Refent diagnosis of severe low sperm count and motility in partner.
Trying for a baby, scared won't happen.
Whats other peoples experience of this?
Seeking lots of reassurance, anyone know what helps improve sperm? Would really value your input and advice.
Hi,I’m sorry, it’s absolutely devastating when you get the diagnosis. My husband also has extremely low sperm count (less than 100), poor mobility and morphology. We used IVF with ICSI and I’m currently 6 weeks pregnant. Don’t give up hope xx
Sorry to hear you've also had the same diagnosis im sure that must have been difficult for you both to hear but what wonderful news the treatment was effective. Certainly gives hope 
thankyou...I know this is a personal question and you don't have to answer but was there an underlying reason for your husbands low sperm count and did he try anything to improve it? Was his result less than 100 in total or less than 100, 000. If I've been too nosey you don't have to answer sorry
It’s ok. It’s less than 100 in total. Luckily they only need a few for ICSI (as many eggs as they collect). He had an undescended testicle which wasn’t operated on until he was 12 which we think is the main cause of the problem. He cut out alcohol, drinks decaf coffee, and tries to be healthy anyway but I think if we have to go through the same process again we would look into supplements to see if it makes any improvement xx
Have you been to see a urologist? We had to pay privately for this as the NHS wouldn't refer us, so we didn't see one until almost three years into dealing with infertility - but I WISH we had done it sooner. I honestly believe that if we'd consulted the urologist three years ago, we'd have a baby now (in the meantime I've aged from 38 to 41, which isn't ideal).
No, I'm speaking to my doctor tomorrow about everything, she mentioned referring us onto fertility treatment. Did you say you've privately referred to urologist... are you finding it helpful?
Yes, after he treated my husband for a couple of months his sperm count went up from 2 million to 43 million. He also discovered that we had problems with DNA fragmentation in the sperm that we didn't know about, which is trickier to deal with but at least we know now what's going on. Fertility clinics tend to only have gynaecologists on the staff and they just suggest IVF with ICSI as the solution for sperm problems, but for us that didn't work. We had to refer ourselves privately.
Wow what a difference that made. What treatment was it through urologist that made such an increase? Thats great news :)Thanks for sharing
It turned out that my husband has a hormone imbalance, so he was put on medication to correct this. Also took proxeed and impryl, but I think the hormone treatment made the biggest difference for sure x
Hi. Can I ask what happened with the urologist please? You’re the second person I’ve heard mention this recently, but our fertility nurse just said that low sperm means ICSI. My though was that surely it’s cheaper and easier to fix a mans wonky tube (if that’s the problem) rather than subject us both to hormones, injections, surgical procedures and so on. I’d really like to find out why he has so little sperm, but they seem determined just to refer us for ICSI IVF.xx
Hi! I only joined this today, but received the same diagnosis a couple of weeks ago. It’s devastating 😢 I can’t tell you if any of this works yet, but we’ve made a few changes lately- stopping smoking, lots more fresh fruit & veggies, started taking conceive plus fertility support/motility support (bought their sperm friendly lube too), bought ‘snowballs’ men’s cooling underwear (apparently cool balls help 🤷♀️😂) avoid hot baths, eat oily fish/lean meat, avoid toxins (like air fresheners, shower gels, cleaning products) and go for natural ones with no nasty chemicals. Someone advised me today that black maca is a good supplement, high strength vit c, and fenugreek supplements. I’ll be buying these this week!
If I’m honest, I thought we had a pretty healthy lifestyle anyway, so was a bit sceptical whether these changes will help, but it certainly can’t do any harm. I’m still feeling hard done by, upset, and worried, but trying to stay positive! There’s lots of lovely people on here sharing advice and stories. I was a complete wreck last week, but feeling a bit better this week. Sending hugs to you.xx
Me too only just joined. Thought it be useful to speak to others in same situation.Weve just been researching natural ways to encourage sperm count and I'm sure it certainly won't do any harm to try as many as possible, thanks for sharing your ideas. Really useful.
Appreciate your commenting and wishing you and your partner the very best of luck...
Have you been referred to fertility now as next steps?
Yeah, been referred to Dundee. We’ve still go another set of bloods to get taken this week at our local hospital, and I’m getting an ultrasound tomorrow but they said that’s where their involvement stops. Just going to try enjoy Christmas and distract myself a bit so I stop obsessing!xx
It's such difficult news to take in!My husband had a low count which was the main reason for us receiving NHS funding. We were told that we had a 1-2 % chance of natural conception and a 24% chance of ICSI working. He made some very minor lifestyle changes such as taking zinc, going for a run a few times a week and going teetotal (not a drop of alcohol, even at Christmas) for six months and his count went up so much that even the clinic was shocked. We did still go with ICSI and it has worked twice for us. I'm not saying that it's this simple for everyone and I know how lucky we have been but sometimes small changes can help xx
I’d also recommend a urologist if you can afford to see one privately. We wish my husband had done it sooner. It’s still a case of ICSI for us but at least we found out or eliminated other causes of the low sperm count.
Hiya lovely, sorry to hear this. Definitely get him on Impryl for three months before icsi, you both should take it, it improves the quality of the sperm and egg not just quantity of sperm. Remember you only need one, make sure it's the best. Also they say don't take any other strong antioxidant with it as it can do more harm than good. The videos on the fertility family website are helpful. We had icsi and it worked first time, best of luck. Stay positive. 😘
My partner has low sperm count and poor morphology (only 0.5% at last collection). It's much easier to get around sperm than egg issues. We used ICSI to help with fertilisation and MACS to help select the best sperm. He also took a fertility vitamin, cod liver oil and some other vitamins (I googled it). His morphology went from 0% to 0.5%. Healthy eating and staying away from alcohol also helped. Currently pregnant with twins. X
Did you do icsi in the UK or abroad ?
My husband had poor morphology.. he started taking Impryl, avoided the hot tub, stopped drinking alcohol and caffeine, ate only organic food, natural/plant based cleaning and hygiene products, drinking filtered water, avoiding plastics (deodorants,shampoos, shower gels and anything else we use in the house) and after 3 months he is now in the normal range xx
My other half also had terrible sperm count, motility etc. he had a varicocelle which was operated on but still had bad counts after. I would absolutely second the comments above and self refer yourself to a urologist - it took us 3 years, 3 miscarriages and 2 rounds of ICSI before we decided to refer ourselves - I WISH we had done this at the very beginning but for some reason fertility services just shove you straight onto ICSI without addressing the problem properly. In the meantime I would recommend your other half takes Impryl in the evening and 1 sachet of proxceed in the morning. We made HUGE improvements so please don't lose hope - it is something you can improve massively with some lifestyle changes and supplements xx
Hi, my partner also had very low sperm count and motility. We used a supplement called Fertilaid for a few months before embarking on IVF/ICSI and there was a significant difference in his results. We are still on our journey so don't have a successful pregnancy result as I also have fertility factors but his results did improve with this supplement.
Hi, we were abroad when we found out about my husband's low sperm count, bad morphology etc. He did show hormone imbalance in his blood test and they tried to treat this before referring us to ICSI. They were much more advanced in treating male infertility and he was put on pregnyl and Gonal-f for almost a year. Unfortunately it didn't change anything for us and we still have to do ICSI but there has been success stories. When we moved back to the UK, he visited the urologist but they had almost no knowledge of the treatment available for male infertility.
Good Luck!
My husband’s sperm had really bad morphology, volume and count so we were referred for icsi, he changed his diet, got back into the gym and completely cut down on alcohol on the run up to our egg collection, he helped his swimmers so much that after my egg collection they did half icsi and half ivf! We had to freeze all embryos as I over produced eggs and went into OHSS but we managed to make 5 really high grade embryos, we had our first FET a week ago so just waiting to test!😬There’s so much you and him can do to help so there’s always hope!🤗
Hi, There is certainly hope. My husband has a super low count - he is lucky to get 30 individual sperm in a sample and has even had some samples with no viable sperms. Of the sperm he does have they are usually only twitching rather than properly motile. This issue was caused by various childhood illnesses that he was unlucky enough to get. We completed our first round of ICSI this year using a fresh sample which contained 21
sperm. The round worked and I am now 17 weeks pregnant.
Good luck x
Sperm freeze..what happens next?
Sperm sample on EC day 
Sperm DNA fragmentation - 
Sperm donor
Low sperm➡️No sperm➡️Some sperm
