TTC/ pregnancy on Prednisolone or similar

[freelancegirl]

I am not sure there are enough people here to start a thread but have been chatting on one on the pregnancy boards and was wondering if I could find any fellow ttc'ers on Prednisolone or similar?

I have just received a diagnosis of very high NK cells. It was a bit of a shock actually as it turns out I have some of the highest levels - 3.79 when anything over 1.8 is considered 'very high'.

Am trawling through Dr Beer's book and Dr Google and trying to found out more. I have been recommended 25mg prednisoline steroids for two weeks starting with ovulation, increasing to 40mg if/when BFP and then Intralipids Cyclogest too. I still have 13 days until I pop my first Pred.

There now just seem like so many hurdles - actually getting pregnant being the first one. I was prepared for high NK cells as I have high thyroid antibodies but it was shocking to be in the top 5% of people treated at the clinic. I am not sure if that gives me much less of a chance of being successful.

It would be great to hear from anyone else who is undergoing treatment and of course also if you've had successful treatment.

Hello everyone :)

freelance I am glad the intralipids weren't too bad - the mention of 1000 calories made me feel a bit queasy! I certainly don't need anymore calories added to me particularly if they don't come in the form of yummy food.
kittens I know how you feel with Dh. Mine recently said (when I said I had booked to see MR S) 'I don't think we should spend lots of money on this.' To which I replied ' you have just spent a grand on a new archery bow so if I were you I would shut the F**k up if I were you'. Silly sod. He is very supportive and when I made him realise how that sounded he was mortified that he had upset me ??!
libby I saw that thread - I read it before anyone else had posted on it and thought 'I will let someone else answer that'. I do have a problem with that Dr coming on, giving his opinions and then not coming back to answer follow up questions. Agree though that ilovemysleep answered it very well.
digi How are you getting on with your egg popping?

Big waves to everyone - I can't remember who asked if my miscarriages were getting earlier?? Well no they are not - they are getting later - the last at 12 weeks. Is this a sign that my nk cells may be ok?

My HCG was 50 on tuesday so I hope it is back down now - I did get a bfn yesterday, so I will now have to be careful that DP does not come anywhere near me before my appointment with MR S!
Other news - we sold out house yesterday and bought another all in the space of 12 hours. At least it gives me something to focus on! xx

congrats on the house buying battery are you going to do any redecorating/refurbishment? Nothing like a bit of interior design action to while away the weeks!
No sign of my promised Chinese herbs. No luck on egg-popping. If this cycle is anything like the last I'm at least a couple of weeks away from that happening - so just have to be patient for now . DS is 3 in about 6 weeks time. I'm going to have to accept another of his birthdays will pass without being pg and start getting my head around a 4 year age gap.

kittens it is bloody hard work for us. I had a row with dh the other night after he fell asleep when I thought we were on our 'daily' schedule. Not that it made any difference in the end as the scan this week proved. But yes, we take pills, we watch what we eat and drink, we watch what they eat and drink, we hold our wee all night, we take more pills, we piss into cups and sit on the loo scrutinising sticks, I check my goddamn cervix every morning and have a daily internal debate on whether that cm was ew or just dh's remnants...the list is endless. All we ask is for a little cooperation.
And breath. I hope this cycle is lucky for you. I really do.

Libby welcome. Hope your results provide the answers you need. Good luck for Monday.

Waves to cheerful, comedy and freelance

Digi you really made me laugh out loud with that long list of things we have to do or just do! I'm the same!

My DD will be 4 in Dec and I pray we will have some luck before the year end. It breaks my heart when she keeps asking why she doesn't have brother or sister. All her little friends now have siblings.

Freelance, sounds like everything went well yesterday. When do you go back?

Well I don't have much to report, still eating too much and waiting to test on Tuesday. Don't have any pregnancy symptoms so v doubtful this month. Hey at least I can have the weekend off and take a break from it!!!xx

Hi all - I had decided to try and get 'stetoid ready' by shedding a few pounds but not convinced that fish and chips last night and choc croissants this morning will help with that! I know it might sound a bit irrelevant in the scale of things but I hope the intrallips are closer to 1000 than 4000 calories - instead I could eat forty kit kats / twenty twirls, the list is endless ....

Hello ladies. Have any of you read anything or are able to point me in the direction of any research regarding failure to conceive and NK cells? I've never had a BFP but most months we have been trying I have had a few days of "preggo symptoms" which then go away. I have asked Dr Google and found quite a lot of info about NK cells and miscarriage but not about failure to conceive (or v v early miscarriage). I wondered if any of you knowledgeable ladies had come across anything?

Ps - 1000 cals without eating anything yummy - eek!

Gah, Cheerful! Don?t even mention 4000 calories!! Ah well, I have finally embraced the fact that I am not losing weight in a hurry. I have probably put on around 2 lbs in the last few weeks. Am trying not to care?am thinking if the pregnancy sticks around that will be the least of my worries! And if it doesn?t, well I will have to try to get it off afterwards. AND if it doesn?t I will soon be back on the ttc/Pred cycle anyway. So a few extra pounds are going to be part of my life for a while either way. But yes it is another annoyance. Last year I got really fit and slim and the pregnancy then miscarriage (I think it was a combination of hormonal weight gain and just misery drinking/eating weight gain) put paid to that. I beat myself up about it, but then I look in the mirror and take a long, realistic look and really, deep down, I know I am not too bad. You need to do that too! But yes, 40 kit kats would be much more fun than sitting in a quiet room with a milky white substance being dripped into your arm. The more I think about the intralipids session the other day, the more surreal it feels!

Thanks Libby for the link to that thread. I think I put something rather scathing on there ? but he pissed me off a bit! He posted the same thing on the Recurrent thread too. He is the director of the company (awful co. name by the way!) and I just wonder what his motive are for coming on here. And yes he might have a point but then his opinion is disputed by others too so who knows! They way he says it seems to be ?other people are wrong, but I am right??. See if he comes back.

Battery my DH has muttered about the cost too and although he hasn?t quite spent a grand on an archery bow (!) he HAS bought plenty of gadgets that add up to the same cash. Well done too on the house buying! That will certainly give you something to keep occupied with. I love house buying/selling etc. It?s challenging but can be a lot of fun.

Digi that is indeed a great run down on what we are doing to help our situations along, compared to the DHs. It?s bloody true! All I want is my DH to take conception vit and also not to binge drink on weekends ? is that too much to ask..? He only had 3 pints last night and could have had more so that?s much better. I realise I AM pregnant at the moment but the way I see it is I can?t be guaranteed to stay pregnant, so we might need his part in it again in the not so far future.

Euro when I interviewed Mr S the other week he did say something about thinking that NK cells start to act from conception. I didn?t question him further and I wish I had done as I am mentalling about whether I got in there soon enough with my BFP too. Also, again like you from Dr Google, it seems that with IVF patients NK cells are seen to be something that prevents people from getting pregnant in the first place. Or from being pregnant for anything more than a few hours/days if you know what I mean. So yes I think there is a connection between this and failure for IVF to work, and therefore probably failure to properly conceive naturally anyway. Dr Beer?s book seems to say the same too. Are you on Pred already though? Hopefully it will help get rid of some of the cells before conception so conception can actually occur.

Hi Georgie, join the eating too much club! I don?t know whether it?s the BFP or the 40mg of Pred but I am bloody starving all the time! What CD/DPO will Tuesday be when you test? Remember I got a BFN on 11 and 12 DPO.

I am not really getting any symptoms at all which of course is freaking me out. Boobs are normal, am tired but then I haven?t had much sleep (work/Pred), am hungry (definitely can be the Pred) and am off some foods. But generally I don?t really feel pregnant at all which of course makes me worry it is not viable. It just all seems to good to be true to get pregnant first month of trying and it to work out well. Also the lack of symptoms makes me feel strangely detached. Who asked what happens next for me? Well, for all of you as you might all be in the same position at some point soon:

After the BFP kicked in an extra Pred dose, Cyclogest and intralipids, my next appointment with Mr S (which I am assuming is a scan) is what would be 6 weeks gestation based on a LMP of 13th June (Mon 25th July). IF the pregnancy carries on, here?s how the rest of it WOULD look, but I really just can't think that far ahead so it?s weird noting it down:

8 WEEKS Another scan, Repeat intralipids.

9 WEEKS: Wean off all 40mg of Pred by 5 mg every 4 days until stopped

10 WEEKS: Another scan
12 WEEKS: Repeat intralipids. Stop Folic acid, Omega 3 and vitamin D

14 WEEKS: Another scan
16 WEEKS: Stop Cyclogest

20 WEEKS GESTATION: Stop Aspirin

Last time although I started to miscarry at 12 weeks the baby had died at 7.3 ish.

freelance, I was quite cynical about that guy that came on with his info on NK Cell testing and thought exactly the same as you, that he is trying to rubbish all the other clinics doing the blood tests for NK Cells and convince people to go to his clinic instead. It may be true that his methods of testing are more accurate, who knows, but Mr S and others have a pretty good track record too.

freelance - getting stupidly tired in the middle of the day = pregnancy symptom. Broken nights sleep due to more toilet visits than normal = pregnancy symptom. Rampant hunger (especially in the early hours) = pregnancy symptom. Off certain foods = pregnancy symptom. I've been pregnant 6 times. The first time I couldn't go over a speed bump without yelping and clutching my chest. Never had sore boobs since. First time I was pregnant I hardly felt sick at all, even when all was ok up to 8.5wks. Honestly, symptoms can take a few weeks to build up too. Try not to drive yourself nuts!

Battery men do need things putting into perspective sometimes don't they. Silly buggers! Ask him if his archery bow will take care of him when he's old!

Thanks freelance. I'm not on pred. In fact I am just an interested interloper on this thread. I am just starting investigations as to why I am not PG after 8 months of "concerted efforts" (making sure we are doing it at the right time) and a couple of years before that of a casual approach to contraception. I have had sore boobs, implantation bleeding, nausea, dizziness and just about every other pregnancy symptom you could think of (thankfully not all at the same time) but no positive test and my period always comes. My acupuncturist mentioned NK cells as I have Raynauds and a family history of arthritis. But I have not been tested yet. I am at the stage of being tested for the standard stuff and so far my tests and hubby's SA have all been normal so we are moving on to look at other things. The NK cells thing has stuck in my head. It seems a good fit for my history.

I had found something on Google about NK cells and IVF implantation so it seems logical that it could affect non-IVF implantation too, but there doesn't seem to be any available research on that.

When is your interview available and through what medium?

Thanks for replying and good luck with your pregnancy.

Eurochick did you see this Daily Mail article?

www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1388618/IVF-Leanne-Blackwell-gives-birth-shes-injected-yolk-CHICKEN-EGG.html

As usual they are trying to be sensationalist, and being quite vague in the process, by referring to Egg Yolk. Basically it's the intralipid infusion that freelance is having but I think it's in conjunction with IVF due to having problems conceiving because of NK Cells. Might be worth having a look at the CARE Clinic website and having a little read. Have a little look around in these threads. You might get some answers. They also have a live chat room at certain times where you can talk to others which can be very helpful.

www.fertilityfriends.co.uk/forum/index.php?board=52.0

Yes, sorry Euro I know we have chatted before, just hard to keep up with where everyone is. Please do hang around and ask questions! We are all in this together, bumbling our way through our own research and sharing bits and pieces as we go.

I am glad you have an interest in the interview! With the help of Digital I am going to be putting together a documentary on the subject of miscarriage and what can be done about it. As part of that we are hoping to follow the 'journeys' of several women after mc and in the bid to get pregnant/stay pregnant/have a child. My own experience is going to be a key part of it (4.3 weeks pregnant, no child, not much confidence it will be a sticky one but throwing as many drugs as it as possible...). We haven't yet had time to start pitching the doc out to people but I bloody well hope we can show it somewhere nice and big (like mainstream TV!) in about a year's time once we have put it together. We will start pitching it in a month or so when we have more material recorded.

Kittens I hadn't seen that article but yes that is basically the intralipids. It is nearly always referred to re IVF when I have found info on it too! From what Mr S has said about women with a family history of autoimmune probs though, Euro (and I really don't want to diagnose you!) it really does sound like you have a strong case for having high NK cells. I would also say too that it seems logical it would affect natural implantation as well as IVF implantation. Are you going to try to get a test? I did get a referral for Mr S on the NHS but it was too bloody long for me to wait so am going privately at huuuuuge scary expense.

One thing that worries me is that IVF patients always seem to have this BEFORE implantation and I have only had Pred from around a week before implantation.

Morning girls - hope everyone is doing ok.

Well i poas and got a BFN this morning - 11 days PO. I know for sure that I am not as have usual pain, bloating etc. I am trying to remain positive as I was not 100% sure when i did ovulate this month and at least i can have a little break from the pred.

Has anyone gone back to see Mr S after they have tried 1 or 2 cycles of the pred but are not pregnant for a follow up yet? I was just wondering what the point of going to see him might be and maybe best to just continue on until i hopefully get my BFP then go.

Anyone else due to POAS soon?!

xx

Hey there Georgie girl... I got a BFN on 11DPO too. And 12DPO. I then didn't test again until 15DPO when I got a faint positive and a full positive on 16DPO. I would give it until at least 14 days of taking the Pred just in case.

Had I not got the BFP I was wondering what I would do about seeing Mr S again as to be honest, and am sure you are thinking this too, I was wondering what exactly he could do or say and whether that was worth shelling out for! But, this go at least, I never had to make that decision. If this pregnancy doesn't work and I have to do it again, I can't imagine that I will necessarily see the point of seeing him after one cycle of Pred. But I would love to know whether anyone else has seen him after a cycle and what he has said!

Morning georgiepie - don't give up hope just yet. Remember that freelance was pretty much convinced she wasn't pregnant at 11dpo. I don't think she got her +ve until about 15dpo. That said, I'm not sure how hopeful I'm feeling. I'm on 9dpo today so will probably test on Thursday morning too.

The timing is bloody awful for me too. My period is due on Monday. On Thursday I am going to France. I will be in Paris for one day and night with my OH and then going on for the following 3 days to a party weekend at our friends' place where we will constantly be surrounded by lots of people, mostly drinking! On top of that I don't eat meat so when I am in France I mostly survive on bread and cheese, and fish. So, as there is a fair chance I won't know one way or the other if I'm pregnant or not I guess I will have to forgo most of the above and somehow find a way for this to go unnoticed! Bloody hell, and there was me thinking my 40th birthday party was going to be tricky (which it actually wasn't at all). Just as a little bonus too, it will be around the time that I usually start to feel really highly strung on the prednisolone! Should be a fun weekend!

Thanks Freelance and Kittens. I hear what your saying and will test again in a couple of days but really dont think i am!

Kittens why dont you just take a couple of extra tests and see what happens. As for the cheese and booze i guess a little bit will be fine. Remember Mr S said so! Its typical that thats your big weekend away.

xx

Did he say so? Oh, well, ok then....

Yes, I will take a few with me and hope that the various people we are sharing a gite with won't come knocking on the bathroom door just as I'm trying to wee in to a pot.

It must be different when you see him on the NHS, maybe due to availability of appointments, but I was never told to go back and see him if I wasn't pregnant after the first or second cycle. I'm now on my 4th and I'm trying to find out what I do from here one way or the other. Luckily I have about 8 or so spare tablets from stopping my cycles earlier the last few times so if I do get a BFP it won't be such a panic but it is still frustrating that I've not heard back from the hospital yet. The information I've left them with is that my period is due on Monday, I'm on my last cycle of prednisolone and I'm going away on Thursday morning. If I didn't have a few back up pills then I would be stuck without anything to take in the event of a BFP! I'm also concerned that if I don't get a BFP this time I will have to take a break from trying but am still waiting to hear the answer to that question too.

I can't help you there, with whether you have to take a break or not after 4 cycles. I remember at the beginning I was wondering why they only gave us prescriptions for 4. Privately he does say to go back for an appointment after one cycle of Pred but I can't say whether I would have done that/would do it in the future. What can he do - ask you how you're feeling?!

I think Mr S DID say it was ok to indulge in the odd glass of wine actually and his midwife said the same to me :) I completely carried on as normal when in the 2ww, just kept to a three small glasses of wine in one sitting rule. I guess that is still quite a bit! But it kept me sane. On the Saturday before my Tues BFP I had rather a bit more than that I fear. But hey ho, I think that's the least of my/our worries!

I think Kittens you should just go ahead and eat, drink and be merry. I have spent a lot of time in France and as a non-meat eater too know the challenges. When I was doing low carb (not now, am mainlining carbs like they are about to be outlawed) it was even harder to eat there. Lots of cheese and salads and fish. Rather envious about your trip to France actually. DH and I are going to Amsterdam in a few weeks time and half of me is planning things with an eye on the fact I won't be drinking (what restaurants shall we book etc) and the other half is thinking - hey, that's in a full three weeks time, I might have miscarried and be back on the gin by then!

Thanks for the link, freelance. Apparently the NHS has lost my gynae referral so it has been sent again.... I am losing patience so I think when we are back from our summer hols at the end of August, I will look into private (I posted a thread yesterday asking for recommendations). I am not really sure how best to go about it. Does Mr S look at other things as well as NK cells (e.g. I have not had my tubes checked yet)? I think I need to see someone who will test for NK cells but will also look at other stuff as unlike recurrent miscarriers, I have no proof that I can actually get pregnant. Any recommendations, ladies?

kittens I'm off to France on Thursday too (but to the South rather than Paris). I'm just into the 2ww so I won't be silly but I will be having some stinky cheese and pink wine!

Grrr, how annoying about the lost referral Euro. The same thing happened to me actually. I kept calling Mr S' office and St Mary's and they hadn't received mine and in the end I called my surgery and got them to fax it to Mr S' office directly. Still it was taking so long to get an NHS appointment I still went private in the end.

Mr S does look at a whole load of reasons for mc and his theory is that NK cells and other problems also kick in from conception, making implantation harder for some people. I am not really sure what St Mary's do at the moment but yes it would be good to have a nice tube check etc. Do you think you might be having chemical pregnancies and just never sticking?

Oh lucky both of you being in France! Mmm, cheese... Wine is usually my favourite thing but funnily enough I am not missing it yet. Oh it's been a good 8 days since my last drink... :)

Oh that is annoying eurochick, sorry to hear that. Where are you based? Do you think it may be worth checking out the clinic mentioned in that article I linked to? Unless it's totally out of the way of course! I would recommend asking on the fertility friends forum too for suggestions as they are mostly people who have problems falling pregnant too.

Where are you going in France then? I am actually heading to the Loire valley. My parents live in the South though so I will probably go down there in September as well. Last time I went there was the last time I got a BFP and I spent the whole time looking for pasteurised cheese and got the whole thing completely wrong! Apparently eating unpasteurised hard cheese is less dodgy than pasteurised soft cheese. Still, I know that now, at least! Anyway, the French take absolutely no notice of any of these rules and they haven't died out as a race yet.

freelance I think the multiple chem preg thing is possible. My hormones are fine, I am ovulating, hubby's SA was normal and we now have 8 cycles of perfectly times swi with nothing to show for it bar a load of 2ww symptoms.

it's good that Mr S does look at other things too. Maybe that is the way I should go rather than seeing a "general" gynae.

kittens I am in South London and my referral to was the world-renowned Lewisham Hospital... I was hoping just to get a few investigations there before going private to speed things up if I wasn't getting far but I will revise that plan if I don't have a referral date b the time I come back from my hols in 6 weeks.

I am going to Languedoc. My inlaws have a house down there and there is a bit of a family gathering going on. I have loads to do at work so will probably spend most of it hiding in the corner tapping away on my laptop but at least I will get a dose of sunshine!

The bad news is the French are apparently v particular about what they eat during pregnancy, even going so far as to refuse salad outside the home (because they can't be sure it has been properly washed), as well as avoiding rind cheeses, etc. It's about the only time it is acceptable to ask for your steak to be properly cooked too! But I will only be a few days into the 2ww and I am coming to the conclusion that I cannot live my entire life as "prepregnant" so I am not planning on being too strict with myself.

I am SE London euro and am equidistant between the QE hospital and Lewisham. Lewisham apparently has a good new birthing unit, not that any of us are looking that far ahead already... It is good that those things are in order but must be frustrating not to yet have a reason for things not working out so far. I think in Dr Beer's book it says that NK cells can stop IVF implantation even though an egg has been fertilised so it makes sense that this would happen naturally too.

I have always wondered about the France thing, being that it must be so hard to eat unpasteurized cheese there. I have recently heard about the salad thing there too! Do they have the odd glass of wine hwen pregnant do you know? My parents actually live in Spain and I grew up there but I have no idea what people tell you to do/not do in Spain.

And yes, don't live pre-pregnantly. I think a lot of us have found out the hard way that if something is going to go wrong that bit of cheese or wine you had really isn't going to make a huge difference. Chug a load of red for me please.

Oh, that must've changed recently. Or maybe it's different in different parts of France. A friend of mine was pregnant twice whilst living over there and she said the opposite. I supose the Ecoli scare didn't help matters much!

You're right though, if you're at the beginning of your 2ww I would just carry on as normal. For me, it's just the fact that if I do get a BFP at the weekend it's going to be really hard keeping it a secret from 30 odd people under those circumstances if I'm turning down wine and cheese.

I'm not sure about wine. There was a thread on pregnancy about what to eat when PG and someone said teh same thing as kitten, only to be corrected by some of the French residents on there.

I've heard about the Lewisham birth centre. I would ideally like a home birth (hospitals massively stress me) but a friend had a terribly bad experience (separate blue light transfers for her and the baby with the latter ending up brain damaged so it has put me off). But that is quite a way off anyway!

Yes, I think we can worry about other things first. Actually, it was quite sweet, when I met another lady going through the intralipds the other day (I pointed her in the direction of this thread but am not sure whether she will find us!) the first thing she asked me was not anything about miscarrying, mentalling etc but she asked me whether I would like a vaginal birth or a c section! I really can't even think as far as having a successful 6 week scan let alone that far ahead! But it was quite nice to meet someone who clearly feels a bit more positive than I do.

That does sound refreshing doesn't it? Wow, I wish I could be that positive!

My mum just made a radical suggestion. She said that as my period is due on Monday why don't I just go and enjoy my weekend as if I'm not pregnant (within reason) and wait until Monday to do a test. Bless! That's a brilliant idea. Except I'm not sure if I have that much will power to not POAS .

I think I need to get "First catch your Rabbit" tattooed somewhere. I am the champion of worrying about stuff before it's even an issue!