Any experiences of letrozole to boost ovulation? Prescribed today.

[Dkann]

I've been given this today to start on my next cycle.

Has anyone experienced it?

Yes! I was prescribed for PCOS (no natural cycles). No issues with it, took longer than I was hoping but got pregnant on cycle 5

I took it but i had a rare allergic reaction so beware of that.

Thank you both

@LavenderSweetPea that's great, was everything ok in the pregnancy? How long had you been trying?
Did you do anything else to help?

@teaandtoastwithmarmite oh no, what was your reaction? How are you now?

Yes, conceived DD1 with it. There's a longish running thread in conception about it - i think its called Letrozole first cycle? Anyway, it took 3 cycles and i had to up the dose inbetween cycle 1 and 2 on advice of my doctor. I hope you are having ultrasound monitoring alongside?

@CrispAppleStrudels ok thanks I'll have a look.

They said something about a scan and they'd be in contact and early scans if I got pregnant- do you mean that?

Congratulations on dd1 how long were you trying before this?

Thank you.

We had been trying for a year but i had a diagnosis of PCOS ten years ago so my endocrinology consultant arranged for my fertility clinic referral basically as soon as i said we wanted to TTC.

So with my letrozole treatment, i was scanned every 2-3 days from day 10 of my cycle to monitor how the egg follicle was developing. At the point that it looked like it was going to release, we were obviously told to go and have lots of sex. Then i had a blood test on day 21 to check ovulation had actually occurred. Pregnancy test taken on day 28 and if positive, a scan booked for 2 weeks after that to confirm pregnancy was in the right location / not ectopic etc. Then i was discharged from fertility clinic to self refer into maternity.

PCOS , 7 years of infertility, got pregnant on third cycle with Letrozole 5 mg

We hadn't 'tried' naturally before starting letrozole as I had no cycles at all before medication (no periods, ovulation or anything). Unfortunately that pregnancy ended up being ectopic.

I had 3 months to wait following the ectopic treatment and I started taking infolic alpha supplement which was a game changer as it actually bought back a cycle for me so we tried for a couple of months while waiting to restart letrozole treatment - during that time I actually ovulated without the letrozole for the first time ever; I'm 100% sure because I am now 20 weeks pregnant!

@CrispAppleStrudels that sounds really thorough- I'm not getting all that for sure.

So glad you got your dd though X

@JohnnysMama thanks for the reply.

How was the pregnancy, I hope all went well and you have your baby.

@LavenderSweetPea oh I see and I'm so sorry to hear about the ectopic, how awful to go through all that it brings.

Absolutely fantastic to hear you soon got pregnant and are 20 weeks now. Congratulations!

I often wonder if things happen for a reason we never know.

I took it for one my IUI cycles. I was ovulating ok so wasn’t sure why. But we conceived that month. No side effects

Like @LavenderSweetPea I had no natural cycles but we still had to try for a year. Worse still, a miscarriage reset the clock, so actually almost 2yrs.

Letrozole didn't actually work for me, we moved up the doses to 10mg and only managed to make ovulation happen once. However, we then spontaneously conceived our wee girl.

Yes, the pregnancy went great, have my 6 months old boy with me now😀

@BeethovenNinth thank you for your reply, hope everything went well.

@IWillBeWaxingAnOwl what a journey- so good to hear you have your dd now.

Umm I’m taking this to suppress hormones as I have hormonal breast cancer

@JohnnysMama that's amazing! Congratulations to you.

@Oldwomen I'm so sorry to hear that.
I hope you are doing as ok as you can be.

This is what is all over the leaflet and why I posted as nothing on the leaflet mentioned ovulation help.

Sorry to hear of your diagnosis @Oldwomen Wishing you all the very best My understanding is that it actually works the same way for ovulation assistance as for breast cancer treatment. For ovulation induction, you only take it for 3-4days. It works by suppressing hormones at a certain point in a woman's cycle, which then triggers ovulation 10days after you stop taking it. Ive always assumed that for breast cancer treatment, you keep taking a consistent dose? Maybe someone who knows more will be explain to explain properly!

@CrispAppleStrudels did you conceive on your first cycle?

No - first cycle was a low dose and i didn't ovulate. Second cycle we increased the dose, i did ovulate but we obviously just didn't fall pregnant. Third cycle was the successful one.

Ahhh thank you.