Going to GP for tests?

physicskate

I would be assuming the GP was suggesting to you that you came back "saying" you had another miscarriage before getting referred....maybe that's why he wouldn't look you in the eye...if you see what I mean...

@katiegd

I'd suggest going along to your GP now, it's been 18 months which is a decent length of time TTC

Roughly, I think the guidelines are that if you're under 35 it's TTC for over 12 months or over 35 TTC for 6 months.

This should be a threshold where GPs start to initiate tests/investigations.

I'm 38, well practically 39 now, and I went to my GP after almost 6 months of TTC after my MMC last summer.
She sent me for all the bloods- thyroid, progesterone, FSH & LH etc

The last time I saw the GP in March she advised that my OH should get tested too. After much reminding & nagging he's finally going to get his sperm tested now.

At this rate I'll be going through the menopause before we get any further!

It's not a quick process- and that's just commenting from this side i.e. where me & my OH are asking for tests etc let alone waiting for a referral.

I'd get on with seeing your GP now if I was you.

My background is 2 previous pregnancies- have a 3 year old born when I was 35, then a MMC last year aged 37.

Both times I got pregnant first cycle after stopping the pill. TTC over the past year has been a difficult journey.

florafoxtrot difficult to say. Yes, usually normal results would be discuss on the phone, but every practice does things differently. Plus there are shades of bad. Normal count with poor motility is very common and sometimes normalises on a repeat test. No sperm at all, or very few, is much rarer. Good luck

Sorry to hijack but since I know you are here @wickerlampshade

My DH had his SA test 3 weeks ago, he phoned the GP this morning and they confirmed that his results are in and that he needs to make an appointment - that's bad news isn't it?

Thanks wickerlampshade, that's good to know. I'm so pleased you came on this thread , and thank you for starting it katiegd.

It's tricky as technically speaking you are conceiving. But I'd probably, if you wanted me to, ignore the chemical pregnancies and get going.

fallenskies I'm not sure my reply before was right - I probably would do the initial tests for secondary subfertility and have done in the past. I was thinking more of things like HSG done at secondary care level, which I wouldn't be able to refer to. I'd probably offer lots of sympathy, do the bloods/scan/swab/semen, ask if you'd considered ovulation monitoring and anything more than that would be private.

Wicker - I was hoping for day 3 and 21 tests, as I suspect I have low progesterone after ov (I spot a lot)...

He said I could get blood tests, not rmu, after another 12 months. He suggested have a miscarriage to get tested for recurrent miscarriage, and looked as though that was the referral he would be more likely to refer me to - not simple tests and maybe a scan. This was all while I was so nauseous and dizzy during my chemical I couldn't walk in a straight line. I've since learned to temper my expectations.

The other GP tried to prescribe me anti-depresseants a month before, as I was worried that the stress of ttc was affecting my mental health.

Yeah, my surgery is full of winners.

To be fair physicskate a recurrent miscarriage clinic would have bounced that referral.

I'd been ttc for a year at that point and had had two chemical pregnancies, which clearly weren't viable conceptions...

He said he'd refer me after another 12 months in the breath after tell me to mc again.

Generally not, I'd suggest that you seek a private referral. HFEA website is a good place to start researching clinics

Will a gp still do fertility tests if you aren't eligible for ivf on the NHS? We have been trying for 10 months and we're thinking of going to the gp to ask for tests, but we have one child already

if you google "NHS IVF criteria (your borough)" you can check if you meet the local criteria for referral. You will usually need to have a BMI of under 30, both be non-smokers, have no children together and have been trying for at least 1y, though there can be subtle differences between different areas.

My gp wouldn't look me in the eye and told me to have another miscarriage so I could get test

clearly he has the communication skills of a stuffed aubergine, but if you've had two miscarriages (for which ) he may have been trying to tell you that NHS recurrent miscarriages will only accept women who have had three.

I'm a GP and I would refer you - before referring I'd want to do a semen analysis for your husband and a load of blood tests/swabs/scan on you first. So easiest is if you book two consecutive appointments (one each) then we have plenty of time and can get it all sorted. I'm also happy to see you at separate times if that is easier with work etc. If he's registered at a different GP I'd ask him to sort out a semen analysis via his own GP and give me a copy of the result. Referral is usually in both names (but via the woman's GP if registered at different practices) unless any specific semen related problems in which case occasionally refer the man seperately to urology but that's uncommon.

For the first year, I didn't track my ovulation and didn't even know what opks and tww were... Clearly didn't experience any stress whatsoever but clearly didn't get pregnant...

I do think there's some truth in it as stress does affect hormone levels and stressed out people are more likely to be less healthy or even get ill more often. But de-stressing isn't an infertility cure

My gp wouldn't look me in the eye and told me to have another miscarriage so I could get tests.

I hope he sleeps well at night.

Our GP practice has a website so I went on there, checked what they specialized in and then targeted the GP we saw....

.... yeah I'm getting pretty desperate with it all

You could do. Hopefully, the prize idiot of a GP I saw initially is a bit of a rarity. The other one has been knowledgeable and supportive. You could also make sure you get copies of tests and see what you got tested for and cross check the results. E.g. with the muppet GP, it turned out that tested my liver, kidneys, tested for anaemia etc but I only found out that he had never done any relevant tests when I got a copy of results to go private...

I went to the GP on my own and explained that we were struggling to conceive and the NHS website said I should see my GP. The GP said they test separately in our area and it's the woman first. I had a swab and blood taken on day 21 of my next cycle and an abdominal scan. Nothing showed up so DH then had to provide a sperm sample. Good luck to you

And beware of utterly shitty GPs. Ours refused to refer repeatedly so needed to change GPs to achieve anything on the NHS.