High DNA Fragmentation success stories?

[AnnaSteen]

My DH has a low sperm count. He went 100% on healthy lifestyle/supplements and improved it to the lower end of normal (2mil to 18mil). We did a DNA Frag test then and it came back with a result of 52% which is very high....our consultant doesn’t care about the DNA Frag test as she said ICSI is the treatment for high Frag and low sperm count anyway (we’ve done one failed round. Poor embryo growth and nothing to freeze). I’ve read that removal of sperm from the testicles can help reduce fragmentation. I would love to hear any of your stories as our consultant isn’t a lot of help.

I'm surprised your consultant said that ICSI is the treatment for high dna fragmentation.......it really isn't! The treatment is actually a course of drugs for a couple of months.

There is no outward sign on the sperm that it has DNA fragmentation

The reason you didn't get embryos to blastocyst for day 3 and had nothing to freeze is down to the sperm - sperm quality takes over day 3 to make it into a blastocyst - day a 1to3 are determined more my egg quality

Your consultant is setting you up for another failed round so I would be looking for an alternative opinion ASAP because everything they are telling you is wrong

Thanks. I hadn’t heard about the antibiotics. We are going to go another round with our clinic as last time I responded badly and they are upping my meds to see if my response improves and they’re very convenient to my work but if we still get a bad response I have been looking into Lister and Dr Jonathan Ramsey as he seems to be the expert in this area. We are in Ireland so it would mean moving to a Uk clinic so I think having information about whether a higher dose of stims works better for me would be good to have before going to UK!

Hello, we had ICSI for my husbands borderline sperm results combined with my high fsh (they said we probably could conceive on our own but it may take a very long time and because of me we didn’t have the luxury of time.) the cycle went terribly and although I got 20 eggs and 14 fertilised there was a quality problem and they all died off - had one poor quality blast transferred and a bfn.

Second cycle we tested dna fragmentation - it was borderline high. Consultant suggested surgical retrieval of sperm - we did this. 13 fertilised this time, still had quite a few die off but I now have one healthy almost 6 month old son! And 2 embryos on ice - TESE seemed to make all the difference for us. Good luck

Thanks so much for letting me know. I will ask our consultant about TESE!!

Hi there, although we are still waiting for bfp our first round of IVF we had 3 eggs out of 7 fertilised. Second round we used Picsi or Macs and had all 9 eggs fertilized! This resulted in 3 blasts, 2 went into freezer, which i am very happy with. General icsi won't pick up good dna sperm. Read about picsi and macs methods. Good luck!

@AnnaSteen - we are going down the TESE route with a clinic in Ireland soon. We have had 2 rounds at this stage, both with huge drop offs from day 3 to 5. Consultant and Urologist are putting it down to borderline DNA fragmentation. Hubble did a recent round of antibiotics so hopefully this time will work!

Have you made any progress since?

Hello, I know this was a while back but which clinic did you use for picsi and macs- seems very advanced

Hi op, the dna fragmentation world is so frustrating as so many clinics don't believe its an issue! My husband has a severe varicocele and some still don't believe that causes low sperm parameters when clearly it does.

My husband attempted to get his embolised to improve soern production but it didn't work unfortunately, so to maximise our chances at ICSI, for 2 months before he did the usual lifestyle changes needed but he also ejaculated every other day or near enough to keep soerm production going and ensure there was less oxidisation damage. He also provided his sample after only 24 hours of abstinence on the advice of our clinic.

We were waiting every day to hear about drop off of embryos but we got 7 eggs, 7 fertilised and 7 made it to day 5, though one slowed down on day 5 and wasn't frozen, so all in all 6 out of 7. They were all good and top quality blasts too, so for us we were lucky or the efforts paid off leading up to ICSI. His parameters were all very low, 2 mil and 1% morphology etc, but we didn't get the dna fragmentation test because we wanted to try a round first and see how it went, fully prepared to do a surgical removal of sperm for the next round if the first didn't work.

Hope you can get some answers, did you find out a cause for your husbands low count?

Hi guys, I just thought I’d update in case anyone reads the thread above. As per above we had TESE and then ICSI ivf for borderline high dna fragmentation and this resulted in my son and 2 good quality frozen embryos.

interestingly we then conceived naturally when my son was just 10 months old and I now have a little girl as well.

so sorry quality can clear improve over time as well.

hope my positive stories gives someone some needed optimism!😊

definitely optimism we need! Congrats 🩵
what clinic was this that suggested the TESE? Xx

For anyone who stumbles across this zombie thread desperate for some hope.

my husband I went on to conceive naturally after our first was born with ivf. Pretty amazing given the odds we were given after our first shitty ivf cycle. Kids now 4 &5!

Hi @hoping2018 thanks so much for bumping this thread with a hopeful message! We have been TTC n1 for just over two years. I was 39 when we started so initially all consultants put it down to my age and egg quality, although my numbers were good for my age. Fast forward a year and a bit later i insisted that my partner got his DNA frag tested and lo and behold he had a 39% DFI but terrible distribution as only 12% of his sperm was normal. He got on supplements and applied lifestyle changes and after three months I got pregnant but unfortunately miscarried. In the meantime he was scheduled to have a varicocele op which he did (also then got covid a week later so not great for sperm quality 😅 - although on repeated tests last months there was an improvement of DFI) and we were about to start ivf (already paid the multi cycle package and ordered meds) with ICSI and zymot this month when I found I out I was pregnant again. It’s incredibly early days (3+6 - my period was due today) and now I’m scared I will mc again because of poor quality embryo.I should say I’m also quite old now (at least in fertility terms :)) so not much chance that my eggs can repair sperm dna damage. Reading your posts has made me feel a little more hopeful. We do still have everything in place should this pregnancy not go well but I am really hoping it’s not the case. So thanks so much for sharing your positive experience. I also hope that all the other posters went on to have healthy pregnancies.

My partner has DNA frag of 65% I would definitely get a 2nd opinion. We used a combination of IMSI and zymot on our last round. We got our only blastocyst from that round and it’s resulted in an ongoing pregnancy (32weeks). We had ongoing appts with Dr Ramsey (highly recommend) who prescribed drugs to boost the sperm quantity as it was less than 1m per ml. On our last round we got 16 eggs to 13 fertilised to 13 on day 3 between grade 1&2 to day 5 to only 1 4bb blastocyst and 1 not good enough to freeze it was disheartening. But with the high dna frag we was told very lucky to just have one.

Hi all, I am the Op on this thread. Happy to report I now have a 2 year old and 26 weeks pregnant with a sibling. We saw a urologist. Got a variocele embolized and took the full recovery months off. DNA frag went down to 23%. Followed a strict fertility diet and lots of supplements etc and then started making embryos! Moral of the story is take any sperm issue seriously and to check DNA frag and address it properly before wasting time on IVF!

Hi @Liesontoast and @BliebenBlieben congratulations on your healthy pregnancies and @BliebenBlieben on your 2 yo. My partner has been under the care of Tet Yap on London who specialises in male fertility and that’s how we got to the bottom of the issue. We had everything set to start ivf using Zymot and ICSI but I just found out I am pregnant, this is the cycle where I should have started my stims but instead the period never came today. We were not actively trying as we had set our mind to IVF for this month with embryo freezing and PGT-A. Hence I can’t really control this pregnancy. I just hope it turns out ok. There were some improvements on the DFI but not so much for it to not be an issue so I just have to hope.

Thank you for posting your success stories. It has helped me to sleep with some positivity tonight i was starting to lose all hope ❤️

My OH has high DNA frag low sperm count poor motility and morphology. He has been prescribed 1mg of tablets ( name begins with an A) to boost his results. I really pray it works, @Liesontoast if you dont mind me asking what was the medication presribed?

I am booked in for iCSI soon im worried it it wont work due to the dna frag being so high.

It was Tamoxifen and anastrozole prescribed for about 3-6 months before we did another egg retrieval! Good luck and I hope it goes really well! @Angel2309

@Liesontoast
Hes been prescribed anastrozole aswel! I wonder why he wasnt prescribed the Tamoxifen medication aswel.

Thank you so much for your reply. Its so nice to be able to talk to people in a similar situation iv been struggling for over a year keeping all of my thoughts in.