If you have just recently discovered that you may be an unfortunate candidate for some infertility treatments than prepare yourself for a long emotional and frustrating ride. There is no genuine way to describe to a new infertility patient the amount of information and different angles that the medical community is trying to fight infertility.
So first things first there is really no way to take it all in when you discover all the treatment plans for infertility that are out there. One thing that we discovered very quickly is that treating fertility problems is a relatively young science when you look back on the history of it. With that said there seem to always be evolving treatments for infertility and some times it’s enough to make your head spin for sure.
Keeping up on all the latest break thrus for fighting infertility is a challenge in itself so I wanted to go through a brief list of some of the more common infertility conditions that will hopefully be of some help to who ever may come upon my list.
Let’s start with the treatment of artificial insemination as there are four different approaches and they are intratubal insemination (ITI), intracervical insemination (ICI), intravaginal insemination (IVI) and the last and most often used approach is intrauterine insemination (IUI). All of these infertility procedures involve the placement of the sperm into the reproductive tract of the woman. The most successful of these procedures is the IUI like said it has the highest success rate of these treatments and is the least invasive as well which is a big plus in terms of cost as well. As with all things related to fighting infertility there is no cheap way to deal with this problem as most procedures cost a lot of money.
OK are you ready let’s now take a look at some of the more common fertility drugs that are being used now a days. This can be a rather long list but I will try and keep it to the more frequently used infertility drug treatments. First one at the top of the list will most likely be one of the first one’s that your fertility doc will introduce to your infertility treatment plan. Clomiphene citrate better known as clomid is considered right now to be one of the top go to fertility drugs when it comes to the treatment of ovulatory problems. Mainly because it has a better track record when it comes to causing side effects like a multiple pregnancy.
The next four infertility drugs are generally used to treat issues that you may have with your FSH which is the hormone in your system that helps your eggs to mature to the appropriate levels. Follistim, Gonal-F, Bravelle and Fertinex are all used to copy and do the job of what your natural FSH levels don’t seem to be able to do anymore most likely because they have fallen out of the range of what the infertility specialist consider to be a normal range. They all have varying degrees of success and over the years we have found that it depends mostly on what your fertility doc has worked with the most and feels most comfortable using in their practice.
Now that we have our drug list for your FSH treatments than of course that has to be followed up with some more drugs to treat your LH levels especially if you are going into an IVF or IUI procedure which odds are in your favor that you are. Here are the names of the LH drugs they are pregnyl, novarel and ovidrel and again these are drugs that are used to simulate what if your LH levels were normal should be doing which is triggering the ovulation process.
The FSH and LH levels seem to be where a lot of doctors focus their attention on and where your levels should be from day to day and week to week in your fertility cycle. It’s been our experience that most fertility docs use these levels as a sort of road map for what combination of those drugs to use as they try and rev up your system so to speak to increase your odds of getting pregnant.
There are plenty of more treatments, procedures and drugs that are being used every day. I will stop here for now though as I don’t want to overload this post with too much information. I guess I will leave with this parting thought for now. When looking for the right infertility treatment for your unique issues don’t be afraid to go to different clinics or doctors to find the right infertility specialist for you. It was our experience on more than one occasion that what we were told by one doctor was often not the case for another one. They all seem to be just throwing infertility treatments at the wall just to see what will stick so to speak. I wish there was a more definitive answer for all of out there but there just isn’t which is what makes the fight against infertility so difficult. What works for one patient and one doctor may not work for the next one. I’ll leave it at that until my next post….
Fighting Infertility 2010
Infertility Treatments And The Lite Facts
If you have just recently discovered that you may be an unfortunate candidate for some infertility treatments than prepare yourself for a long emotional and frustrating ride. There is no genuine way to describe to a new infertility patient the amount of information and different angles that the medical community is trying to fight infertility.
So first things first there is really no way to take it all in when you discover all the treatment plans for infertility that are out there. One thing that we discovered very quickly is that treating fertility problems is a relatively young science when you look back on the history of it. With that said there seem to always be evolving treatments for infertility and some times it’s enough to make your head spin for sure.
Keeping up on all the latest break thrus for fighting infertility is a challenge in itself so I wanted to go through a brief list of some of the more common infertility conditions that will hopefully be of some help to who ever may come upon my list.
Let’s start with the treatment of artificial insemination as there are four different approaches and they are intratubal insemination (ITI), intracervical insemination (ICI), intravaginal insemination (IVI) and the last and most often used approach is intrauterine insemination (IUI). All of these infertility procedures involve the placement of the sperm into the reproductive tract of the woman. The most successful of these procedures is the IUI like said it has the highest success rate of these treatments and is the least invasive as well which is a big plus in terms of cost as well. As with all things related to fighting infertility there is no cheap way to deal with this problem as most procedures cost a lot of money.
OK are you ready let’s now take a look at some of the more common fertility drugs that are being used now a days. This can be a rather long list but I will try and keep it to the more frequently used infertility drug treatments. First one at the top of the list will most likely be one of the first one’s that your fertility doc will introduce to your infertility treatment plan. Clomiphene citrate better known as clomid is considered right now to be one of the top go to fertility drugs when it comes to the treatment of ovulatory problems. Mainly because it has a better track record when it comes to causing side effects like a multiple pregnancy.
The next four infertility drugs are generally used to treat issues that you may have with your FSH which is the hormone in your system that helps your eggs to mature to the appropriate levels. Follistim, Gonal-F, Bravelle and Fertinex are all used to copy and do the job of what your natural FSH levels don’t seem to be able to do anymore most likely because they have fallen out of the range of what the infertility specialist consider to be a normal range. They all have varying degrees of success and over the years we have found that it depends mostly on what your fertility doc has worked with the most and feels most comfortable using in their practice.
Now that we have our drug list for your FSH treatments than of course that has to be followed up with some more drugs to treat your LH levels especially if you are going into an IVF or IUI procedure which odds are in your favor that you are. Here are the names of the LH drugs they are pregnyl, novarel and ovidrel and again these are drugs that are used to simulate what if your LH levels were normal should be doing which is triggering the ovulation process.
The FSH and LH levels seem to be where a lot of doctors focus their attention on and where your levels should be from day to day and week to week in your fertility cycle. It’s been our experience that most fertility docs use these levels as a sort of road map for what combination of those drugs to use as they try and rev up your system so to speak to increase your odds of getting pregnant.
There are plenty of more treatments, procedures and drugs that are being used every day. I will stop here for now though as I don’t want to overload this post with too much information. I guess I will leave with this parting thought for now. When looking for the right infertility treatment for your unique issues don’t be afraid to go to different clinics or doctors to find the right infertility specialist for you. It was our experience on more than one occasion that what we were told by one doctor was often not the case for another one. They all seem to be just throwing infertility treatments at the wall just to see what will stick so to speak. I wish there was a more definitive answer for all of out there but there just isn’t which is what makes the fight against infertility so difficult. What works for one patient and one doctor may not work for the next one. I’ll leave it at that until my next post….
As always good luck and don’t let IF win!