IUIs

BeccaNS · 01-12-2009, 09:36 PM

Hello everyone
I've posted this a couple of other places, thought I'd try here too. I'm wondering if anyone has had success with an IUI with MF. We tried a year ago but day of IUI doctor told us after wash we just didn't have enough "good" sperm. Now a year later our RE is talking about us doing a IUI. Is this a waste of money. I want to do one so bad (we just don't have the money for IVF) but am scared we would just be wasting money. So I was curious if anyone with MF had a successful IUI and how high was the sperm count. Thanks

DeeBee · 01-13-2009, 10:39 AM

We also have Male Factor IF. Morphology was the problem at 2% strict. We did 2 IUI's with no BFP. Went on to do 2 IVF's plus ICSI and finally BFP with the 2nd. I'm now 5 mos pregnant. ICSI is the most successful treatment for severe male factor IF. Unfortunately for us, we did have to spend about $30K this past yr getting pregnant and maxed out some credit cards, but I'm glad the agony of waiting mos to mos to find out if I'm pregnant is over. The money seems worth it to me now.

BeccaNS · 01-13-2009, 11:40 AM

Thanks DeeBee and congrats on the pregnancy. I really don't know what we are going to do. I have another appt with RE in the morning so I guess we will see what he has to say. My DH has varacocele on both sides I wonder if he had them repaired if it would increase our numbers enough for a successful IUI.

kitkat30 · 01-13-2009, 03:26 PM

Hi Becca,

my DH has vericocele as well and we were told IVF w/ICSI was what we would have to do to. I don't have a success to share but i was wondering the same thing. Also you need to PM mk---- he's on this forum and he had one as well. He did the surgery and him and DW are preg naturally. so there is success out there.
I'm sure he'll catch up to you on this but if not see if you can find him, MK is followed by numbers i just don't know them off the top of my head...lol

Keep in mind that the RE will shine you away from the surgery (and it's theiorized that they loose the business). And our urologist didn't seem to be very proactive about it and it is NOT a gurantee to fix it. I've heard all the stories.....the good, it increased everything and preg achived, the nothing changed, and i've heard it got lower after of got better only to drop after. I'm sure it depends on the type of surgery but i don't know the difference, you would think they would have done a study on this by now.

Anyway good luck with what ever you do.

BeccaNS · 01-13-2009, 08:16 PM

Hi KitKat ,

We have seen 2 urologist, the first wasn't very good but the second was really nice. We just saw him for the other day. He did recommend fixing the varicocele. But was really nice and said that if we were doing IVF that it didn't matter if we fixed the varicocele. I'm not sure what we are going to do though. I was hoping for some success stories to encourage trying an IUI. We are going to decide in the next month what we are going to do. Thanks for posting.

lakelivin · 01-13-2009, 09:39 PM

Hi Becca - I would consider the surgery even if you are doing IVF. There is a lot of fairly new research out about DNA fragmentation and varicocele is one of the risk factors. If the fragmentation is too high, even ICSI may not help. DH and I are waiting on the results of our SCSA test... we had a failed DE IVF cycle in Europe and that is when the doc suggested the test. That was after 5 OE IVFs, all BFN. It was devastating to see the DEggs stop divided just like mine do...

Below is an interesting article, I found it a few weeks back and noticed it posted on another thread recently. I think it is something everyone dealing with IF should read!

http://www.malereproduction.com/sper...structure.html

Good Luck!

BeccaNS · 01-19-2009, 09:53 AM

Thanks Lakelivin,

Thanks for the article, we are still discussing the surgery. We have seen 4 doctors and none seem to recommend anything to find out why DH has bad numbers. I asked our RE about checking hormone levels on DH and he said good idea. Why didn't anyone else do that over the last 2 years. Did ya'll get your results for the SCSA test? Before you sent the article I had asked our nurse about DNA Fragmenting and she said they didn't do any test for that. So I guess I'll ask our RE next visit. Thanks again for the help.

DeeBee · 01-19-2009, 11:00 AM

My DH saw a Urologist only after I suggested it to the RE. 2 Urologists said that DH had a very small almost undetectable variocele and neither suggested surgery would work. We then had the DNA Frag test which came back 16% fragmented. (anything below 30%) is considered normal/good. This made us feel better about moving forward with IVF + ICSI. IVF #1: all 10 embryos took at some level (with DNA fragmented sperm the embryos don't do anything...the sperm is injected into the egg and nothing happens) IVF #2: only 1 of 14 embryos failed to take at all. This coincides with our DNA Fragmentation Test. The DNA Frag test will help you to make a better decision as to either move forward with IVF one day, more IUI"s, sperm donation (nobody wants to hear) or whatever you decide to do.

BeccaNS · 01-19-2009, 04:31 PM

Hi DeeBee thanks for the information. I was wondering how much the DNA fragmenting test was and did how long it took to get results. Thanks. We are having his hormone levels checked to see if taking clomid would help him. I'm just waiting for them to call. My last appt everything was all clear for me. So we will see.

lakelivin · 01-19-2009, 06:16 PM

Becca - The test is done by SCSA Diagnostics. It is $350 (test + shipping)

http://www.scsadiagnostics.com/

Our doctor's office called today while we were out, so hopefully we'll get our results tomorrow.

Also, I have not read anything, or been told by my RE, that DNA fragmentation prevents cell division. The embryo will begin to develop, but studies have shown that it usually arrests before blastocyst, fails to implant or ends in early miscarriage.

01-12-2009, 09:36 PM	#1 (permalink)
BeccaNS 0-99 post 2 of hearts Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: texas Posts: 83	IUIs Hello everyone I've posted this a couple of other places, thought I'd try here too. I'm wondering if anyone has had success with an IUI with MF. We tried a year ago but day of IUI doctor told us after wash we just didn't have enough "good" sperm. Now a year later our RE is talking about us doing a IUI. Is this a waste of money. I want to do one so bad (we just don't have the money for IVF) but am scared we would just be wasting money. So I was curious if anyone with MF had a successful IUI and how high was the sperm count. Thanks

01-13-2009, 10:39 AM	#2 (permalink)
DeeBee 200-299 post 4 of hearts Join Date: Jul 2008 Location: Northern California Posts: 261	Preg mentioned We also have Male Factor IF. Morphology was the problem at 2% strict. We did 2 IUI's with no BFP. Went on to do 2 IVF's plus ICSI and finally BFP with the 2nd. I'm now 5 mos pregnant. ICSI is the most successful treatment for severe male factor IF. Unfortunately for us, we did have to spend about $30K this past yr getting pregnant and maxed out some credit cards, but I'm glad the agony of waiting mos to mos to find out if I'm pregnant is over. The money seems worth it to me now.

01-19-2009, 11:00 AM	#8 (permalink)
DeeBee 200-299 post 4 of hearts Join Date: Jul 2008 Location: Northern California Posts: 261	in addition to my last post My DH saw a Urologist only after I suggested it to the RE. 2 Urologists said that DH had a very small almost undetectable variocele and neither suggested surgery would work. We then had the DNA Frag test which came back 16% fragmented. (anything below 30%) is considered normal/good. This made us feel better about moving forward with IVF + ICSI. IVF #1: all 10 embryos took at some level (with DNA fragmented sperm the embryos don't do anything...the sperm is injected into the egg and nothing happens) IVF #2: only 1 of 14 embryos failed to take at all. This coincides with our DNA Fragmentation Test. The DNA Frag test will help you to make a better decision as to either move forward with IVF one day, more IUI"s, sperm donation (nobody wants to hear) or whatever you decide to do.

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01-13-2009, 11:40 AM	#3 (permalink)
BeccaNS 0-99 post 2 of hearts Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: texas Posts: 83	Thanks DeeBee and congrats on the pregnancy. I really don't know what we are going to do. I have another appt with RE in the morning so I guess we will see what he has to say. My DH has varacocele on both sides I wonder if he had them repaired if it would increase our numbers enough for a successful IUI.

01-13-2009, 03:26 PM	#4 (permalink)
kitkat30 0-99 post 2 of hearts Join Date: Nov 2008 Location: Eastern Ohio Posts: 73	Hi Becca, my DH has vericocele as well and we were told IVF w/ICSI was what we would have to do to. I don't have a success to share but i was wondering the same thing. Also you need to PM mk---- he's on this forum and he had one as well. He did the surgery and him and DW are preg naturally. so there is success out there. I'm sure he'll catch up to you on this but if not see if you can find him, MK is followed by numbers i just don't know them off the top of my head...lol Keep in mind that the RE will shine you away from the surgery (and it's theiorized that they loose the business). And our urologist didn't seem to be very proactive about it and it is NOT a gurantee to fix it. I've heard all the stories.....the good, it increased everything and preg achived, the nothing changed, and i've heard it got lower after of got better only to drop after. I'm sure it depends on the type of surgery but i don't know the difference, you would think they would have done a study on this by now. Anyway good luck with what ever you do.

01-13-2009, 08:16 PM	#5 (permalink)
BeccaNS 0-99 post 2 of hearts Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: texas Posts: 83	Hi KitKat , We have seen 2 urologist, the first wasn't very good but the second was really nice. We just saw him for the other day. He did recommend fixing the varicocele. But was really nice and said that if we were doing IVF that it didn't matter if we fixed the varicocele. I'm not sure what we are going to do though. I was hoping for some success stories to encourage trying an IUI. We are going to decide in the next month what we are going to do. Thanks for posting.

01-13-2009, 09:39 PM	#6 (permalink)
lakelivin 100-199 post 3 of hearts Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: GA Posts: 169	Hi Becca - I would consider the surgery even if you are doing IVF. There is a lot of fairly new research out about DNA fragmentation and varicocele is one of the risk factors. If the fragmentation is too high, even ICSI may not help. DH and I are waiting on the results of our SCSA test... we had a failed DE IVF cycle in Europe and that is when the doc suggested the test. That was after 5 OE IVFs, all BFN. It was devastating to see the DEggs stop divided just like mine do... Below is an interesting article, I found it a few weeks back and noticed it posted on another thread recently. I think it is something everyone dealing with IF should read! http://www.malereproduction.com/sper...structure.html Good Luck!

01-19-2009, 09:53 AM	#7 (permalink)
BeccaNS 0-99 post 2 of hearts Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: texas Posts: 83	Thanks Lakelivin, Thanks for the article, we are still discussing the surgery. We have seen 4 doctors and none seem to recommend anything to find out why DH has bad numbers. I asked our RE about checking hormone levels on DH and he said good idea. Why didn't anyone else do that over the last 2 years. Did ya'll get your results for the SCSA test? Before you sent the article I had asked our nurse about DNA Fragmenting and she said they didn't do any test for that. So I guess I'll ask our RE next visit. Thanks again for the help.

01-19-2009, 04:31 PM	#9 (permalink)
BeccaNS 0-99 post 2 of hearts Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: texas Posts: 83	Hi DeeBee thanks for the information. I was wondering how much the DNA fragmenting test was and did how long it took to get results. Thanks. We are having his hormone levels checked to see if taking clomid would help him. I'm just waiting for them to call. My last appt everything was all clear for me. So we will see.

01-19-2009, 06:16 PM	#10 (permalink)
lakelivin 100-199 post 3 of hearts Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: GA Posts: 169	Becca - The test is done by SCSA Diagnostics. It is $350 (test + shipping) http://www.scsadiagnostics.com/ Our doctor's office called today while we were out, so hopefully we'll get our results tomorrow. Also, I have not read anything, or been told by my RE, that DNA fragmentation prevents cell division. The embryo will begin to develop, but studies have shown that it usually arrests before blastocyst, fails to implant or ends in early miscarriage.