Should I have immune testing?

[lucieloos]

My first IVF cycle has just failed. I'm 35 and it seemed to go fairly well. We had 6 mature eggs collected and all 6 fertilised and were still going on day 3 between 6-9 cells. On day 5 we havd 2 grade 2 blastocysts transferred, one of which was fully hatched and the other hatching. The others weren't suitable for freezing due to high fragmentation. They gave us 50% chance of success with them but no implantation at all. I know we could have been unlucky and the eggs could have been chromosomally defective but I just want to make sure I don't waste another lot of money on the next go if it is something else.

I'm planning to have a hysterescopy and HSG as I haven't had these before as my doctor said I don't have any history which would warrant them. I have been reading a lot of things recently about immune testing. I can see that a lot of clinics and prominent people such as Robert Winston don't believe in it but then there are a lot of success stories as well so I'm not sure what to do for the best.

Has anybody had immune testing and if so did it find anything and did the treatment work for you? How many cycles of ivf did you wait until you had it done? What would you recommend for me?

[Tryingno1]

Hi lucie

Sorry ur tx failed :( hope ur holding up ok.

The immune stuff is so complex and contresversial. However, i am a believer! A lot more ivf clinics are offering it now, mine offer it to
Women with 3 failed ivf or 3 miscarriages. I've had 3 miscarriages at the age of 28-30 and so couldn't really believe that it was "age" when every single test under the sun was negative.
I don't have a sucess story yet! As I've not been preg with immune tx yet but there's a lot of women on "trying to concieve on pred" and although it's not ivf women, these women have had multiple miscarriages and had sucess when pred was added into the mix. But some women haven't...also many on fertilityfriends which I find has more Posts on this topic.

I hope that ur first cycle was just one of those things sadly, and that without immunology u have sucess next time. Having the tests opens up a number of scary medications and new worries , so I don't think I would go back and have had the testing earlier-i would have wondered if I would have been ok without all these strong meds/regular follows up and medicalising pregnancy so much.

I think in medicine , trials are great but not the whole answer. New treatments start when doctors pioneer and try things out and only time will tell if they really work. So as my consultant said, there are no good randomised control trials but when I see a women with 12 miscarriages and I give her these drugs what else can I think?

All the best! I'm sure someone will reply saying the complete
Opposite to Me and how it's a load of rubbish! I would have thought, it's more Likely ur failed cycle was sadly just one of those things and hopefully they will have learnt a lot about ur body and adjust doses and timings next time to give u a postuve outcome. Good luck

[Shoegal30]

Hi lucie

I have been through a similar story to you. Me and DH diagnosed with unexplained infertility. We had our 1 NHS cycle in December and unfortunately it failed.

As we had to pay for this cycle we changed clinics to a private one which was slightly more expensive than having 2nd cycle at NHS hospital self-funded. There were 2 reasons I chose the private clinic, 1 no wait time to start second cycle and 2 the aftercare was better and more flexibility on appointments vs NHS hospital.

Anyway when I went to private clinic I asked for NK immune testing and the Dr looked through my notes and advised against it. He said he would rather try a cycle and take learns from my first cycle.

My first cycle I had 10 eggs collected, 9 mature, 3 fertilized but only 1 good enough to transfer -none to freeze.
This time the clinic advised trying ICSI and starting on higher dose of stimm meds. So second cycle I had 15 eggs collected, 13 mature, 8 fertilised, 2 transferred and 5 good enough to freeze. I also got my bfp yesterday.

So my advice is talk to the clinic and maybe get an opinion at another clinic to see what they advise and do you need the testing. Sometimes the second cycle just needs tweaking to get your result.

Good luck xx

[lucieloos]

Wow congratulations shoegal that's brilliant news! I guess they could try upping my dose on the next go. I have a lowish AMH of 7.3 and was on short protocol of 225iu of Menopur. On my final scan I had 12 follicles but 6 of these were too small to get a mature egg from. I think if they gave me a higher dose of around 300iu then some more of these could have possibly caught up. We had icsi for our first cycle because DH had low motility and morphology. I also had an endo scratch and used embryo glue so I struggle to think what else we could try. I am hoping the clinic will get back to me next week so will be interesting to see what they suggest.

Trying, I think there definitely must be something in the immune treatment especially for women who have had repeated miscarriages. I really hope that you have some success with it. I'm thinking of asking my clinic to do some of the blood tests next time I go out for egg collection (I am having treatment abroad) I think some of them are relatively inexpensive and if my 2nd tx then fails we will have a little head start with the results for the next cycle. I may also ask about treating empirically although I'm not sure if they would be happy to do that or not.

[Lauren83]

Hello, from your history I wouldn't say you needed immunes testing but some places will try you empirically with say clexane, steroids and Gestone, that's what I had this time and got my first BFP in 7 years and 4 ivfs, we were booked in for immunes testing £2,800 but got matched with an egg donor so we asked could we skip the tests and try the meds, we would of liked intralipids too but they wouldn't do those without the tests

[lucieloos]

Ok thanks Lauren perhaps i will ask my doctor if I can try the clexane and steroids if they don't do any harm. Congratulations on your bfp!!

[Lauren83]

Thankyou! I'm still in shock only 7 weeks so far. It was our last cycle and having endo made it more likely I could of have immunes issues, will never know if it made the difference but so glad I tried. Good luck!