Dr Ramsey - any experiences ?

[annadance]

Hi there,

We’ve had a number of failed Fets / fresh transfers. We have male fertility issues - low numbers etc

Before we do the next egg collection we are hoping to speak to Dr Ramsey. We don’t know this yet - but there is potentially high DNA fragmentation of my DH sperm

My only concern from what I’ve heard is that Mr Ramsey’s approach can take many months - following a strict diet etc. Before you actually get to the egg collection stage.

I just wondered what people’s experiences were like and time frames from initial consultation to conceiving / having another round of IVF

Feeling a little hopeless

Many thanks x

[LCharlton]

He's great and he increased my husband's sperm count from 1 million to 23 million - we still weren't successful due to massive DNA fragmentation issues, but he managed to improve the DNA fragmentation as well it's just that my husband's issue was so serious that the improvement wasn't enough. But I really recommend seeing him. If he thinks diet and supplements would help your specific situation though, that takes about three months to make a difference. If you need a course of hormone medication that will take a couple of months, if you need surgery then obviously it'll take time for the surgery and recovery, if you need antibiotics for a chronic infection it'll take a month - it really really depends what's going on with the sperm. But if you need treatment for the sperm, there is no point doing another round of IVF till you've addressed it in my opinion. Wishing you all the best x

[annadance in reply to LCharlton]

Thanks very much LCharlton that’s really good to know and reassuring to hear.

I’m sorry it didn’t help improve the fragmentation in your case. Do you mind me asking what you ended up doing after the ivf didn’t work? X

[LCharlton in reply to annadance]

We're looking at donor sperm at this point x

[annadance in reply to LCharlton]

Best of luck with the rest of your journey x

[leo1980]

We used him and he helped us.

[Peony85]

We saw him for DNA fragmentation. My husband’s count, morphology and motility were all good, so we didn’t find the fragmentation after a few failed cycles / transfers. He did some tests to try to figure out what was causing the fragmentation. My husband was already taking a bunch of vitamins so didn’t add anything new or recommend any diet changes. We did treat him for an infection which helped a bit but not enough. We ended up doing a sperm retrieval with him and now are 28 weeks 😊 so I would say it was definitely worth the time for us! Xx

[annadance in reply to Peony85]

Thanks so much for your response and a huge congratulations! What vitamins were your husband taking? Mine is currently taking impryl. Xx

[Peony85 in reply to annadance]

Thank you! He took proxeed, Vit E, C, D, ubiquinol, and omega 3s.

[Flora14 in reply to Peony85]

Can I ask how much of these vitamins he was on? Thanks

[Peony85 in reply to Flora14]

Proxeed and omega 3s it was the standard dose. Vit C 1000mg, vit e 400 IU, vit D 2200IU, ubiquinol 200mg

[Ladypii]

Hes amazing, literally changed our lives forever. We saw 3 other urologists across the country before him, and not one of them suggested the changes and methods he did. They basically all said our best chance was donor sperm. Ramsay listened to us properly, offered us various options to move forward and put my husband on hormone treatment and rebalanced his hormones to give us the best possible outcome.

He also has an excellent bedside manner, which when it comes to consultants, i find quite rare.

Anyway to cut a long story short im now 30 weeks pregnant. My husband had azoospermia, the worst diagnosis a man can have, and so we definitely wouldn’t be where we are now without his support and advice.

Best of luck to you xx

[annadance in reply to Ladypii]

Congratulations ! What an amazing outcome can I ask - how long did the hormone treatment take before you went for your cycle? Xx

[Ladypii in reply to annadance]

So he put my husband on one type of drug in Sept 2019, we tested his hormones a month later and they had doubled (yay) so Ramsay then added another drug to the mix in Oct 2019. We checked the results again in Dec (more improvement) Ramsay was then happy to do ivf in Jan 2020, however i wanted to wait another month to be sure (as sperm works on a 72-90 cycle), which Ramsay agreed with and then as you can imagine covid hit and we live in Manchester so couldnt travel up to london and then clinics closed anyway. When they reopened we went ahead with an ivf-icsi, but i got OHSS so we did a freeze all and then transferred an embryo in Aug 2020. So if it wasnt for covid it coukd have been done in 3/4 months xx

[Ladypii in reply to annadance]

Also, have you watched “me, my brother, and my balls” on BBC3 iplayer? Ramsay features at the end, although I’ve seen Ramsay since that was filmed and he told me he had no idea it was for a documentary or that the brother was famous 🤣hes so humble. If you follow up on that guy on Instagram you’ll see that he was able to help him too xx

[Shirazlover2013]

I agree with everyone above, he is genuinely one of the best doctors I’ve ever come across! His bedside manner is exceptional, he explains things slowly and thoroughly. He also gave us an opinion on what we should try next which other doctors seemed unable to do (they’d give us all the options and leave us to decide). He also pulled out all the stops to get my husband in for varicocele surgery super fast after hearing our long infertility journey. Make sure you both go to the appointments though (request this in advance due to covid and they will allow it), there’s so much to take in and it’s good to have the support. Good luck xx

[annadance in reply to Shirazlover2013]

Thanks for your lovely reply that’s great toHear. I will definitely follow that advice. How long did it take for your husband to recover from surgery and for you to go for a second round? Xx

[Shirazlover2013 in reply to annadance]

The varicocele surgery was a day procedure with local anaesthetic. He was fine within a few days. Improvements after varicocele surgery should be noticed starting from 6weeks as the heat from a varicocele damages sperm towards the end of their journey as opposed to diet and supplements which help from the start of sperm production. Most improvement post surgery is noticed about 7mths post surgery as the varicocele slowly reduces in size I think.

Alas we are exceptions to the rules and our dna frag got worse when we tested 7mths post surgery and our ivf round at that time was a spectacular failure (our 5th round!). Dr Ramsey was baffled and could only think that my husband had covid back in Feb (we didn’t even realise it at the time). We retested again in Dec and now we can see some improvements. Surgery doesn’t guarantee an improvement but we were at the point where we had to try it as all other avenues (diet, supplements, lifestyle) had been exhausted without effect. Xx

[annadance in reply to Shirazlover2013]

Thank you I hope everything else goes well for you xx

[LauraEW]

Agree with everyone above! Could not recommend him more, we were feeling pretty low and hopeless until we saw Mr Ramsay, he was like a breath of fresh air in the whole horrible IVF process. We saw huge improvements in DNA frag, it does take 3 months but it's totally worth the wait for a much better outcome. We had by far the best embryo's in our latest round (after seeing Mr Ramsay). Currently waiting to do FET with our 2x remaining embryos - if this does not work Mr Ramsay has a 'plan B' which is so reassuring. In his words he will not be satisfied until we have our baby in our arms. I also felt that this was this first time a doctor had spent time explaining the process to my OH in terms we could both understand, before then my OH was largely ignored even though the issue is male factor. Best of luck xx

[annadance in reply to LauraEW]

Thank you for your response. What did your husbands 3 month treatment entail ? All the best for your next FET

[LauraEW in reply to annadance]

Mr Ramsay referred us to a fertility nutritionist who gave us a full plan to follow - this included a pretty strict diet and and long list of supplements! Then all the usual - no alcohol, hot baths, loose cotton boxers, reduce BPAs etc. It is an undertaking and quite overwhelming to begin with but we were advised to think of it as a short term 'project' and honestly the 3 months do whizz by - when you see the positive impacts it is really worth it. In terms of DNA frag my OH went from every 5 bad sperm there was 1 good, to every 4 good there was 1 bad - that was how Mr Ramsay explained it to us. We have a history of miscarriage which we found out was caused by the high DNA frag so going into our 3rd ICSI round I felt more confident and knowledgeable about what was going on xx

[Danascha]

Hello there! May I ask who is this Dr. Ramsay? If someone can respond to me privately(if required), I'd be grateful. 🙂

[Becatoms]

Same here, how do I get in contact with Mr Ramsay? Could someone please message me with his details? Thank you 🙏🌈xx

[annadance in reply to Becatoms]

Hey, if you google ‘Mr Ramsey male fertility’ it should take you to his info and details. All the best xx

[Flora14]

Hi does anyone know how much a consultation with Dr Ramsey costs?and are you able to do it over the phone or does it have to be in person? Just because we are 5 hours away from London so not really practical for us to go up there.Also does he accept previous test results such as sperm results and DNA fragmentation results and can he look at these and advice from that?

We have had 4 IVF failed rounds and my partner's sample is ok other than low morphology at 4% we have just found out he does have borderline high DNA fragmentation and he does have a varicocele but I'll fertilization rates have been good and we do always get to day 5 but they are not always good quality so I'm not sure if it's worth going to Dr Ramsey as it's probably more.

I have had different consultant say to me it's not worth having a varicocele treated with my partner's semen sample 🤷‍♀️ thanks

[Ladypii in reply to Flora14]

Hello, we live in Manchester and pre-covid, always travelled down to see him, with the occasional telephone app. I think now post covid he will likely do first consultation over the phone. Consultations are £280.

Yes he looks at previous results and works with that. Our results were nearly a year old when we came to him.

Xx