you’re mid twenties and got 25+ eggs it might be disappointing, but that’s not exactly typical. And 35 isn’t that far off normal. TESE isn’t necessarily a fix for dna frag anyway. I’m assuming you did ICSI. That’s usually the best fix for sperm issues. My DH did TESE at SGF, but had severe MF. DH ended up going to Cornell and they didn’t do TESE. For poor quality, they recommend that a man ejaculate more often, not less. Some think supplements like antioxidants can help. Supplements take 3 months to have any effect (if they do work).

I found that SGF does take MF seriously. But I don’t think they would agree to unnecessary surgery, and do TESE if they didn’t think it would help.

The retrieval protocol can make a big difference in outcome. Sounds like SGFs protocol is better for you. It sucks u has 2 bad rounds, but u did the right thing by switching.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I had no luck getting GW to take it seriously. I still wonder if it's why we always had beautiful day 3's that could never make blast, but alas, too late for us.

Unrelated, what was the difference in protocols between rounds 1 and 2 and round 3? Or what else do you think accounted for your much better results? Good luck, BTW!

Thank you! My husband had varicocele surgery between rounds 1 & 2, but we think we did round 2 a bit too soon after the surgerY (3-4 mos). We started seeing improvement with his numbers about 6 mos after the surgery. I will say his count dramatically improved in the 11 mos since the surgery. My only difference in protocol was I did HCG trigger for rounds 2&3.

I appreciate everyone’s well wishes and advice.