Unexplained - Male or Female?! What supplements

[TTCWithCHSweetheart]

Hi everyone.

I wonder if anyone is in the same position or have some answers.

Myself and my husband, both 30 have been TTC for 3 years. We have been classed as unexplained and now have 3 failed IVF/ICSI cycles behind us.

We seem to collect an okay number of eggs (9,14,14) and once they remove the ones that are not mature, about 50% fertilise. So not too bad.

However it’s the blastocyst stage we’re struggling with. On cycle one (IVF) we didn’t get any blastocyst and had no transfer. We were told that on day 3 the embryos were “textbook” and looking good. But nothing at day 5.

On our second cycle (ICSI) we got 1 blastocyst and they transferred both that and one that was apparently nearly a blastocyst. That ended in an ectopic.

This last cycle (ICSI at a new clinic) we got no blastocysts but 2 early blastocysts were transferred.

I’ve been reading that if we reach day 3 then it could be a sorry issue?! Has anyone else had or heard of this? I was convinced it was egg quality as it was a throw away comment by one doctor that we had a follow up consultation with during lockdown.

So now I guess we have to act like it could be egg it sperm and throw everyone we can at it.

I’m already taking Pregnacare Max and 600mg of CoQ-10, and have now been advised (mainly on here) that the husband should take CoQ-10 and eat tomatoe purée and walnuts everyday. He has also started on zinc, vic C, Ashwagandha, Frnugreek and folic Acid.

Can anyone else offer any advice they have been given or learn along the way?

We also need to look into Sperm DNA fragmentation.

I’m just so lost within all of the advise and can’t get a follow up with the clinic until the end of the month. I’d like to start on whatever supplements ASAP.

[Jezzabelle]

Hi 👋! My husband was told to take Proxeed Plus (bought from Amazon and has CoQ10 in) for 3 months at our initial consultation to improve sperm quality. I think it can also improve DNA fragmentation but he hasn’t been tested for that. Although our first cycle was unsuccessful, I think it has helped (we had 2 early blastocysts transferred on day 5 and one cultured to day 6 but never got to a quality that could be frozen). He is going to continue it now on the run up to our next cycle, which we are hoping to start in November / December in the hope that it helps lead to better results 2nd time around xx

[JenRoy]

I’ve just been doing some reading on the topic of improving sperm quality as our IVF cycle was a BFN and from 7 mature eggs, only 2 fertilised. We are also “unexplained” and like you my egg quality was blamed initially. But my consultant thinks it could also be a sperm problem too 🤦‍♀️.

We’ve been advised to do ICSI next. My husbands samples have always been “normal” so it’s unclear why we only had a 28% fertilisation rate.

I was reading a paper on sperm DNA fragmentation and it said “a meta-analysis of 32 studies published between 2000 and 2013 related to male infertility and antioxidants and found vitamin E, vitamin C, selenium, coenzyme Q10, N-acetylcysteine, zinc, and L-carnitine to be effective. Among these, vitamin C and vitamin E were most effective in reducing DNA fragmentation, and zinc and selenium had similar effects as well”. So I guess any supplements that have high doses of these anti oxidants may help 🤞

[Ketajean]

Hello we're unexplained aswell 6yrs ttc, definitely get the sperm dna fragmentation test done. We got this done at the start of this year and my partner had 25% fragmentation, he started seeing my natropath 3months before we did our recent round of ICSI and his results dropped to 4.9% which in australia is classified is normal so we thought perfect we've fixed our issue (previous two rounds had bad fragmentation in the embryos).

I'm currently in the 2ww and we got 15 eggs collected, 12 mature then 5 died during ICSI process because my eggs were too soft/delicate (they've recommended ivf for the next round) 6 fertilised and 1 arrested. But on day three they were only at 3cells or less so now we're thinking egg quality because egg is in charge for the first three days. We had a day 4 transfer of a 4cell and 3cell but I don't expect this will end in a bfp 🥺 they've said they've seen pregnancies from worst embryos but this will need to be miracle styles. The others made it to only 12cells on day 6 so nothing to freeze.

The drs have said to me maybe it was just a bad batch of eggs but they've been slow at developing all three cycles except this cycle is the worst. Im text book with amh etc for my age so they don't know whats causing the slow development. I also did growth hormone for 5weeks prior.

At a loss especially since my natropath mastered in fixing the dna frag in the other half not sure what happened to making my eggs super awesome so this wait and frustration can finally be over 😭

[Lilly12255 in reply to Ketajean]

what did the naturopat do to fix the DNA fragmentation? was it just eating healthy? specific vitamins? thanks!

[leo1980]

Hello! Such an exhausting journey! Sending you much love! What is a growth hormone?

[Ladypii]

Fertilisan M for men is the best on the market in my opinion. I compared it with all the other main brands and it had the highest volume of vitamins in plus pine bark extract which is known to be good for antioxidant quality which should help improve any dna frag. For me I took all the supplements suggested in “it starts with the egg”. Xx

[Zuzzzzy]

Hi. It looks like we have issues on both sperm and egg quality. Did DNA frag which came back very good but was worth doing it as if it's a bad result the clinic will be able to offer you other treatment options. We are on a ton of supplements. We're both on CoQ10 600mg, vitamin E 400mg, vit B complex double dose, vit D 2000, he's on C and zinc 2000 me on 1000, I'm also on omega3, folic acid 500, metformin 600 and DHEA. We're trying to eat as much seafood as we can, nuts and greens. I stopped drinking coffee over a year now and he's reduced to 1.5 cups a day. I pretty much eliminated alcohol (might have a glass of wine once every 3 weeks 😁), he might have one beer on the weekend. We're trying to be as good as we can while still enjoying life. We're starting our 3rd cycle tomorrow so everything crossed all this will help! We started all this mid January. It gets tiring trust me, but then we just suck it up and continue as it's all for only one reason! I have also started fertility acupuncture and reflexology in January and love it. My husband started a month ago and hates it😁 We have not used any supplement on our first two cycles and our clinic was against them but it got us nowhere. So for this one, we have changed the clinic and thrown everything we haven't done before. I wish you all the luck in whatever way you will decide to approach this xxx

[Italy300618]

Hi lovely, we had 2 failed icsi never making it past day 3. The next cycle with a change of supplements we managed 3

Blastocysts. Before we knew there were all in ones like proxeed plus and impryl we had already bought the following:

Omega 3

Ubiquinol (200mg a day)

Pure o.n.e multi vit

Alpha lipoic acid

L carnitine

Selenium and zinc

L arginine

Quite a few he took bless him, but sperm results were unbelievable in comparison. If you do decide on the all in ones I would definitely recommend ubiquinol as extra.

I took vit d3, pregna plan by cytoplan, inositol by zita west. Healthy diet, lots of greens, nuts an seeds, no caffeine, no alcohol. Best of luck, I promise things can change, never would have thought it would for us xx

[Italy300618 in reply to Italy300618]

I took 300mg ubiquinol too daily xx