Looking for success stories of using, doxycycline, prednisalone, progesterone and fragmin injections after recurrent miscarriages

[Steffi12]

Hi everyone,

Just to give you a brief background on my history, I’ve had 6 recurrent miscarriages, no living children. My last miscarriage was of fraternal twins so have lost 7 babies in total.
I’ve lost 4 at around 5 weeks gestation (twins were measuring within a day of eachother)
2 have been lost just over 6 weeks with heartbeat seen in one with an early scan.
And I had one very early loss classed as a chemical. All but 2 of my losses have been missed miscarriages where I’ve had no bleeding and just found out at scans I’ve lost them weeks before. I was on progesterone for our fourth and fifth loss (chemical) and progesterone and 75mg asprin for our last loss of twins.

I have been through my local NHS miscarriage clinic which I’m afraid weren’t all that helpful. Our fourth loss was sent for genetic testing which transpired was never done. Which is really frustrating as it would have been a big piece of the puzzle to know if that one was genetically normal. My blood panels have all been normal, apart from slightly raised clotting but I was 5 weeks pregnant at the time the test was carried out. They have referred me for IVF a which I know I am so lucky to have under the NHS, however I’m worried that isn’t our answer as we l conceive. They said they don’t do any genetic testing of the embryos so not sure how it will help.

I have reached out to a private clinic who have prescribed me a 2 week course of doxycycline starting from CD 1. And then 10mg prednisalone once daily and 400mg twice daily of progesterone to start both at 3dpo. If I have a positive test I then start fragmin injections once daily.
I’m so hopeful in this protocol but also terrified, so looking for success stories from anyone who’s been through similar and had success on this type of protocol?
I’m also more of the mind that is it more of a immune issue with me rather than genetic (appreciate the chemical was likely a random genetic issue) as the losses occur all at a similar time. The twins stopped developing within a day of eachother which seems too much of a coincidence for two separate babies to stop almost at the same time?

Thanks so much for reading x

Not what you asked but taking vitamin D (a rescue regime followed by weekly tablet) enabled me to have a successful pregnancy after 3 recurrent m/c, and also worked for a friend.

@Chafing oh no I honestly am so grateful for any information/ advice! That’s really interesting thank you I’ll look into it ☺️ congratulations on your success x

Hi have you had nk cells tested and your micro biome?

@sd8809 no I haven’t and either testing.
I’m on the waiting list for the implantation clinic in Warwick which I was hoping to attend but they aren’t open to new patients and not sure when they are going to be.
I’ve struggled finding clinics near me who do the uterine testing as many seem to just offer the blood tests for NK cells. The clinic prescribed me a course of doxycycline incase I have any underlying endometritis.
I am concerned my NK cells could be low and so the steroids could make things worse. Or they could be super high and the steroid dose might not be high enough. It’s such a minefield x

I had 5 losses (4 miscarriages and 1 TFMR) before giving birth to my son. I know 2 of those pregnancies were not genetically normal but not sure about the others. Two of my pregnancies were IVF. I have positive anti-nuclear antibodies which also suggests I could have had an immune system issue.

I don’t know what (if any) of the following contributed to my successful pregnancy but when I had my son I’d done the following:

• High dose (2000mg) vitamin D
• Levothyroxine 6 months before I conceived as my thyroid was shown to be normal but suboptimal for fertility.
• Prednisolone once a day for the 1st trimester
• progesterone until I was 16 weeks
• Fragmin from conception until birth
• (I stopped taking aspirin around 5 weeks as I had a subchorionic haematoma).

In addition, my husband had had a varicocele surgery 5 months before we conceived and I’m convinced that poor sperm qualify was a big part of our issues, despite the focus on me.

I hope you manage to find answers - I remember all too well the search for answers when you feel like nothing is helping.

I should probably also add (although I’m slightly hesitant to add because I think sometimes you can drive yourself to insanity with this stuff and I’m not sure how much it really helped) but we also cut out processed food, refined sugar, caffeine and alcohol and ate lots of fresh fruit and vegetables for a long period before conceiving our son (and for a long period whilst we were still having losses). We also switched most of our toiletries, cosmetics and cleaning products to natural products.

@Steffi12 have you had your vitamin B12 levels tested?

Look into fertilysis they do recurrent miscarriage panel which can check both microbiome and nk cells. I had two normal successful pregnancies then a missed miscarriage trying for third- that required d&c, but unfortunately I had retained products after this for 9 weeks and needed second d&c. Pathology showed on second d&c that I had
developed chronic endometritis. I was given doxycycline then. I then had two consecutive biochemical and a further missed miscarriage ( failed medical management and needed hysteroscopy removal of products). I was palmed off and told all bad luck. I went private and endometrial biopsy showed I still had chronic endometritis and bloods showed high nk cells. Had proper targeted antibiotics fell pregnant instantly, was put on aspirin, clexane, prednislone, progesterone ( suppositories and injections) and two weekly intralipids. I also was taking high dose vit d and omega 3. I have my 16 day old now because of this! I’m sorry your going through this, my journey was the hardest thing I have ever went through

No advice, but I’m also interested in this as I’ve read a lot about women being offered these different treatments. I recently had my fourth loss while on progesterone, aspirin & blood thinners. I too am on the waiting list for the implantation clinic but I can’t wait for them to open back up so have a consultation with a private clinic soon where I want to look at nk cells & microbiome. I feel I’m coming to the end of what the nhs can offer me

Sorry for jumping on your thread @Steffi12, but @sd8809 please can I ask which test you had done for the endometrial biopsy? I’ve read about Emma/alice tests but not sure if they are different to the biopsy or kind of the same

I’m in Ireland so had reproflow biopsy similar to all the other ones but it check uterine nk cells and lots other things. Also had culture sent at time of biopsy for endometritis to get antibiotics sensitivity

My fertility accupunturist recommended microbiome testing through a company called screen me. I just took a swab at home and sent it off in the post. I'm still waiting for a call to explain the results but from what I can work out, my microbiome means I'm predisposed to get infections, I had a UTI at the time of my first loss and my infection and inflammation markers were raised for my second.

I also spoke to a private consultant remotely through 'plan my baby'. You have an online call with the consultant and then he arranges tests for you in your local area. He said nk testing wasn't appropriate for me as my second loss was second trimester but they do offer it. They take bloods at the commercial scanning clinics and then send them off to proper hospitals to be tested.

I’m so sorry to hear about all your losses,
thank you so much for sharing all this information it’s really helpful! But yes your so right, I’m getting so tired of being let down and the constant fight for answers 😓

I've just got a couple more questions if you don’t mind?… how did you know your thyroid was suboptimal during pregnancy? Was it just a test during pregnancy and did you go private?

what dose of prednislone were you on?

and how did you find out about your husbands varicocele? I’ve wondered about this but not sure if I would need to look at private routes for this?

Thank you so much for all your help xx

I’m not sure I have. I have had large miscarriage blood panel taken but I’m waiting those results from the consultant. I have been told there are ‘all fine’ but unsure exactly what I’ve been tested for yet as waiting on a consult x

Thank you so much for all this information and I’m so sorry to hear about all your losses.
Ive heard about fertiliysis! Did you have to travel to them?
I’ve also been palmed off so many times it’s awful! Can I ask what the targeted antibiotics were? I didn’t realise endometritis like be so chronic!

thank you so much again, it really is a hard lonely journey xx

No problem at all! It really is such a minefield isn’t it, I’m so sorry to hear about your losses.
And it’s frustrating about the implantation clinic I wish they could give an approximate date of reopening at least. My local NHS have signed me off now after very little investigation. I am slowing going through the IVF route but I’m worried it’s not our answer xx

Thank you so much for this information and so sorry to hear about your losses. I haven’t heard about screen me or plan my baby so I’ll definitely something I’ll look into them thanks!
I hope you get some answers soon and have success, it’s such a hard journey xx

Hi OP. I’ve had 5 losses inc 1 ectopic, 2MMC and 2 natural MC so a mixed bag.

My NHS recurrent MC tested and diagnosed high NK cells. I’m on 25mg Prednisolone and I was also on Hydroxychloroquine too but I recently stopped it on the advice of another consultant. From recurrent MC I also take Cyclogest pessaries 2 x 400mg. Currently doing IVF and am also on Fragmin and Lubion injections.

I also did a course of doxycycline post egg collection. I have also had various tests including Hycosy, Hysteroscopy. I didn’t do micro biome but considered it but it’s very expensive and it’s hard to know what to prioritise.

It’s so frustrating them not having a timeline of when they’ll take patients again. At least then we’d know whether to wait it out for them. I’m fully expecting to be discharged from the nhs clinic too once my latest results are back, as 2 of my losses have now been under them. Now I feel like I’m going to have to sink loads of money in trying to find answers. It doesn’t seem fair that there is clearly an issue yet they discharge patients. I’m sorry you’re going through this x

Sorry I’ve only just seen your questions.

The fertility clinic did a blood test after 4 of my losses and 3 failed IVF cycles which showed sub-optimal thyroid for conception. I started taking 25mg of Levothyroxine around 6 months before I conceived our son. I was then under the care of a thyroid consultant throughout my pregnancy and my dose was tapered up a couple of times during the pregnancy.

I think my dose of prednisolone was 10mg a day for the first trimester.

The reason we embarked on IVF in the first place was because my husband had low morphology and motility. A urologist then told him he had a varicocele (he had no symptoms) which could be causing the poor quality. IVF was then a battle because I have low AMH so didn’t produce many eggs - and from this point every doctor became focussed on my low AMH as being the cause of our issues. I couldn’t get out of my head that the original problem was sperm quality so we decided to get the varicocele operated on (against all medical advice because they were telling us it would make no difference and the problem was me but we’d tried everything else by this point!) and I conceived our son in the first month after this operation would have had chance to take effect.

Im not sure if you or your partner have access to health insurance but my work Bupa paid for recurrent miscarriage blood tests and appointment with an immunology consultant and my husbands health insurance paid for the investigations from the urologist which found his varicocele.

Hi I’m so sorry to only just reply! I’m so sorry to hear of all your losses. I’m glad the NHS did the NK cell testing for you and found some answers! It’s such a postcode lottery of what they will do and mine weren’t interested.
I know what you mean and so sorry you’re going through this. It’s all such a minefield and you get so many differing opinions it’s hard to know what to do. And all the testing is so expensive like you said it’s hard to know what to do for the best xx

It really is! I’m not even sure when they closed to new patients but I’ve been on the waiting list since July. I’m sorry to hear that too, unfortunately that has been my experience. I feel let down to be discharged when they haven’t found any answers it seems crazy to me. And it’s so hard to decide who and what testing to go for privately as it all really adds up. Thanks so much for your kind words and I’m so sorry your going through this too xx

So sorry to only just reply! Thank you so much for this information!
I’ll definitely ask about further thyroid testing but the IVF clinc said they don’t test TSH and all my other testing has been deemed normal.
Thank you so much for the steroid dose as I was starting to get paranoid about my dose being too low

Thats so interesting about the varicocle. I’m sorry the clinic just focused on you. That has been my experience all along, there’s been barely any testing for my husband. Just sperm count and motility. Which seems crazy as obviously it’s a 50/50 thing!

massive congratulations on your success 🤍

unfortunately we are both with vitality health care through work and I’ve enquired and they don’t cover any miscarriage investigations which is frustrating xx

Hi girls! Hope you don’t mind me joining this thread. I’ve just had my second MMC at 10w after a HB. Sorry to read of some endless challenges you’ve had, we have some strong ladies 💓✨

I am very pushy and have BUPA through work, so I have had pretty much all of the bloodwork done which have frustratingly been perfect. The only missing is NK, which I don’t think is covered by my BUPA.

Ive had thyroid, anti cardiolipin, lupus, FSH, LH, folate

I’m 38 this week so husband and I want to keep trying from this month — going to ask for my GP to prescribe progesterone and aspirin just in case.

id also like karyotyping done

for those with sperm challenges, hubby had the test and his was all excellent for morphology etc. can there still be issues that considered?

So sorry :-( that’s incredibly sad.

Re testing - I definitely recommend karyotyping. NK cells is probably worth doing too but some specialists think that the immune reaction is not as strong when the placenta takes over, do you know when you lost your 10 wk pregnancy? E.g if it was at or close to 10 weeks it might not have been able to be immune related if your placenta had started to develop.

Sperm wise, my husband did all the usual ones and the DNA fragmentation and the semen micro biome (or similar) test. It’s hard to know how much testing to do because when or if your results are normal or borderline you just get palmed off with ‘it’s just bad luck’ which is frustrating.

getting progesterone and aspirin as a precaution is sensible, you could also get your progesterone checked at 7DPO to see if have naturally low progesterone. Sending you so much luck and baby dust x