I've been watching a series of webinars as part of a "Get Fertile Stay Fertile" summit that's been taking place this week. It's featured a lot of experts in different areas of mind-body therapies for fertility and honestly it's a bit of an information overload so I haven't been able to watch them all, but I have to say I found Dr Fiona McCulloch's contribution so informative with regards to autoimmunity as a common underlying cause for fertility issues (unexplained infertility, repeated miscarriage, PCOS, endometriosis). I had heard of natural killer cells before, but apparently autoimmunity extends beyond this to those with generalised systemic or metabolic inflammation in the body. So seemingly benign issues such as skin rashes and allergies, joint pain and stiffness, weight gain around the middle, migraines etc. can be due to inflammation in the body that in turn makes conception and implantation nigh-on impossible.
Definitely worth watching while it's still available - the website does ask for your email address and then they want you to upgrade for continued access to the webinars, but at the moment they are still there and free! The talk I refer to above is called "Calming Autoimmunity and Inflammation for Optimal Fertility" by Dr Fiona McCulloch.
No problem at all, I hope it helps. I read your post and am so sorry to hear your news, this is such a hard process. I just wanted to say don't give up just yet, as infuriating as this is - there are people who have been through multiple failed cycles and had success in the end. The main thing is that information is power.
I'm speaking to my sister's friend this evening, she went through I think over five rounds of IVF before being successful and now she has three boys. I know it doesn't work out like that for everyone but I want to hear her advice as she apparently knows A LOT of information and is a doctor herself which doesn't hurt. I'm going to be asking her what she knows about the thyroid affecting fertility as the parameters on the NHS are way too broad. My TSH is 3.3 mlU/I but if you look at that link, according to the American Thyroid Association, it needs to be less than 2 to support conception and anything over 3 is considered sub-clinical hypothyroidism. However, on the NHS it's considered normal up to over 4mlU/I!
Anyway, I know this is a lot to take in right now and you need to recover and deal with the grief. Try to get back to finding the little joys in life if you can. We are not machines and it's so draining putting ourselves through this, but please don't lose hope. x
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