Sever oligozoospermia ICSI chances

[Anniekent1]

Hello everyone

My partner has been diagnosed with severely low olizoospermia as his count came back 100,000. It was so low they couldn't test motility and morphology.
They immediately suggested ICSI but I'm worried without even knowing motility and morphology the chances are low. I assume with low count that these will also have bad results.
I hear stories that 10 million sperm is low let alone 100,000 so am so worried we see out already. I know it only takes one but we doing a lot of research around DNA fragmentation and know that it's not as simple as count.

Has anyone had any experience of increasing the number or had successful treatment ?

He is on imperol and cut out caffeine and alcohol and he is already healthy weight and exercises etc.
hopefully someone can put our mind at rest as we don't want to wait months / years for treatment that might not even have a chance of working

Hey!
My husband had very very very severe oligozoospermia. So bad only 0-5 sperm EVER seen on a sample (once centrifuged). He saw dr Ramsay in Harley street who gave him clomid. We went for ICSI a month later and on the day of my egg collection he gave 3 samples and they found 11 sperm (!) across all of them. We got 8 embryos! Out of those we have twins from our first fresh transfer. It can happen.

Hi @chillipopcorn1 firstly huge congratulations on your twins what a wonderful outcome for you. And thank you for taking the time to share your story. Do you mind me asking if they found the cause of the low sperm count ?
Did dr Jonathan Ramsey recommend anything else ? We listening to lots of podcasts and trying to educate ourselves as much as possible !

It was all quite a long time ago, so I can't remember what else Dr Ramsay suggested, I'm sorry! They think the cause was a combination of mumps and an undescended testicle when my DH was younger. He also has a very large varicocele but a Micro TESE got absolutely zero.

Hi @chillipopcorn1 thank you for replying I do appreciate it. Hopefully we also get a good result
Wishing you all the best

Hi, partners sperm count was between 200,000 and 1.6m on several different tests. Other parameters also low or not testable due to the low count. We found the logical answer to this was likely due to undescended testicles he had as a child (operated on later than what guidelines say they should have been). He had no idea he’d even had that until we found it noted on some old medical records.

Went straight to ICSI - didn’t bother with DNA frag etc or as would ultimately still need ICSI anyway - from 25 eggs we ended up with 4 embryos. First two transfers did not work (1x miscarriage and 1 x implantation failure). Third gave us our miracle twins (the embryo split into two). 1 left in the freezer.

Be prepared for a lower fertilisation rate due to the sperm - so even with a good amount of eggs this won’t necessarily translate to high number of embryos - but if there is sperm in the sample to use then there really is hope and every chance of success. I’d go into it expecting that it may take atleast a few transfers - better to be realistic and manage expectations from the start I think. There’s only something like a 1 in 3 chance of a live birth (roughly) even if everything is “perfect” so it is I think unfortunately somewhat of a numbers game. A horrendously stressful one!

Wishing you the very best of luck with your journey.

Hi @Twins23x thank you so much for replying and congratulations on your twins hope you are all doing well

How long did you have to wait for ICSI did you get your partners sperm test quite early on in the process ? Think we are expecting potential low numbers or round (if it will even happen ) due to the numbers but just hope that we are one of the lucky ones xx

We were NHS funded - between getting the initial sperm tests arranged via the GP to then having the actual egg collection/ICSI was around a year. Several hoops to jump through during that year - they insisted he had an ultrasound (to rule out varicoseles - he did infact have a small one but they didn’t think that was the reason itself for the sperm issues) and also had to have kareotyping blood tests (results took a good few months to come back but were normal).

For the 4 months or so before ICSI he did take the supplement Impryl as advised by the consultant but the sample on the day of ICSI was actually the worst one he’d had …so can’t say for us it made any difference at all. I’m glad with hindsight we just cracked on with ICSI and didn’t waste much time on trying to improve the sperm as realistically natural conception was not going to happen regardless with those type of numbers.

From my very limited understanding aswell - in terms of motility that doesn’t particularly matter with ICSI as the sperm doesn't need to swim to the egg - and neither morphology as they’ll have their way of picking the best ones.

As always thanks for replying. I feel like we are in a very similar boat. Was advised to go for an ultra sound and was grade 1 varicocele but no one has told us if it's the cause yet. Now at the stage of being advised to get the further genetic tests etc and waiting for our consultation. Also been prescribed the impryl which bit deflated with that it didn't really change anything for you guys as was hoping that would help

Just feel bit lost and worried that the ICSI won't work unless we do some upfront work on the numbers first. As said maybe it's a numbers game but don't want to have to put ourselves through rounds and round emotionally and financially

Thank you again it's nice to be able to talk to someone who has gone through it

My partner has low sperm count (classed as severe ) and 1 million per ml. So not quite as low as your partner but still very low. Motility is 1 percent and should be over 40 for good fertility .
We had icsi to conceive my son and it was successful first round and we have a 2 YO.
We'd been TTC for a second for a year and fell pregnant naturally. I genuinely couldn't believe it and doesn't get lost on me how lucky we are, I'm 12 weeks pregnant now. Still a long way to go and I can never relax until baby is in my arms.
He had a test this Feb and his sperm was still very low.
He started taking proxeed and having cold showers. He has a varicocele that's the reason for the low count. He's very healthy and does lots of exercise so It's not something that could be changed by life style.
I don't know what it is what clicked for us or just sheer luck. I am 28 so fairly young too and had started the gym and eating so clean and tonnes of blueberries.
There is hope, it can take a while to get there but don't feel all is lost.
I never ever saw myself in this position and have a beautiful 2 year old from our icsi round.

Numbers really don't matter as ICSI bypasses count really as they choose the best looking sperm and inject into the egg.
However, if you are planning on having multiple children and depending on your age you could go down the route of getting the varicocele fixed- this was our next stage when ttc a second. That can improve the count and quality and you could do ivf from there if needed.

Hi @Elisabeth3468 thank you, I think our concern was more round that whatever is causing low numbers could also be causing other issues like dna fragmentation or issues to the sperm itself is even if they could find 10 sperm when they are inserted into the egg it wouldn't develop or I would miscarry as the quality is not good.
Potentially over worrying as that is a quality of mine. Have you and your partner had something similar ?

Yeah but they'll deffo be some good quality sperm among them!!
We had poor sperm and didn't get loads of embryos, 17 eggs, 7 fertilised and then 2 embryos but only one decent one- which is my son.

Hi @Elisabeth3468 have all my fingers crossed for you and what a miracle. This really does give me hope though. We really would love to still be natural (maybe still a bit disillusioned) so want to try looking at fixing the varicocele. Even if it's ICSI for first child and then in future it's natural if we have more time to fix. Bit like your story. Thank you again and have to keep me updated!