Praga Medica - treatment abroad

[Twinkle00pea]

Hello - anyone have experience with seeking fertility treatment in Prague?

I have had 4 rounds in the UK now, and currently have 3 embryos frozen (untested). I feel that I should do one (or 2) more egg collections before I turn 42. I have had 3 transfers and they were all unsucessful. I have not had my endometrium checked previously.. not sure why it wasn't checked before my last transfer.

We had a consultation with the Prague doctor today and he's advised on the following steps:

• An initial visit to do all the checks
• A subsequent visit for stims and collection (send embryos for PGTA)
• A third visit to do the FET

Has anyone done this before or do you have any advice/recommendation on this?

Thanks!

Hello,

I had treatment in Prague and I’m currently 30 weeks pregnant. We used Praga Medica who suggested clinics. We went with Fertility Port and cannot fault the care we received.

We went in February for egg collection and stayed for 2 weeks and we had scans/monitoring. We then went back in May for 2 days for our frozen transfer.

happy to answer any questions you have :)

Thanks for your reply @Infertilitylife I do have a few more questions I hope you can help me with :)

• Did you do any initial tests? I have never had my endometrium checked, the doctor mentioned 2 types of test and I think one of them is the Emma Alice test. I understand this needs to be done before a treatment cycle starts.
• Did you do PGTA?
• Do they try and sell you multi-cycles?

Also on a separate note:

• Did they assign a clinic to you, how is that decided do you know?
• What is the ballpark costs for accommodation? They mentioned something about discounted hotels, do you know if they do serviced apartments? I'm looking into airbnb as well in case we go mental 2 weeks in a tiny hotel room!
• What else did you do in that 2 weeks? Was it generally quite relaxing?

Many thanks in advance! And congrats on your pregnancy!

The checks I had before hand were a pelvic/fertility ultrasound that checked ovaries etc (https://www.ultrasound-direct.com/services/fertility/fertility-pelvic-scan-and-bloods) and I also had blood tests that checked my progesterone, LH, FSH, AMH. I didn’t have an EMMA/ALICE test. We didn’t do PGTA testing and were never offered a multi cycle package. I think they suggest this if your medical/fertility history suggests you’d benefit from it.

Originally I emailed Praga Medica and they took all our health history etc and suggested the clinic they thought would work best for us. Our issue was male factor infertility- we did talk to other clinics ourselves but ultimately did end up going with the clinic that was suggested to us by Praga Medica. Praga Medica arranged our transfers from the airport which was so helpful as well as arranging some taxi visits to the clinic itself. I cannot fault our coordinator and although after the initial introduction to the clinic we didn’t communicate with Praga Medica much, they were there if we needed them and came to the clinic on the day of transfer to wish us well. They assign you clinics/suggest treatments based on your fertility history.

We paid just under £700 for 12 nights in a hotel and for our flights. I actually really enjoyed staying in a hotel and didn’t get too bored. We explored everyday and although we were there for 12 days, we weren’t in the clinic that much and were able to go shopping/sight see etc. we were actually in the clinic much less than I thought, but you do go in to be monitored.

Hope that helps :)

Thanks for the helpful information @Infertilitylife
I'm just waiting to get a cost breakdown from them now.. we had our consultation on Wednesday and have not heard back, maybe I'm too impatient!

@Twinkle00pea Whichclinic did you have your consultation with?

@Infertilitylife It didn’t say, the email is from IVF Praga Medica (Veronika), and the doctor I spoke to is listed on the main website. I’ve just gone back to my emails to look for the original attachment and see that it’s with Fertlity Port. This was sent before our consultation so I’m a bit confused now - does that mean they assigned us to Fertility Port prior to us speaking with the doctor? This is the one you used too?

Veronika was my coordinator too and she was lovely. And helped a lot throughout.

Yeah that does mean they’ve assigned you with Fertility Port and we went with them too :) cannot fault them at all.

Thank you. That’s reassuring 😊

@Twinkle00pea there is a Facebook page for Fertility Port patients that I found really helpful.

Thank you! This is very helpful 🤗

@Infertilitylife sorry one more questions (may be more!) Was chatting to someone on the FB support group and she said she started stimming in her country (Canada) and only arrived for day 10 scan onwards. Any idea how to get hold of meds in the uk? It has been very challenging for me to get a prescription from both NHS and Create fertility for some reason.. I have not tried my GP..

thanks!

I bought all of my medication through Zen Pharmacy and they were delivered directly to my house. I know other people have used Fertility 4 u and even some Asda’s will accept the prescription. My local Asda didn’t though. My GP wouldn’t prescribe me anything.

Zen pharmacy was the only pharmacy who would take the electronic prescription from the clinic. The clinic sent it to me via email and I forwarded it across to Zen and I had my medication the following day.

Thank you. I know my local Asda wouldn’t and my GP would prolly ignore the request all together so I will reach out to Zen pharmacy.

I didn’t have treatment in Prague but in Spain, just to say I usually booked an apartment and just worked from home so as not to use up my annual leave.
Ultrasound Direct were good for monitoring scans in the UK.

The clinic may have an agreement with a pharmacy, Fertility2U accepted electronic prescriptions from my clinic, I couldn’t get Asda to accept them. Also a few pharmacies in London but their prices were much higher.

As you have 3 untested frozen embryos I would consider testing your endometrium or the embryos, probably the endometrium to see if the transfer time is optimal (ERA test). Because you’re planning on going to make more embryos in Prague and test them and your endometrium, when the embryos you already have here might be okay. If you’re unhappy with your clinic (and they don’t sound proactive to be fair) would you not move the embryos to a different UK clinic first? Just another option…no right or wrong.

Thanks @LongerthanMrTicklesarms that’s exactly what I have in mind to do next. So your advice is reassuring. I was very directionless after the consultation with our clinic re. failed transfer so very thankful there’s this forum for support 🙂

I am planning to work from Prague for the duration, husband cannot work abroad so the plan is for him to do multiple trips. We have thought of transporting the embryos to Prague but that is about £2000-3000 so don’t think will be doing that. We have an appointment with NHS in Dec to discuss that, NHS do not do PGTA so it will be a gamble when it comes to transfer time (it is half the cost with NHS), hoping it is successful in Prague so I don’t have to do another FET in the UK. Also trying to get an appointment in with NHS to do the initial bloods and semen analysis; and maybe use ultrasound direct for the first scan (is the first scan day 5 or 6 of period?).

Found out from another forum Zen pharmacy also does online prescriptions, we used fertility2U with create so good to know there are options, just need to compare prices! Fertility2U are expensive compared to Asda.

@Infertilitylife Hello, just wanted to ask a question on their turnaround time with emails. Is it quite normal for them to take a week to respond? I've emailed them a few follow-up questions the first email from Fertility Port and I haven't heard back. Is it because we are technically not a "customer" yet? I'm waiting to get my bloods + hubby's semen analysis done and really hope I can get hold of the results to forward on before Christmas (so I can plan my Jan trip). Will they be more responsive after getting the results?

@LongerthanMrTicklesarms Which clinic did you use please? Someone mentioned somewhere in Seville and I'm wondering if I should look into Spain...

I'm a bit exhausted researching to be honest and just want to find somewhere with good support and comms.

Thanks!

@Infertilitylife - Hi, i know this is an old post but could you please let me know which therapy package did you purchase? Thank you

@Twinkle00pea - Hi, did you go with Praga Medica in the end? If so, what therapy package did you go for? Thank you