Pill priming made me have less follicles on day one.

[Butterfly83000]

I have low amh 0.4 and 36 and lately the doctor can only see 1 follicle on each side which normally had 3-5 in total.I feel since I started the pill priming it became worse. I'm so devastated. My chances look now extremely slim. Can't stop crying.

[Orangeflowers]

Sorry to hear this, but there's hope yet. I think follicle count may vary a bit month to month and in any case quality by far overrides quantity.

I doubt any vitamin regime could cause adverse effect such as that, though I might have heard excessive DHEA may interfere with ovulation. What have you been taking? Worried now that I should stop what I'm taking - I'm following recommendations in It Takes An Egg, apart from no DHEA as doesn't seem readily available in UK. Recommended doses do seem quite a bit higher than on the bottle tho.

Take it easy on yourself. The frustrating part of all this is we probably have not as much control over outcomes as we'd like.

All the best for your treatment 💖💖

[Butterfly83000 in reply to Orangeflowers]

Thank you orangeflower,

It's actually the second time that happened and I read for some women it has the opposite effect and produce even fewer follicles. But each woman is different. I did take all these supplements since a long time as that book recommended but did not help me. I took as well dhea. Can't tell if it has improved anything. To be honest I'm at the edge to give up even if I'm in the beginning. I'm not willing to stim with 2 follicles and pay all that money. There is no point. I was pregnant naturally last year but obviously had a miscarriage. I am looking for a clinic who is working with growth hormone as I read it can help a lot for women with low amh. But yes sometimes I think it may be easier to accept not to have kids than just trying hoping and being crushed over and over again. Sorry it's not the most optimistic post but that's how I feel. Donor egg and adoption is no option for us.

[Ivfgotadream in reply to Butterfly83000]

I went forward to egg collection with only 2 follicles and both stuck and am pregnant with twins. People seem to get hung up on “numbers” too much when actually In a lot of cases fewer follicles equals better quality. I intentionally did very low dose stims via natural modified IVF as I had 2 previous failed cycles where I had 14 follicles but hardly any fertilised and got rubbish quality blastocysts which all ended in BFN

[DianeArnold Partner Nurse Fertility Network UK]

Hi Butterfly. Follicle count varies from month to month, although I can't predict anything with certainty, it could be an idea to try a mild form of IVF without shutting down your ovaries. You just could get a small number of follicles that contain 2-3 eggs. Worth asking about. Good luck! Diane

[BroodySingle]

Hey Butterfly, we could be twins!

I’m 36 with an AMH of 0.4. Because of COVID, my clinic put me on BC pills so they could start me ASAP once the clinics reopened.

It was the worst thing they could do. I had one follicle that barely grew on max dose stims over about 12 days.

Because of this my cycle was almost cancelled twice, and as they thought not a lot was happening they stopped monitoring me so closely - I ended up ovulating a good size follicle before EC and they had to convert to IUI.

I’m very early into round two - and it could all end up the same - but I at least had 5 small follies at my baseline scan last Thursday (CD 2) and I’m only on 150iu Gonal-f this time.

Tomorrow is my next scan, but I think friday’s scan is more likely to show me the true progression and if I really was over suppressed by BC pills.

However, on a lot of the DOR / POF / POI groups all day the same thing, BC pills over suppress ladies like us, and max dose stims also often have the opposite effect to what’s intended.

Hope that helps xx

[Butterfly83000]

Hi Broody single. I feel as patients we have to take a lot in our own hands and never trust everything the doctors say. He didn't raise concern that the pill did that. I was the one mentioning after it happened twice which should raise a flag. So I questioned the pill that I don't want to use it next time and he agreed as without pill I had always better baseline scans. The pill probably suppressed too much the ovaries.

So I said I don't want to stim with one or 2 follicles. And he agreed to make a scan again in a week and only stim the last 7 days.

5 follicles sound great. I wish you the best of luck in this roller-coaster journey. It is tuff. Emotionally draining. Plus the pill made me so depressed. If you mess up hormones it's compromising your mental health. That's what I think is difficult about ivf. I'm thinking to do prp treatment or stem cell therapy in Dubai but want to see datas how many women they were able to help before going into a novel treatment. I wish you the best of luck. Xxx

[BroodySingle in reply to Butterfly83000]

Thank you lovely. Sadly it looks like my cycle might be over before it’s begun. I’m pretty sure they’ll cancel tomorrow or Monday as my AF is at eight days and counting so I doubt my lining has thickened at all.

Keeping my fingers crossed that a few more follows are recruited for you. xx

[Hidden]

Hi Butterfly I have a same experience in over suppressing ovaries when I was on E2 priming protocol (estrogen patches and ganirelex) unexpectedly I started stim with only 2 follicles ( the cycle before without estrogen patches I had 8 follicles) and sure enough stim did not grow any follicles and my cycle was cancelled and converted into IUI. Next cycle I did not agree to take BCP as they don’t work with me ( I still ovulate while taking them). So I started with Flare protocol with 4 follicles ended up with 8 follicles but only 6 were retrieved and only two of them reached blastocysts of good quality. I transferred the two embryos but unfortunately no successful implantation. I feel so down and heartbroken as I don’t know if anything else still work for me.

As for DHEA I am taking this supplement now the clinic would not recommend any supplements other than prenatal and follic acid but they don’t mind if a patient wants to take any. The doctor once told me that maybe ( not definitely) but DHEA may have an effect to enhance quantity and quality of your follicles ( not scientifically proven) and also I am taking Co-Q10 or Ubiquinol and other antioxidants. Don’t know how effective though, so far no positive result.

Wish you all the best! Just hold on!

[Countrymouse56]

Hi Butterfly. So sorry you are going through this. This is such a S**t thing to go through. I really hope you are feeling better today. I found your post really interesting. I pill primed in both my previous cycles so Iv decided not to do it for round 3 (starting next week) it will be interesting to see if it makes a difference to my response. Il be posting my progress over the next days/weeks Xx

[Butterfly83000 in reply to Countrymouse56]

Hi Countrymouse. Yes I am so curious if you will get better results! I will not prime with pill next time either. Wish you the best of luck. So happy I have this community here. It gives me hope when I read positive stories. Xxx

[Countrymouse56 in reply to Butterfly83000]

Yes this place is amazing. I would feel very alone without it! I had success with only 3 follicles on my first round. My consultant said we would only cancel if we had one follicle. Please don’t get down about fewer than usual follicles. It doesn’t mean it won’t work 💪🏻🤞🏻✨Xx

[jengi]

Low AMH sucks. Every month is different, wait another month to see if you body produces anymore. I have low AMH too. My geriatric ovaries weren't very good at doing what most ovaries do very easily. My first round on short protocol resulted in only one egg which failed to fertilise. Round 2, 3 & 4 were cancelled. Round 5 with long protocol we got 3 eggs, 1 mature, 2 immature. The 1 mature egg failed to fertilise with ICSI. One of the other eggs matured over night and fertilised producing a low grade 3 day blastocyst. We transferred it but it didn't work. By this stage i was an emotional mess, this journey truly broke me, i was a shell of my former self. We then made the toughest decision to move to donor - i know its not for everyone. It took me a year to get my head around the idea and accept that if i wanted a baby this was our only chance apart from adoption. My husband so badly wants to be a father, so i guess in some ways i focused on this. Adoption was always an option for us too but it was at the bottom of our option list. My younger sister offered to be our donor but her AMH was lower than mine, i was devastated. So we moved to anonymous donor. It didn't work first time.... there are no words to describe my despair. The second time we got lucky and i will be 12 weeks pregnant on Saturday. This was our last attempt, i feel so grateful but terrified that it could be all take away from us any day. A real mix of emotion. My reason for sharing is to let you know that you are not alone. I understand. Always here if you need to vent. Feel free to private message me any time. Wishing you every bit of luck.

[Butterfly83000]

Jengi thank you for sharing your story. I am so happy for you finally you are pregnant! No one can understand our pain unless it really affects them. I can't be around friends much who have new born or are pregnant. I know it's isolating but I just can't at the moment I rather be alone. I always knew that I might have problems to have a baby due to my chemotherapy when I was 14.it was a short one but still affected my ovaries. The very big surprise I had when I fell pregnant after trying for 6 months. Totally unexpected and so happy until the first scan. I had no idea these things can happen. I thought positive pregnancy test equals a baby. I hope truly it will work with my own eggs as my husband is absolutely not in the boat with donor egg or adoption unfortunately . He rather have no kids and enjoy life just the 2 of us.

So we have to try and see but it is so nerv racking. I shared my story with only my mum and my acupuncturist. I can't with friends. I don't wanna get pity and I do feel shame not to be able to have kids. I feel not 100 % woman like the others.

Yes this community is really great and a great support. Keep us posted with your pregnancy! Such great news! Xxx

[jengi in reply to Butterfly83000]

Loneliness is by far the hardest part but there is an amazing community here. We are all on different journeys for an array of different infertility issues but we all understand the heart ache & pain. And most important can lift each other up on the darkest of days. Xx