@JeanieJ we asked the clinic to prep the sample as if they were doing IVF and the embryologist saw the problem. There is an official test called MAR or bead test, something like that.
@Kay00 why are they worried about a freeze all? In case there’s nothing to freeze? It’s quite common now, you just pay extra and they’ll do it at my clinic.
The ovarian drilling sounds like a good option tbh. It’s something to try, you never know, it might make a difference. More progesterone sounds good too.
So we had our guys appointment today. Backstory of this is, we had our failed nhs cycle review in November and we asked what we could do next, specifically, could we see their specialist for dh. He’s one of the top andrologists and there’s only a few around, we saw another one in 2021 (Mr Ramsay).
In December there was some confusion because we were booked in with a woman in February (today’s appointment), I kicked up a fuss because that was not the guy and suddenly we had two appointments: one in January with urology and today’s andrology one in the ACU. The one in January was with a fellow. Didn’t order hormone tests, only ordered a varicocele scan for DH. Dh had the scan at the weekend. The fellow told us DH’s sperm were fine, there were plenty and we should conceive naturally 🙄🙄🙄. Also banged on about maternal age blah blah.
We get to the ACU today for the appointment and guess who is there!!!! Oh, it’s the fellow again. We just laughed and said this is going to be useless, he’ll just say dh is fine again. We filled him in on the antisperm antibodies, he said DH’s varicocele is tiny and a non-issue. He asked if we’d had hormone tests done for dh (🙄🙄🙄) I said “yes, we paid for them privately after we saw you” and he said “oh, I could have ordered them for you” (🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄). Anyway, I turned round and said look, no offence to you but we’re frustrated because we were told we would be seeing the main guy and we have not seen him. He goes away and does some stuff, comes back and says go back to the waiting room and you can see him soon!!!!
Then we see the main guy, the sperm legend himself and he did not disappoint. He’s ordered every test he can for dh on the nhs and the ones they don’t do he’s asked his private secretary to arrange with our private clinic. He gave me his PA emails and said email them all the test results, told us to email the new DNA frag due in a couple of weeks, he’s even ordered karyotyping for dh because it’s a complicated case. The only ones he couldn’t do were reactive oxygen species and hidden infection tests, but that’s fine, it’s such a huge help financially to have seen him. He said the standard nhs tests are insufficient in complex cases, essentially, which we knew, but good luck getting anyone else to admit a basic SA tells you sod all.
It was honestly like night and day. From that first dude to the next one was just an incredible difference. Couldn’t really believe it, we walked out shocked to the core to receive proper care and just incredibly relieved someone is helping us. I think he said he’s looking for the cause of the antibodies, and he usually can find something. Told dh only to take impryl and no other supplements too, including stopping vitamin c which can cause sperm some damage, and we’ll hear from or see him in a month when all the results are back.