Male fertility issues support please

[Heavyj]

10 years ago my ex and I tried to have a baby. I was on testosterone replacement therapy. I was 30 with low sperm count. She was 41 with fertility issues.

Using HCG and HMG I got my count up to 83 million (I think 15 was considered low)

We eventually did ivf but it didn't work out unfortunately. Years later for a variety of reasons, we divorced.

I went back on my testosterone replacement therapy and now at 44 I'm in a similar boat. My girlfriend and I want a baby but my count is at zero again, it's been 10 years, and I also added finasteride (Hair medicine) to my daily protocol.

I stopped TRT and finasteride in March. I started HCG and HMG 3 months ago.

Today, I has my sperm count checked and it's still zero. My doctor said it's too early for me to expect anything and that he thinks the possibility of recovery is there. But I'm having major doubts.

I'm also certain that if I can't have a baby that my girl and I won't stay together. I know she wants to be a mom more than anything and she's younger than me. She is only 33. She still has time. This is also making me sad but I can't exactly tell her, I have to stay positive.

I don't know that this is the right place to ask for help. If not, can someone point me in the right direction to a forum that can help?

Thanks for any advice that does come!

Hey, sorry to hear what you’re going through!

have you had any improvement yet? Also have they spoke to you about the possibility of ICSI As this can be done with a much lower sperm count?

Hey @Heavyj ! My boyfriend and I also have male factor infertility (low sperm count).

He is seeing an andrologist in London who did mention that hair / hormone treatments can have a negative effect on sperm quantity but it is reversible so in your case, it might just be the case of waiting a bit longer, since it takes around 3 months for the sperm to fully renew. You might start seeing an effect in the next few weeks or months :-)

In case it helps (although you might have tried these already!), the doctor also recommended him to buy different type of underwear, avoid hot baths / spa / heat in general, and take a supplement (Proxeed) twice a day. His sperm count improved a bit since he started all these so fingers crossed for you too!

And as @Elizamable mentioned, IVF with ICSI can work for very low sperm counts, this is the next step for us if IUI does not work and our fertility clinic mentioned that sperm count did not have any impact when doing ICSI, since even 1 swimmer is enough!

Hello, looks like it's been a while since you posted but just wanted to say we are in a similar boat, similar ages too.

There might be an option for surgical sperm retrieval and ICSI for you.

We had a couple of cycles of ICSI but it didn't work and in the end, it was not good for my health physically or emotionally, so we took the difficult decision to move to using a donor.

It is a hard thing to think about but with my partner being a similar age (mid fourties) we ended up thinking we can't keep spending time trying whilst he gets older.

Sperm donation also hasn't worked for us yet but we are hoping it will soon. Of course, there are lots of emotional issues with that to get your heads around and it is not easy and definitely not for everyone, however, we are finding we are feeling more OK with it the further we go.

Hope you get there and have success whichever way you go x