Unexplained fertility - AMH blood test. What does it mean?

[Shoegal30]

Hi

Me and DH have been diagnosed with unexplained infertility and we are due to start IVF within the next few weeks.

Our FC recommended an AMH blood test which we had to pay for as the normal day 3/21 blood tests showed everything was 'normal'.

I have just got the AMH test results and the letter says it's been reported as "13.9 pmol/l. This is slightly lower than expected for your age. Therefore we will adjust the dose of drugs we give you to try and optimise the response. Please do not be unduly concerned. The test has been helpful on optimising your outcome".

I know that it says not to be concerned but I am. What does this rest result mean?

We have our consent form meeting tomorrow so will hopefully get more info from the nurse but for now I'm worried.

Any advice?

Bump

AMH is an indicator of your egg quantity, age is a better indicator for quality. Lower levels mean a lower number of eggs available. As you get older, particularly over 35 years old, fewer of those are good quality too. DHEA has been shown to help low AMH but yours doesn't sound very low at all.

Thanks Sharon.
Have an appointment with nurse tomorrow so hopefully we can get moving with ivf very soon.

Hi Shoegal,

As Sharon said, AMH is an indicator of your egg quantity, but is also seen to be a useful tool from an IVF clinics point of view. The idea is that with your AMH level being 13.9 that you would produce around 13/14 eggs during the IVF cycle. I would say that 13.9 is a good level, and as has probably been explained to you today, nothing to be worried about.

However, in my experience, the AMH level had no bearing on the number of eggs I produced. I had a level of 0.2, but managed to get between 6 and 9 eggs in four out of five rounds. I was actually told by my doctor to discount the AMH level as it really did not work as an indicator for me. I found a better indicator of egg quantity was the Antral Follicle Count scan - have you had one? It just shows the number of follicles in each ovary that could potentially be stimulated during the cycle.

The only thing that seemed to be useful from knowing my AMH level was the difference in protocol. A level of 0.2 had me classed as a 'low responder' to the stimulation medication, which was correct.

Anyway, good luck, and I hope it all goes as well as possible! Any other questions feel free to get in touch