Good morning everyone ! Quick question does ICSI improve fertilisation rates? I always have at 19 to 21 eggs collected 9 to 12 mature/ fertilise but then the numbers just vanish and I get no more than 2 to freeze on day 5/6.
Im about to start another cycle on the long protocol and was wondering if I should go for ICSI rather than IVF! No sperm issues just my old age😪 Thank you everyone 🙂
Hello! ICSI does improve fertilisation rates, if there are issues with the sperm entering the egg (eg due to poor sperm morhology or hard egg shell), but the eggs need to be mature for success. I don't think ICSI would improve things where there's no such issues. The point of ICSI is to increase the odds of the sperm entering the egg, that's all. It doesn't seem like you have an issue with that. The drop off rate is most likely due to egg quality. I'm older too and have a huge drop off usually. Good luck! Xx
Hi! Do you have a lot less mature eggs versus collected? ICSI or IVF normally have around 70-80% fertilisation rate. I was also told ICSI can be useful for older eggs due to a harder shell. The other thing is to consider is sperm dna fragmentation.
Apologies if you have already done these things
Good luck x
Hi one thing I would definitely recommend is impryl for both you and your partner twice a day. They are abut expensive but really do have fantastic results for both egg and Sperm quality. If you are doing down reg that will give you that little bit of extra time.
Icsi is supposed to but it heavily depends on the skill of the embryologist.
Thank you so much can you recommend a good brand please?
Yes it’s from a website called fertility family.co.uk I think if you sign up they give 10% off on your first order. I ordered about 3 boxes as it works out cheaper and because I was sharing with my husband too so I didn’t want to run out.
Did you take folic acid whilst taking Impryl? It already contains folic acid so just wanted to double check! Also the package says they dont reccomend mixing these tablets with Cq10/Umbicol but I have been told that this is a must! So much conflicting information and when you are desperate and clinging onto hope you want to try and do everything possible leaving no stone unturned.
No I didn’t take folic acid when I took the impryl as it was one less tablet to take. I took 100mg of ubiquinol as it is very good for egg quality. Ubilquinol is the best form for the body to absorb. Tbh I followed my guy going in to doing everything I possibly could to get good quality eggs. I would definitely recommend vitamin e and omega 3.
It does and it doesn’t
I had terrible fertilisation rates with ICSI - less than 30%. I changed to protocol and it went up to 100% so it very much depends on lots of factors
Getting 2 to freeze is pretty normal by the way - it’s actually really unusual unless you are in your 20s to get loads of blastocysts in the freezer.
Thanks you. I guess as Im getting older I wanted to have safety net a basket full of eggs almost like an insurance! Just trying to see what else I can do!
Hello. In our first two rounds we did IVF - 15/17 eggs, 12/13 fertilised - each time only 2 made it to blastocyst, same as you. Devastating the first time, but we were told it’s within the normal range even if a bit low….
On the third try my husband’s sample wasn’t great, so the embryologist worried the IVF would give us low fertilisation - so we did ICSI . We got similar numbers again (16 eggs, 13 fertilised, 3 made it to blastocyst). So we ended up with the same, but presumably with a relatively weak sperm sample on the day we would have had lower fertilisation if we went with just IVF…
We use icsi cause we have poor sperm quality but if the sperm is good I don't know if it'll improve your fertilization rate
Good luck!
Hi,Not sure if this will help but our clinic offered something called Zymot which helps sort the sperm so that those who swim straight, fast and are the right shape are then used for icsi. We used it with donor eggs and out of 4 eggs got 3 blasts and one almost there but not good enough for freezing. It again was something we weren't sure about trying but feel it probably helped.
Good luck and hope whatever you chose your next round works out for you xx
We weren't meant to have ICSI as sperm was fine, until day of collection when it had fallen off a cliff (due to my OH having a cold a few months before apparently - v frustrating) so the doctors recommended ICSI. Even with that we got less than 50% fertilize (out of 9 eggs) and two 5d blasts which the clinic said was a lot less than they'd expected. Next round we opted to do ICSI just in case even though sperm was back to good - all fertilized and got to blast that time. So for us, ICSI didn't seem to be able to get over the sperm quality issue but it worked brilliantly when sample was ok again. Also, early on, we were offered half ICSI, half not if we got enough eggs, as I think there's evidence that letting eggs mix without ICSI means nature self selects the strongest sperm, as opposed to relying on the embryologist's visual assessment for ICSI. However, because of the poor results first time and worry the second, we just went with ICSI for both. But maybe something to ask about if you're getting a lot of eggs.
Thank you. I will speak to the clinic!
Personally, would not do ICSI unless there are real practical reasons to undertake the procedure. While ICSI does technically improve fertilisation rates, it will not affect the overall outcome i.e more blastocysts or pregnancy. This is usually based on egg and sperm quality.
We had to do ICSI every IVF cycle as my OH had a vasectomy years ago. We did a total of 4 cycles and had mixed results. I noticed that the more eggs I produced, the worse the fertilisation rates. I have had 100% fertilisation with only 6 eggs retrieved. However, my last cycle, I had only 50% fertilisation rate with ICSI. 15 eggs collected, 10 mature, 5 fertilised, 1 pregnancy ( now my week old daughter) and 1 embryo frozen. The protocol was exactly the same. Your fertilisation rates look great to me.
All the best
Many thanks and heartfelt congratulations on the birth of your little girl.
Thank you so much. All the best with your journey x
Hey AppleWondering how old you are as the number of eggs retrieved are high, if u r old as you’re saying shouldnt be the case. To me it seems that you may have a PCOS issue which normally cause high number of eggs but less mature and very low fertilization. Does your dr recommend you supplements for egg and sperm quality? I believe it’s more about the quality and not an icsi or conventional ivf matter.
I read a lot on few supp which works wonders for pcos or egg and sperm quality. I dont have pcos but helped me and DH getting 2 , 5 day blasts out of 2 eggs retrieved with mini ivf/ icsi
We used myo inositol for two month both me and DH , 2000* 2 times a day every 12hr.
I know you said there is no sperm issue but still good to do sperm fragmentation test if you havent so far bcuz as far as I know fertilization rate could be due to sperm quality as well as eggs.
Also there is Berberine HCL 500 does the same thing increasing egg quality due to increasing insulin resistance which resulted in me loosing at least 15 pounds in less than 6 month.
Both these pills decrease number of eggs retrieved but increase the quality.
Also with these number of eggs you should bot take DHEA, I hope you know that. I think it’s very important to talk in details with your dr to get to the bottom of the potential issues and plan ahead before going forward to the next round
I hope you get great results take care xx
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