FSH 11.8 on CD3

[SallyMischievo]

Dear All,
Can anyone kindly help me to interpret the above result? I asked my GP for blood tests as I was anxious about being perimenopausal due to an increasingly shortened cycle and hideous night sweats. I have just turned 40. My GP has ruled out menopause but from what I have read online, my FSH level is not wonderful. We are fortunate enough to have a DD who was conceived naturally in our tenth cycle of trying when I was 37, born when I was 38. We would love to embark on trying for another but appreciate that we may not be as lucky. Any advice re FSH levels would be greatly appreciated. Are there any steps I can take to improve it? Many thanks for reading.

Fsh is the oomph (for what of a better word) your body gives out when gearing up to releasing an egg. The higher the number, the more oomph you need due to egg supply dwindling. It is an uncontrollable part of nature and there is nothing you can do to make it better. The NHS guidelines look for 10 or lower so it's not that much higher. Mine is 10.9 at 31 so I would say at 40 yours is pretty good. It just means that if you are going to try for another you need to get a move on.
Hope that helps x

Thank you so much, Simply. That is reassuring to hear x

Hi, wanted to assure you that FSH levels can change month to month.

My story- I came off pill in Feb, in April had blood tests done as I was getting sweats and cramping every other week. Bloods showed my fsh was 49.9. Gp was so blunt telling me I couldn't conceive (was gutted) and that I was going into early menopause (devastated) and probably have prem ov failure too.
Was referred to gynae to start HRT and the gynae wanted to repeat tests to make sure.
Just received my blood results from gynae - fsh normal at 8. Normal reading he says is 6-12. And all else was fine. Results showed I ovulated and had a proper period last cycle. He commented what a fool that doc was to diagnose with just test.

So basically don't worry as it shows that they can go down! I don't know if it helped at all but I was taking Angus castus from H&b (2tabs a day), coq10 , & b12 (1tab a day).

Wow! Thank you for your wise words, Footprints. That's very reassuring and wonderful that things turned out so well for you.

Just to ass my two penneth to this- yes fsh levels can fluctuate from month to month. However, it is also believed that you should take your highest reading as the true one and it doesn't actually matter if they Go down- it's not a sign of things improving because you cannot find more eggs if you're running out.

That said- I had high fsh of 12 age 34. I was told we would need Ivf to conceive. However, I got a bro as soon as I heard this news although it ended in mc. We then did ivf as advised by the clinic and it was successful despite a rubbish response to stims. When my ds was 9 months old we started ttc again, thinking that it may not happen orvwould take a long time. Instead, we got a bfp 4 weeks later and ds2 was born 4 weeks ago!

So...the conclusion I have reached is that fsh might be important 8in that it tells you how quickly/that you're running out of eggs so need to get a move on. But what it doesn't tell you is the quality of those eggs- which frankly is the most important factor anyway in ttc.

Several typos...

Ass- add!
Bro- bfp!