Hi ladies - Gosh, lots been happening on the thread over the Easter break!
TSH - well free is your expert for this duggs since she's battled thyroid issues for many years and was my guide initially when I was diagnosed, but what I know of it is this. Most REs etc like to see TSH between 1 and 2 as you say, but I've not been told it's a problem for getting pregnant, just an issue once you are pregnant. Mr S told me he likes to see it less than 2.5 ideally, and prescribed thyroxine for me as mine was 3.29 initially. Also though, you need to know what your FT4 is - mine was low, below the reference range, and that was another indicator I needed thyroxine.
breezy It's highly likely you're having thyroid function tests done for thyroid antibodies - were they tested when you had your TSH/FT4 done before?
Co-Q10 - yes, Mr Shehata told me to take that when I first saw him, I was rather surprised that he doesn't say that to everyone. I follow the recommendation as posted in various places of 600mg per day, but that may be overkill, I don't know. It's an antioxidant and can't do you any harm at all, so doesn't really matter how much you take I believe. On top of that I also take resveratrol and pycnogenol, both also antioxidants, and recommended by various people for egg/uterine health amongst other things.
DHEA - I've cautioned careful use of this before, and will do so again. I recommend it highly (clearly it was a Good Thing for brown :) ), but only if you get your DHEA/DHEA-S/testosterone levels tested before and during use. DHEA can (so I hear) work wonders for ladies whose DHEA levels are low, but it can be disastrous if your levels are already good or high. DHEA gets converted into testosterone or estrogen - and too much testosterone can adversely affect your eggs. It's something of a wonder drug I understand for those whose DHEA is low (or lowish), but I wouldn't take it again without having my levels monitored. The side effects like hair loss, spots etc are one thing, and can be lived with (although I found the side effects I had not easy to live with personally), but potentially damaging the very thing you're trying to make better is something else altogether. Take it, by all means, but I would personally caution against taking it unmonitored, as I did. I wouldn't do it unmonitored again.
sue Really good to hear from you, sorry to hear about your low AMH test but honestly, I've seen so many people get pregnant after getting a low AMH test that I wonder whether it really means very much. Welcome to the slowly growing group of us now doing IVF, and I really hope it holds the answer for you.
pebbles Sorry about the WTF cycle, sometimes I really think someone somewhere is having a bl**dy good laugh at our expense. And if I ever find that someone I'm going to give them a darn good slapping! :)
AFM .. well, we're off to Serum in just over 2 weeks for our face-to-face consultation with the lovely Penny (I've had three phone calls with her already, all at her expense and instigation. I'd hate to see her phone bill!). I'm rather bricking it, not really because of the procedure but the costs. Even though Serum's IVF costs are really good compared to UK ones, when you add in the hysto and medications, it all adds up. And I am thinking I'd really like to try neupogen as I want to throw everything we can at it, Penny's not averse to trying whatever I want but neupogen is major ££ as far as I can tell and daily injections - and I'll already be doing daily injections of Clexane, which is also not cheap. So cost-wise, I'm a bit worried .. my mum's very kind gift of £5K to do this isn't going to cover meds or the hysto, so not quite sure where the money is coming from or whether DP will help out with the costs. At least he's accepted he has to have the standard pre-IVF blood tests done (HIV etc), so I'm trying to organise that at the moment but we go away to Spain on Tuesday so trying to cram everything in before we go. Ah well, think positive, the Universe will provide the money and all that ... ! :)
Just thought I'd mention, for those vaguely interested in DE IVF, something that Penny called 'super donors'. She explained that every IVF clinic in the world has what they call 'super donors' who, for some reason that they don't know, produce eggs that almost always result in a good pregnancy, no matter what the host mother's issues. She said they truly don't know why this happens, the eggs appear exactly the same as other people's in terms of structure, health, etc, but for some reason they don't know yet they are just more successful. They believe it's something to do with the immune system of the donor, but they don't know. Apparently it's very rare - she said out of 250 donors at their clinic they regard maybe 5 or 6 donors to be 'super donors'. It does mean you have less of a choice when it comes to specifying characteristics you'd like to have in a donor, but frankly as long as they're not dark-skinned and 6'2" (I'm 5'3" and very pale-skinned) and they're reasonably intelligent, I really don't care much. Penny says she feels we've gone through so much already she wants to give us as much of a chance as possible, and so wants to use a 'super donor' for us, which I thought really nice of her. Anyway, just thought it might be of some interest.
/waves to everyone, hope you all had a good Easter!