Clamp used in embryo transfer - did it hurt anyone else?

[Ljayne]

Hello all, I had my embryo transfer last Tuesday 18th Feb and I'm now on that 2 week long wait! When the clamp was used for the endo scratch and the embryo transfer, it unbelievably hurt!

I was in so much pain and I have a reasonably tolerant pain threshold. I thought it might just have been the endo scratch procedure as I couldn't find any forums where people were in so much pain for the embryo transfer.

I have stage 4 endometriosis and PCOS. For me, I think it was the full bladder but I might be wrong. During the endo scratch I yelled in pain and asked the doctor to stop but she continued ensuring me we were nearly done (and I'm so pleased she did).

Does anyone else find the clamp an incredibly painful process? The catheter itself is absolutely fine. Plus, I've had 3 smear tests and whilst they're a little uncomfortable, I wasn't in pain.

[Faith103]

Pain from the clamp will most probably be the fact you are not relaxing and tensing up. If you tense you cause the clamp to feel tighter. This is more likely to be your nerves rather than a gynaecology situation as it is just on the entrance. Please don’t worry this will not have effected your transfer. We all get nervous at times. I’ve had the same situation with smears and clamps.xxxx

[Purplewitch18]

I got told that its uncomfortable with a full bladder and they said i could empty it so i did. I didnt have a scratch, but had no pain at all during or after. It could be that you were a bit senitive down there because of the endo. I find the vaginal ultrasounds really horrible. Have you rang your clinic?

[RhinoCat]

Mmmmm, it was hard to relax with it in but I tried my best to relax and that helped it was having the clamp removed that was worst part I found, was like high pressure and v uncomfortable , left me needing to Pee frequently for the rest of the day and night , felt like something just wasn’t quite right, needed to pee again after just having been etc . But pain free as soon as it was taken out . Hope you are ok now 💖💐💐💐💐

[LCharlton]

I found it pretty uncomfortable but not badly painful during the procedure - I had cramps for the rest of the day though.

[bobbles1]

You are not alone but rest assured the pain of the ET will not impact the outcome. I too had horrendous pain with my ET and during the 2WW and after but had a successful pregnancy. I was so bad after that I was going to complain to the clinic but when I got my BFP I decided not to.

So try not to worry. I am stage 4 endometriosis like you, with endo everywhere (recto vaginal deep infiltrating endo) so it has affected everywhere for me (unable to wear tampons since my late 20s).

So I guess this may well be the cause of your pain in ET, as often with bad endo the uterus can be tilted, which is quite common (retroverted or anteverted) or flexed over which is considerably less common (retro/ante flexed, mine is retroflexed) so this impacts the angles and given the speculum is always inserted the standard way, this makes for eye wateringly painful ET when the uterus etc aren't standard shapes.

I literally tear my hair out during ET and i am used to highly symptomatic endo pain but the ET was immensely painful, mainly from the pressure of the insertion of the speculum when they were trying to clamp it in place. The catheter didn't hurt at all, just like you.

Raising your bum and putting fists under help maintain a better angle but don't remove the pain much.

I never had pain in my younger years when having a smear so I know for me personally, the endo caused the changes. I have a few frozen embies that my consultant had offered i could have transferred under General Anaesthetic - could be an option for you for any future tries but hopefully this ET will bring success.

Oh and my consultant advised me before hand that the scratch would be very painful for me and advised against it. Not that it would impact the outcome but because he knew it would be horrendously painful given the location of my disease. Sounds to me like u r in a similar position and I wish you well. I remember how traumatic the whole thing was. xx

[Ljayne in reply to bobbles1]

Thank you so much for your reply, it's a relief to know it isn't just me. I will certainly mention this when I go in for my second IVF round. Can't believe I have to face it all again, I'm devastated, but I've got to do what I've got to do. Thanks for your support, your reply is really helpful x

[Lots8788]

Hiya

I think a clamp was used on our second transfer. 1st transfer was fine and quick. 2nd was quite painful (but not really bad) and took quite a while. Please don't worry though. We got a BFP on 2nd transfer so definitely didn't impact anything (it didn't work out unfortunately but nothing to do with transfer or anything,prob just something with that embryo). Good luck xx

[Lapinblanc88]

It is a relief in a way to see that other women have also experienced pain like I did on Tuesday during my FET transfer.

I was in tears!!!

Horrendous.

I didn't feel the catheter either

The doctor looked at me like I was being a bit previous.. and told me this doesn't usually happens to women

I'm really used to the pain as I have stage 4 endo x

[Ljayne in reply to Lapinblanc88]

Your reply is also a relief! The doctor who performed my endo scratch was really surprised that I was in so much pain. I was convincing her I wasn't a drama queen.

When I had the transfer, I warned the doctor of how I found the clamp. He said he's been doing his job for nearly 30 years and will be as gentle as possible, but my god it hurt just as much!

Afterwards I spoke to him about it and he did say I'm not the only one who found it hurts.

But I'm surprised at the lack of others that find this procedure painful. It doesn't just hurt, nor is it uncomfortable nor does it just make my face screw up, it's absolutely excruciating and it must be stage 4 endometriosis, something to do with our uterine position?

Thank you so much for sharing because I will mention this on my second round of IVF. Sadly, AF came to days ago x

[Sea_tan]

For embryo transfer, I think they all said the wrong thing when they said "other women don't feel pain" - so many of us are here!! 🙄

Always have a lot of pain even from transvaginal ultrasound, so I always request for trans-anal and ultrasound can be done up the anus!

For FET, I had Sedation for my embryo transfer so i was not in pain but I would wonder if I wasn't sedated.