Friday, December 24, 2010

Phew

About 3 days ago I finally became negative on the urine beta HCG tests. Having gotten this green flag,  I finally went in for my antral follicle count today.

And...phew. AFC is 15 follicles per ovary(!!!).  Ovaries look polycystic but thankfully, ovarian volume looked normal. Most reassuringly, this definitely does not correlate with low ovarian reserve, which was my one gigantic fear since I found AMH was low.   I also gave blood to retest for AMH and (for good measure), Vitamin D3 since I've been on massive doses of the latter for the past two weeks. Testing in India is cheap so I go nuts. Off topic, but I'm also getting Vitamin B12 tested (nothing to do with fertility that I know of), but Vitamin B12 deficiency is really common in the Indian population and has also cropped up in my family. Interestingly, severe deficiency of this vitamin seems to cause some mental issues (periods of rage, stress etc).

   
So, overall,  it looks like I might have ovulatory PCOS (which according to my Indian RE may be compromising egg quality) but the jury is still out of the diagnosis. I'd be glad to have a confirmation, at least we would have something to treat.

11 comments:

  1. I am tempted to do my IVF in India since it's cheaper. I wonder if they can ship sperms to India.

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  2. It's so good you're in the right place to get all the tests you need...looking forward to hearing the results.

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  3. Stopping by again
    It's def. frustrating when the jury is out on a Dx. My R/E recently advised me "maybe or maybe not" PCOS?! Understanding our bodies change each cycle, but some clear Dx would be ideal.
    As for Vitamin D, what does it help with? I have seen a few people taking this as part of their IF regimen/protocol?
    Best of luck on testing & results!
    The Cs
    #78 ICLW

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  4. I'm glad to hear that your AFC count doesn't point to a DOR. I do hope your test results confirm a diagnosis as I"m sure uncertainty can be stressful.

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  5. @ babychase, yes you can ship sperm to India. One of the first things I checked, early on in this process.

    @C I don;t know how Vitamin D works. People are just starting to correlate this with fertility, it will be a long time before any mechanistic explanations are offered. Right now, they can just say that if you are low in this, you have a lower chance of success in IVF.

    As Shannon pointed out, this is a hormone, it can have any number of effects, in different settings.

    Interestingly, about 40% of women with PCOS are low in Vitamin D. There are many roads to PCOS I suspect, and maybe a vitamin D deficiency is one of them, who knows?

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  6. I also read this in the discussion of the paper I mentioned in the previous post.

    'Vitamin D has been previously identified as a regulator of endometrial expression of HOXA10, a target gene critical to implantation process (18), and our observations could thus be explained by this proposed relationship.'

    In other words, Vitamin D deficiency might adversely effect the implantation process.

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  7. Hey Jay, there's an endocrinologist at my work that specializes in Vitamin D, so I will ask him questions next week. He's the guru in Vitamin D.

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  8. I recently got my vitamin D tested (at my own instance - ask for the 25-hydroxy-vitamin D test) and was given a mega dose (50,000 IUs)of D2 which I've been taking weekly for 8 weeks, in addition to taking 1,000 IU of D daily.

    I hadn't read about vitamin d and infertility, but am not surprised.

    ~Jem (ICLW#5)

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  9. Great news Jay! Fingers crossed your AMH returns a higher result this time and that last one was just a lab anomaly!

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  10. Living in Oztralia, I don't have any issues with Vit D but that's interesting research! Thanks for sharing.


    ~Happy ICLW~
    #14 http://themissruby.blogspot.com/
    ♥ May your New Year be filled with Hope
    And remember in 2011 to....
    ♥ take risks regularly and love hard & without fear
    ♥ cry frequently but laugh daily

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  11. Thanks for stopping by my blog! It's always nice to have someone on there who is in a similar situation as I. Glad you have a chance to do this!

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