New Member, anyone had a HSG x-ray??

[1Wish]

Hi,
I'm a new member and have been ttc for about 20 months, I had my first app today at the fertility clinic, and was told I'm not ovulating which I suspected. I'm booked in for a HSG x-ray next thursday and just wondering if anyone has any experience of one,
Thankyou very much and can I just say this is by far the best website for infertility issues I have come across, and I've read loads!!!!

Not sure I've posted this right, how do u ask a question on here?

Hi there - yes, I've had a HSG.

Not the best procedure for maintaining your dignity as you have a doctor staring at your fanjo, but not as painful as I expected either!

Not sure how much you know about the whole procedure, but here's a quick rundown from what I can remember:

• it's to check that your tubes are not blocked (before they can treat you for not ovulating they need to make sure there is nothing else which might stop you conceiving and therefore make the treatment pointless)

• they do this by putting dye through your uterus and it flows down your tubes - they watch this happening "live" on an x-ray - you might get to see it on the screen too

• before the actual HSG you will probably have a quick ultrasound scan (internal) to check that lining of your uterus is the right thickness

• the dye is harmless and just flows out of your tubes and disappears

• it might hurt a bit - they put a catheter into your cervix to get the dye in - the catheter doesn't really hurt going in but the dye going in might feel like period pains, so bearable - just try to think about something else, it doesn't last long, about 5 minutes or so if that

• when you stand up afterwards the dye will probably run out of you thanks to gravity but they will give you a pad or something

• they will probably tell you the results there and then

• I was advised to stay off work the rest of the day, but TBH it was a bit of a skive as I was fine, just put my feet up after going out with dh for a nice lunch!

I hope this helps - have you been diagnosed with PCOS? I was, after TTC and a year without any peroids at all after coming off the pill. I was put on clomid to make me ovulate and on my fourth cycle of clomid I concevied and now have a 12 week old little girl to show for it

Good luck 1Wish and let us know how it goes - when are you having it? (You may not know as I think you need to wait for a period to make your appointment as the day it's done depends on the stage of your cycle and on you not being PG - if you are not having periods the doctor will give you some tablets to bring on a bleed.)

Sorry about the length of my reply by the way!

Thanks for replying I wasn't sure anyone would!!
Thats great news that you got pregnant on clomid, I'm hoping they'll put me on that at my next appointment.
I haven't been diaganosed (sorry spelling) with PCOS as yet, but I do have really irregular periods (anything from 25 days to 55 days). I've got my HSG next thursday morning, but unfortunatly I've got an exam for my degree in the afternoon, so I'm hoping I'm not in to much pain.
I'm just so so excited the ball is finally started rolling, but I can't stop day dreaming about babies. I so so hope this works, and stories like yours keep me going

Well I think that just about covers everything!

Mine hurt for maybe a minute, and this stopped as soon as the procedure stopped - bled a little, didn't know the outcome until I saw the consultant.
The satff were lovely.
Try not to worry - it can help improve your ttc by clearing out the tubes.

Thanks for your support, I just pray my tubes aren't blocked or something.
Surely though if I've got irregular periods and no ovulation (on this blood test anyway, the 1st one detected ovulation, but that was when I had 2 regular cycles for the 1st time ever) then that's probaly the reason nothing's happening.
It's so great to know there's others with similar problems. Sorry to ask when you've probaly all explained this 100 times but what stages are you at, at the moment?
I should know this I've spent the last week reading all the old feeds. My dp thinks I'm completley obbsessed!! sorry to say I am

Hiya.
I'm 37, my bloke is 40. We have been ttc for 3 yrs, I ovulate, I don't have blocked tubes, nothing wrong with my bloke either. So even no problems don't always mean it will happen! We start IVF soon.

It may sound crazy but sometimes I wish I had a fixable problem - at least we would understand why our dreams haven't come true.

Sorry you've had no luck yet.
I know where your coming from though, my mate has unexplained infertility and after having all the tests and finding nothing wrong, they basically told her to go home and have more sex!! she was understandably furious, and then said she wished she had a problem so at least they could fix it.
And even worse they don't offer IVF at all in my area, no funding, I think it's terrible.

Thankyou all for your help and I hope to talk to you tomorrow, any idea which thread would be best just for general chat about these issues?
Thanks again, off to bed now to dream of babies!!!

A HSG or tubal x-ray is a useful test to have as it gives information not easily accessible by other methods. Deformities INSIDE the tube can only be seen on x-ray. It will show whether your tubes are patent (open) or if there are blockages.

embarrassed gave a good run down of the procedure.

I would go all out to seek a firm diagnosis of the problem before taking clomid. Purely from what you write about the irregular periods I would say that PCOS is a possibility.

With regards to your friend unexplained infertility is infact no diagnosis at all. All it means is that they have failed to find out what is wrong. They need to determine if infact all the initial investigative tests have been carried out, some can and do get missed.

im due to have an hsg in the next few months ttc ds for 6y awful pg and since he was born 2y ago have had 4 confirmed mc, 2 suspected and 1 ep which resulted in the removal of my left tube. hope you get some answers soon, its horrendous!

morning,
lissielou- what the procedure is awful? sorry if i've read yours wrong just got up, couldn't sleep last night for thinking about things

in my infertility circles it was known as the "torture-gram", it is bloody painful but I did have a particularly bad experience. Dye catheter came out part way through first attempt and so it had to be done again. Second attempt Dr hammered the speculum onto my cervix (yes - "hammered" as he couldn't get it attached) and left the speculum in through the procedure to stop the catheter being expelled again.

Then after the procedure my blood pressure and temperature shot up in an adverse reaction to the dye and they wouldn;t let me go home for hours.

Sorry to share

However I only tell you because it was a shock to me as no-one told me it would be painfull. Take a hefty dose of painkillers about 30 mins before which will help.

It was worth doing as they found a polyp which was removed. Tubes were fine.

Does sound like you might have PCOS like me which is often very successfully treated with Clomid and you can do some self help remedies around what you eat. If PCOS is diagnosed come back and ask, lots of people on here succesfull yconceived on PCOS (though sadly not me! But I am the exception)

Hi,
sjs experience isnt common tho it is nice to be warned, as your periods are irregular they will also need to know that there is definately no chance of you being preganant, so you will need to be sure that you haven't had unprotected sex, since your last period. Sorry if yuo will find the?s embarrassing when you get their ,but they will be using x-rays to do this test.
good luck,

sorry don;t mean to scare you witless! Look at it this way - I survived unscathed and it all sems a very distanat memory now - in fact until you asked the question I had forgotten all about it - so can;t have been that traumatic

That does make it sound a little scary, tbh it's not so much the procedure as the pain afterwards i'm worried about.
HSG's at 11.30am then i've got a 3 hour social policy exam at 2pm same day, just worried that being hunched over a desk for that long will be unbearable or that il be so doped up I won't know what i'm doing!!!

Stupid I know to have them the same day, but I couldn't bare to wait for my next af it could be 6 weeks away or more.

All I can think about is getting pregnant, does anyone have any suggestions for how to take your mind off it, its allconsuming. Seriously i even alot myself time periods when I'm allowed to think and day dream about it, otherwise I can't sleep at night for thinking. My favourite daydream at the moment is getting a bfp, what it'll look like, what il say, how il feel etc.
Am I going mad?!!

I also took paracetamol before the procedure, plus they prescribed a one day antibiotic. BTW the precedure is done in something resembling an operating theatre - I knew this already but have spoken to some women who were a bit freaked by this.

I didn't get pain once it was over -I think you will be fine (but take your own san pro as the hospital ones were like something out of the 1960s!)

Try to view as going to a dental check up or a smear test (with bells on) - you may be nervous & feel uncomfortable - but once it is over it is over.

Hi - I agree, once it's over unlikely to be any pain at all but you may need a pad, and take your own - much more confortable!

You'll be fine in your exam... good luck for it!

As for taking your mind off BFP and PG - there's no cure for that as far as I know (I never found one) - it is so consuming and an ache which never quite goes away - you see PG women EVERYWHERE and wish that was you!

They do say that not stressing about it is key and I do believe that staying positive is key also. Good luck to you and lots of baby dust!!

Thankyou chocolate days and everyone else.
Hpoefully it isn't a long wait for my follow up appointment, they've said they're pretty empty at the moment, which is lucky for me. I think its to do with them withdrawing IVF people have probaly registered with different hospitals.
Talk about a post code lottery though, no IVF at all for the next three years because there's not enough money. BUT the local authority have just spent over a million pounds on some state of the art space age dustbin vans, I mean for goodness sake is that necessary.

thank daisyhun
tbh I haven't been that stressed yet (well I was when I intially found I couldn't concieve), feeling more positive now things have started hapening.
I know what you mean about everyone being pregnant though, seriously if one more person comes up to me and says " i'm pregnant but i'm not sure i want it" il scream
And then as a ray of hope, i ask if they've any tips for getting pregnant, early preg symptoms etc (just to feed my ttc addiction) and am greeted by the response "well we weren't trying and I wouldn't have known except my skinny fit jeans were a little tight!" Aarrrggggggggggggghhhhh!!!

Sorry to rant by the way, but I haven't had chance to moan about this to anyone else

I know the feeling - when we were trying it was like everyone else I knew on the planet was phoning me and announcing they were PG and had not been trying, or had got BFP in first month they tried

But clomid was successful for us - so there is hope - but it is horrible waiting - I know exactly what you mean. And it annoyed me that we couldn't try whilst we were having all the investigations - it was like, come on, we are wasting valuable time here!!

Not much pain afterward (and this from the nightmare HSG woman ), Just dose yourself up on nurofen and its no worse than mild period pain IIRC.

Absolutely no cure for the TTC obsession I'm afraid, talk (eithre in RL or virtually) to others going through the same, it will help. If you are diagnosed with PCOS then is really is generally very simple to treat so don't get ahead of yourself on the IVF front!

If its any consolation, I used to design birth announcement cards on thise sites that allow you to personalise them!

Oh but I have to add a warning that I had to give MNET a miss after a few months of TTC as everyone on the TTC threads seemed to be having no success and lots of horror stories and it was getting me down - came back to it when I was PG though!

But stories like ours on here gave me lots of hope too!

Daisyhun thats exactly what I thought.
I honestly thought when I 1st went to see my GP she'd prescribe clomid and send me on my way. (I know it's not that simple now!)
But listening to other people's experiences about being given clomid while investigations are going on raised my hopes that they'd have given me some yesterday at my 1st app.
I suppose in hindsight though it's for the best that they investigate 1st, at least then they know the problem specifically. But I can't stand the waiting, it's childish i know but i want everything doing now!!
Thats why i couldn't leave my HSG untill next month.
Trouble is its exam time at uni and having all this means im finding it very difficult to concentrate on my degree, im supposed tp be writing an essay now, but i can't stop coming on here!!!
daisyhun, how long did it take you from 1st going to your GP to finding out you were pregnant?? Did you know you were pregnant the month you concieved?