Severe Oligospermia. What next?

[mabel92]

My husband has just been diagnosed with Severe Oligospermia due to what we now know as undescended testicles, they found one sperm in his analysis!
We have conceived naturally quickly before but unfortunately decided to terminate due to circumstances (trying not to beat myself up about that). We have been told that it’s unlikely they will find any more sperm if they try a retrieval so we are now looking at Sperm Donor. Has anyone got experience with this or tips? Are we giving up too early? Thank you so much.

My husband had none in his samples with the same cause of undescended testicles. He’d had samples a few years earlier which had some sperm seen, so similarly to you there was evidence that there were working areas. With the help of various drugs (clomid/tamoxifen/anastrozole) he managed to increase production enough to not need surgical retrieval, although that’s what we had expected we would need (still had ICSI as they were incredibly low numbers). Depending on finances and time I would certainly not dismiss anything yet.... my recommendation is seeing Jonathan Ramsay who is a urologist based around London.

Hi @HighwayCat thank you for your reply. Can I ask how long was your husband on medication before his numbers improved? Did he make lifestyle changes? Did you then go for ICSI? I will look into Jonathan Ramsay, thanks.

.

I'd suggest seeing Mr Ramsay before taking it any further.

He had between 3-6 months on medication - Some of that was working out the right drug and dose which Mr Ramsay checks with hormone blood test and sperm analysis. You can see him privately or he also does NHS work. Back when we started this he was quite unusual in doing this as it isn’t the licensed use of those drugs but I think it’s getting more popularity.

Mr Ramsay was also training in a mapping procedure where they could work out the best areas to look for if surgical retrieval was needed. Lifestyle-wise the usual stuff around keeping testicles cool, no mobile phones in pockets won’t hurt so try and do all that stuff if you can.