Hello All,
The purpose of this message is to help those receiving semen analysis results and who are currently panicking about what ifs. I understand this will not be the answer for everyone but provides an action plan to improve what you can control first.
Context - I'm a 30 year old male and my partner and I had been trying to conceive for 3 months (not long I know) when thoughts crept into my head whether I might be the problem. Due to this, I organised a private semen analysis to identify any problems early. Attached are the first results which weren't the worst nor the best. However, when looking to take action on improving those numbers it seemed a common question on here with; 1) a lack of actions taken and 2) a lack of retesting to show possible improvements.
After the first results I took the following actions for 3 months and retested 3 months after my last test:
- Cut alcohol completely
- Cut coffee completely and switched to decaf green tea
- Reduced fried food intake to once a week (fish & chips)
- Daily breakfast of blueberries, raspberries, greek yoghurt, brazil nuts, & almonds
- Beans & toast 2/3 * a week
- Completely cut hot baths for daily cool showers
- Switched from tight underwear to loose cotton
- Introduced Proceive Max Men daily
- Introduced 500mg of Vitamin C, 1000mg Omega 3 & 200mg CO-Q10
As you can see, there has been improvements across all parameters (count per ml, total motile count, morphology) and, most importantly, in total motile sperm count. My first results were made of 45% rapid progressive whereas, the latest was 35% which whilst lower still results in a higher motile sperm count of 40M vs 24M previously.
While this may be coincidence and could have happened without introduction of the above action plan, my partner is now 7 weeks pregnant. I fully understand my original numbers were okay relatively speaking and someone suffering with far lower numbers may not see the improvements required to approach the base levels recommended by the NHS. But it provides an idea for those with suboptimal parameters that there are actions you can take first.
As I cannot post images due to being new to the site please find below the results.
Test 1 Dated 4th Jan 2021:
- 12.49M sperm count per ml
- 53.71M total sperm count
- 50% Progressive motility (45% rapid progressive)
- 4% morphology
- 26M total motile sperm count
Test 2: 13th April 2021
- 4.90 volume production
- 23M sperm count per ml
- 112M total sperm count
- 44% Progressive motility 44% (35% rapid progressive)
- 12% morphology
- 49M total motile count
Hope this helps.