Low sperm count but healthy - causes?

[AnonymousXXIX]

Oh how great to be posting on this side of the forum :(

We found out that dh has very low sperm count (but not non-existent); low morphology; and low motility (but that one's not too drastic). The recommendation from the Internet seems to be: straight to ICSI. And wow that is expensive. Of course that does make me wonder if there is - anything - he could do to improve it.

We're both 30 and very healthy, never smoked, barely drink, don't do drugs, exercise regularly, eat lots of fruit and veg and no other crap, etc. etc. - which are all listed of potential causes for this. No medical history either.

Does anyone know what could be causing this at all? We're making some appointments of course but curious if anyone else has this experience. I can't find examples of any man that had nothing at all (noticeably) going on with his health.

My DH was the same. His count improved when he cut out all alcohol and caffeine (not that he had much of either anyway - glass of wine / cup of coffee). Then saw a urologist who found a varicoele (DH had no symptoms or signs of one) which when removed further increased count and quality. There can also be a genetic cause not visible so he had y deletion and Karyotyping done all came back clear. Unfortunately all the improvements we still need ICSI but sperm is a lot better quality now.

Male fertility has decreased by a shocking amount since the 1970s - lifestyle and chemicals in food and water and plastics etc could be a factor

I'd put him on a really good pre conception vitamin

My DH gave something like 7 samples in 2 years whilst we were doing IVF and they all varied hugely so it could just have been in response to a cold he had had or something like that

Thanks both : ) We are going to see a urologist privately I think to get it looked into asap (NHS is months!) and I am getting him some tablets to see if it makes any difference. I was anticipating we could have some fertility issue because you never know but this is shocking I have to say :(

We're exactly the same - we were so shocked by my partner's poor results as he is so fit and healthy! I thought it would be all down to me and my "advanced maternal age" as I'm 39 - he's only 30. We've put him on a load of supplements as recommended by the clinic and the book "it starts with the egg". Reduced plastic in the kitchen, switched to a Mediterranean diet, switched to green tea, dark chocolate, spinach with everything etc etc. He's cut right back on alcohol to pretty much none at all now. Not sure what else we can do! We're doing ICSI next month so I just hope there has been some improvement in this preparation time, if not then we'll look into seeing a urologist I think. He went for a blood test this week to check testosterone and other hormone levels so it'll be interesting to see what comes of that.

Oh yes asking for blood tests also! We might do icsi in 2021 I think if we can't work out wtf this is and nothing can be done about it. Hate that this has a price tag now even though it seems like my eggs and all that are actually fine (knock wood).

I really hope it is hormones or a varicoele (although, could that have such severe effects?!). Nothing we can cut back on, drinks like 1 drink a week and he doesn't like coffee, we never have any sweets or even takeaways; don't use anything plastic really. I mean the gym has been closed this year but he's def still fit. Honestly nothing to change that I can think of.

Instead of giving up things it could mean incorporating things. how much nuts does he eat? My DH started eating lots of raw Brazil nuts and cashew nuts, also upping veg - we would have like salmon with broccoli and baby potatoes and thought that was a healthy dinner. A nutritionist I saw said we should be having at least 4 different types of veg at lunch and dinner. Only having meat once a day. No baths, cold showers, loose trousers, phone not in pocket anymore, laptop not on knee. My DH count pre varicoele removal was less than 1 million, his dna fragmentation was 52%. Now his count is 10mil and his frag 23-25% so a varicoele can have a big impact.

Vitamin wise my DH is on 200 ubiquinol, proceive max, high level omega 3s, vitamin c, vitamin d

My DH was similarly low in all areas but otherwise very healthy. We saw big improvements after we addressed some dietary intolerances he'd been ignoring for a long time. He had food poisoning about 18 years ago and his digestion was never right afterwards, but he just ignored it and put up with it. Last November he bit the bullet and went to the doctor about it. He ended up on a low fodmap diet which is pretty restrictive but has made a big difference to his digestion and his fertility. By January his count was drastically improved in all areas, and we conceived naturally in April.

Oh he also took a supplement called FH Pro for Men, which is expensive but has loads of good stuff in it, in good amounts.

Thank you all, that is really encouraging! We got some Wellman tablets, hoping that might help a little. Diet wise, I mean it that we eat super healthy haha, fruit and veg with lunch and dinner, lots of nuts as well. Laptop has been banished from the sofa though. I also wonder if extra exercise might help too. He moves plenty but I reckon the pandemic has made it a bit less than before because the commute's gone etc.

Wellman isn’t great tbh. Needs to be on proceive max and ubiquinol at a minimum .

The other ones all looked so expensive. And I would rather go a bit too low than a bit too high, before seeing a doctor!

Just on diet and alcohol - I had 5 rounds of IVF and banked embryos from the final 3 rounds for transfer after the final one. I'm currently 21 weeks with twins from the egg collection and sample he gave first week of January after weeks of drinking loads of booze, bad diet and general gluttony, I'd be surprised if he remembered half the vitamins he was supposed to. It was the best sample he'd given in 5 years

We had to transfer embryos from January because we didn't get any blastocysts from
Our final egg collection in June - his sample was awful. This was after lockdown and months of eating healthy zero booze very healthy living - everything the books said we had to do - as we wanted to give it our best effort for our final round - ironic really! So just goes to show that diet isn't everything x

Hi @AnonymousXXIX

I'm sorry to pick up on an old thread but my husband and I are in a very similar situation. I just wondered how you got on and whether anything helped? X

Hi @alt22 im not hugely experienced in this area. We have two children and been trying for a third for almost two years. My husband has had 4 SA. 3 have been fine and the last one wasn’t so the clinic but our lack of conception down to that. I’m not convinced but anyway… I had a brief conversation over email with Dr Ramsay who suggested any illness such as covid or a fever can impact SA. I also discovered that there is a huge amount of variation from test to
test. One bad result doesn’t mean infertility or sub fertility and likewise, one good one doesn’t mean great fertility either. Loose boxers, no hot baths, proxeed, healthy diet, I phone in pockets or laptop on knees etc as has been mentioned above. We have cut our alcohol and caffeine pretty much but a small exception over Xmas. We are going to have the SA repeated but if it’s improved we won’t know whether it’s to do with the above changes or natural variation in results

@alt22 ehm since that post we went through a full year of investigations, with many mistakes by the NHS and agonising waits... then we were referred for ICSI and granted full funding for 3 rounds! And as we were waiting for our first consultation... miraculously conceived naturally. About 2 years of trying you could say. To date, no one has been able to explain why or how (we were told it was more likely to win the lottery).

Currently very grateful but extremely anxious about the (im)possibility of more children. Will it be back to ICSI? And we won't have the funding now.. Will get DH tested again, but 2020-2021 the results were all very comparable and pretty bad. Let me know how it goes for you and if I can support at all!

Hi @Anonbaby,
We're we've been doing similar for several months now with regards to diet and lifestyle changes. I'm not a fan of wearing boxers so I discovered Cool Beans Underwear, which have a mesh pouch to keep the "beans" cooler than regular briefs. I've found them very comfy, I guess we'll see if they help with SA results down the track too.