Lister or ARGC for low ovarian reserve?

[Alibaba81]

Hi, I am 34 years old with low ovarian reserve (5 and 4 follicles on ultrasound, left ovary small). I also have a thin endometrial lining (6mm, they prefer 8mm). Hubby sperm ok but morphology on the low side, 5%. We have a consultation at ARGC at the end of the month, but it would cost all our IVF budget for just one go with them. Would we be better off with Lister? I know they specialise in low reserve patients.

[allchatnicknamesgone]

Sorry, I have no experience of ARGC and I'm going to look at them myself but I do have experience of the Lister and it's not good. I've demanded most of the money back from the tests I had done there because there were mistakes. The most disappointing thing about the Lister is that you get better customer service at Tesco.

Unfortunately when you read these message boards you read a lot of women unhappy with the service is practically every clinic.

Good luck. I think fertility clinics should give the initial consultation for free.

[sparechange]

What about Create? They are low AMH specialists and a lot cheaper than ARGC

[allchatnicknamesgone]

Do Create consider nk cells treatment and they only seem to do icsi and not imsi?

[sparechange]

Create prescribe Prednisolone empirically, and offer intralipid treatment, bu I don't think they test for NK.

They offer PICSI, which I think has similar outcomes to IMSI?

[farfallarocks]

You are basically me a year ago! I had the same dilema.
Do you have 5 on one side and 4 on the other? If so that is not too bad actually.
I had an AMH of 4 and a follicle count of between 8 and 1 (!!!)
I decided to go with ARGC in the end as they seemed to test you for everything. I was on the maximum dose of stims AND clomid and only produced 2 eggs with resulted in 2 average quality embryos and a bfn.

Some things to be aware of are that ARGC only treat you with an FSH below 10 so if you are regularly above this, I would go elsewhere.
They actually only have 1 protocol for low egg reserve but are just starting to do natural and mild cycle IVF. I have had friends who have had success with them when producing on 1/2 eggs. The clinic is totally hectic and over the top and very very expensive so go into that with your eyes open.
The other thing to be wary of is they do fiddle their stats. They have 2 clinics and depending on where your transfer is, your stats will NOT sit in the official ARGC stats but in the RGI stats (their other clinic). I noticed that those of us with a poor response all ended up at the RGI for transfer, its supposedly random but I don't believe it. Whilst their stats are still good they are about the same as Lister and not as dramatically different as the ARGC stats are.

I liked the Lister a lot, I also went to Create. They both advised taking DHEA and co enzyme Q10 before my next cycle. I did that for 6 weeks and also followed all the recommendation in a book called 'it all starts with the egg'. Amazingly I then fell pregnant naturally (at this point my AMH had dropped to less than 1!) and I now 30 weeks pregnant. We were lucky in that my husband had excellent SA so natural conception was a possibility it was just a case of catching that magic egg. Good luck!

[farfallarocks]

p.s. that morph is actually fine, I think 4% is the cut off.
My DH was 6% but everything else was very high. I cut him onto some high quality vitamins and by the time we did IVF his morph was 25%!
This is with him still drinking and smoking every day (don't ask)

[farfallarocks]

Sorry final point, ARGC will give you Viagra for thin lining, they leave nothing to chance, I can't fault them for that, you will end up on all sorts of drugs.

[Alibaba81]

Thank you so much. That is very helpful indeed. I am on co q10 and a concoction of supplements, hubby is on all sorts too. DHEA is on order (had to buy from the states??) part of me feels it may still happen naturally. Mum and older sis both went through menopause at 45, but mum had me and little sis at 38 and 39 years old. So maybe like them I heading into early menopause but still may be lucky!

[Alibaba81]

Ps I am also reading it starts with the egg- great book. I have even changed my moisturiser as it is high in phthalates, and I've used in on my whole body every day since I was 17!