👋Has anyone’s partner experienced improved Sperm Quality/DNA fragmentation damage after Varicocele operation?

[Barenina]

Hi lovelies!

7 years ago we found out that my partner has really poor sperm quality and that was the reason we first got referred to IVF.

1 1/2 years ago we found out he also has severe DNA damage through the sperm DNA comet test.

We also finally went to see an urologist a year ago and they found moderate varicoceles in his testicles, mostly left side. But for some reason they didn’t recommend operating/removing them as they say it’s no use after age 30.🤷🏻‍♀️

I haven’t read about this age limit anywhere else??? We are based in Norway.

I am looking for others who have done the Varicocele operation or Varicocele Embolization and their experience.

Why not try to fix what might be the root of his sperm issues instead of us going through countless ICSI cycles (even tested TESE) and so many supplements etc?

Just started a new stim cycle and my head is spinning thinking about past regrets and things we should have pushed for.🤪

Oh well, thanks for the read and any info or thoughts would be much appreciated!💫

Nina xxx

[soccerkt6]

Hi lovely

CJM89 wrote a post a while back about having a varicocele embolisation last year and his partner just fell pregnant naturally a few months ago.

My husband also just had an embolisation done last month to fix a varicocele (he's 35) but it's too soon to know yet if it's made a difference. The embolisation itself was easy and my husband only had some minor soreness for 2-3 days afterwards.

It just seems so much more sensible to try to to correct these things with a minor procedure rather than putting women through seemingly endless cycles of IVF. Fingers crossed for both of us! xxx

[Barenina in reply to soccerkt6]

Hi and thank you so much for your reply!

I checked out the post from CJM89 and found a lot of experience so thank you! 🙏

From what I read this operation has helped a lot of couples getting pregnant. Even natural.

I can’t for the life of me understand why they don’t recommend this operation (at least the embolization) when so many experience improved sperm quality/dna damage and become pregnant afterwards.

Even if it does not help, there is so little risk involved and there is comfort in knowing you have “tried everything”.

Why put women through IVF instead when it might not be necessary? This makes me sooo angry and frustrated!🤪

I have PCOS (as you might also have I read) so IVF might anyways be the right course for us, but we’ve struggled with poor fertilization rates for so long, even with ICSI and only when my partner started taking a lot of antioxidants last year, our results improved.

Sadly ending in two miscarriages last fall.💔

I really hope your husbands operation will give you guys better results! Keep me posted please!! 🌟Good to hear it was easy!

Can I ask what supplements he has been on? And you?

Cheers, Nina

[Seren0119]

Yes! It reduced from 42% to 21% and made a huge huge difference to our embryos x

[Barenina in reply to Seren0119]

Hi! That’s so great to hear! And congrats on finally getting your miracle 💫

I read your last post, thank you for sharing and putting into words what infertility and IVF does to us.

Can I what operation your partner had? And how it made a difference to your embryos? More blasts? Better quality?

Did he have this operation early on in your IVF journey or at the end?

We had two miscarriages last fall at around 8 weeks. It could have been my eggs or other but when I now know there’s something concrete we can do and operate on the varicoceles , I really wish we had done it years ago. We will push for it going forward although I am turning 40 this year 🙈

[Seren0119 in reply to Barenina]

Our journey was around five years and he did it on our fourth egg collection - made a huge difference. Previously all BFNs, no embryos to transfer. When he had it done we got three PGS normal embryos (one of which is our daughter, the other two were miscarriages). He had an operation under general anaesthetic and they cut the veins - not sure what type of operation it is. How high is his fragmentation? Xx

[Barenina in reply to Seren0119]

5 years is quite a journey! Also with two miscarriages 😞

With our first child we got really lucky and got pregnant on our second ICSI attempt with a 3cell embryo transferred on day 2. He was born in week 25 but luckily 100% healthy and my big joy in this world. 💫

It’s the journey of trying for a sibling which has really drained me. Now in the middle of our 9th ICSI egg collection (trying for a sibling )after suffering two miscarriages last fall. We feel this is our last attempt. But only now I know that operating on my partners varicoceles might make a big difference, I might not manage to give up quite yet 🤪🙈

We’ve only tested his dna damage one time, last year and it was:

Average comet score 48

Low comet score : 2

High comet score: 40

Pretty terrible right? 😅

We‘ve always had terrible fertilization rates of 0-20% but no one knew why. After speaking to a Greek clinic last year they recommended he start on really high intake on antioxidants and ejaculating every second day.

These actions upped our fertilization rates to 50-60% and we got our first ever blasts and two pregnancies. (That ended both around 8 weeks)

I also got my problems with PCOS ++ but it just really annoys me that the doctors just push for IVF after IVF witout investigating or trying to treat the problems (especially male infertility problems)

Thank god I found this forum 💫

And really happy you had your miracle in the end. Although I understand that the trauma of infertility treatment and loss does not magically disappear.

I am mostly worried now if I will manage to go back to normal ever.🧐

Sorry for the weekend rant.

Have a lovely weekend 💫🍦

[Llizzie]

Hi, have a look at Toby Trice on Instagram. He is UK based but had a his varicocele treated and they fell pregnant naturally (after previous failed IVF). My husband had a very large varicocele (hideous DNA fragmentation of 52%) but the urologist wasn’t keen to operate as he has significant vein damage from DVTs and a heart condition. We threw everything at improving his numbers and got one miracle blastocyst which is now my 10 week old son. x

[Barenina in reply to Llizzie]

That’s funny, I listened to a podcast yesterday: “the fertility mafia” and there was an interview with Toby Trice.

That’s what made me think about our urologists decision on not to operate on my partners Varicocele. I think it’s great how this guy is spreading the word on make infertility, there is def not enough testing on men.

Congrats on having your son!🎊💫

We also have a son which miraculously came on second ICSI attempt.

After that we’ve had 8 ICSI egg retrieval a and 8 transfers. Horrible fertilization rates at 0-20% and always only having one embryo to transfer on day two. After my partner starting on high levels of antioxidants, we managed to get 50-60% fertilization rate and our first blasts. (I also started to DHEA which also helped our embryo development)

We had two losses last fall though so no luck yet on a second child. We will def push for this operation now, but in the meantime, what did you husband do/take to improve his dna damage?

All the best to you 💫

[Llizzie in reply to Barenina]

It does seem odd to have an age limit - perhaps they tie it to female partners 🤷🏼‍♀️ We did the usual - keeping things cool (loose boxers, no hot baths, gave up cycling), no alcohol and a good diet (we both did 5 months alcohol free and eating med diet), supplements (proceive plus, lycopene and vit D), and we exercised but not to super high intensity. I think we got very lucky, we did have IMSI and the urologist also did extra infection screens which picked up a couple of infections we treated with antibiotics. Wishing you the best of luck xx

[Barenina in reply to Llizzie]

Woah well done doing 5 months of no alcohol and med diet 💫We have cut way back on alcohol and trying to eat healthier but still indulge now and then 😅🍔🍷

I wish we had IMSI over here, and the urologist did not test for infections either. I found the papers from urologist now and she has specifically written: there is no use operating varicoceles after the age of 32 as it will not change anything. 🤷🏻‍♀️

We def need a second opinion!😂

Did they ever suggest TESE for your partner? Great to hear that you guys got lucky and enjoy your little boy to the maximum!!💫💫💫

[Missl73]

My husband had severe fragmentation >50% and he had a varicocele embolised at 32 (no idea where the age limit comes from!) which helped as did supplements and popping a cool pack on his balls (over boxers) for 30 minutes a day. We got 100% fertilisation and all turned into day 5 blastocysts with IMSI after these interventions. We now have a 2 year old son and I’m currently 6 weeks with our second after another fresh cycle x

[Barenina in reply to Missl73]

That is just amazing results! Thank you for sharing and congrats!!💫

Can I ask how your fertilization rates or embryo development was before doing all this?

I wish we had IMSI in Norway!

I’ve been wondering about the cool pack. Is this something urologists recommend? I guess there’s nothing harm in trying but I can’t understand that cooling them down for only 30 mins day can help that much 🤷🏻‍♀️😂

But we’re willing to try everything now!

[Missl73 in reply to Barenina]

Our first cycle we got 8 eggs, 7 fertilised with ICSI and we got just one perfect 5AA blastocyst which I miscarried at 10 weeks. Our second with IMSI, we got 4 eggs, 4 fertilised and we got 4 blastocysts a 5AA, 5AB, 3BB and a 4CC. Our son is one of these. Our 3rd cycle with IMSI we got 5 eggs, 4 fertilised and 4 made it to blastocyst I’m pregnant with a 4CA and the rest weren’t good enough quality to freeze. I should add though, our 3rd cycle I’m 3 years older and we didn’t do much for the sperm because we’d been hoping one of our frozen embryos from our sons batch would work so we didn’t put nearly as much care into it.

With the cool pack, the Urologist didn’t recommend it and could be coincidence but it was free and easy to do and our results (perhaps coincidentally) improved after so why not! We threw anything we could think of at it. I think no caffeine or alcohol was also really important. His varicocele was severe so I’m sure that was the most important factor.

[Barenina in reply to Missl73]

Thanks for the info! Glad you have managed to get two babies even with high dna damage!💫

So was his varicocele embolised at the beginning of your IVF Journey? Before you started IVF?

If so, that’s great! Did they recommend him to see an urologist?

Was his DNA damage measured before or after this operation? Did you ever test again?

No one ever recommended us to see an urologist and the difference clinics we’ve been to has all said there is nothing to do about sperm quality 🤨

But we finally did some research ourselves and did the comet test etc.

We’ve only tested one year ago and it was:

Average comet score 48

Low comet score : 2

High comet score: 40

We were in contact with a Greece clinic a year ago and they recommended really high intake of antioxidants and to ejaculate every second day.

This tips seem a bit different from what I have read from the UK where a lot of men take Proxeed max or Impryl. But my partners actions have at least improved our ICSI outcomes a lot so he has kept on taking the antioxidants. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Ok, ice pack this evening 🧊😂🙏

[Missl73 in reply to Barenina]

Yes so my husband had a very low count (less than 1 million) and we saw a urologist (best in the UK) first before going to an IVF clinic because we knew we needed to fix the sperm as our main goal and that IVF clinics aren’t experts in sperm. We did the varicocele op first and waited 6 months before even attempting IVF. We’ve had his DNA fragmentation tested multiple times, I can’t remember exact numbers but they are very similar to your husbands. I know his best results were 12 months post op and that we got the average score down a lot but most importantly we got the low frag number up a lot. We also did a neutral sperm comet which tells you if the damage is occurring pre or post production because my husband also had an operation when he was 4 to correct undecended testicles - luckily it was a post production issue so we had more options. We would have gone for testicular sperm by mTESE if we’d had to but fortunately it hasn’t been necessary.

The regular ejaculation definitely helps and my husband was told to only allow just 18 hours after ejaculation before providing his sample for ICSI rather than the 2-3 days clinics usually recommend. Antioxidants help BUT too much can actually cause damage so it’s important to get the balance right that’s why Impryl is often recommended here.

I’m not sure of your age, but good eggs also help correct some of the damage in sperm. I was only 31 when we did our first cycle which I think was also helpful.

[Barenina in reply to Missl73]

Ah, so good you sorted the sperm issues before starting IVF. As should everyone! They just have to know to do it 🙈

Amazing that you got 100% fertilization rate and 100% blastocysts formation on one of your cycles!💯

I now know you have a really good urologist over there. We tried to contact him without luck but don’t think they do online sessions anyways.

18 hours abstinence before ICSI sounds like a good idea. We did 24 hours the last cycles without telling our clinic as they don’t support it. His numbers were really low but they didn’t have any problems finding good looking sperm with good motility. So maybe we should try 18 hours this time 🧐

We actually tried TESE last year on 50% of the sperm, but had better luck with ejaculate. Really strange. But this was after taking antioxidants for 3 months so maybe it helped so much that it didn’t matter so much for with TESE 🤷🏻‍♀️

But out of 8 eggs that fertlized all but two arrested afterwards. = probably poor egg quality as well 🙈 next cycle I did DHEA for 3 months prior to collection and all our embryos developed and we got 3 blasts. So def we have problems both of us and I am turning 40 this year 🙈

I still have over 6 in AMH so my egg reserve is really good. Hopefully the quality is still ok if I keep popping DHEA pills, Q10 ++++

Oh well, if this cycle does now work, at least you and the others have given me hopes about repairing dna damage with the operation 💫🙏

Have a great Saturday 💫

[Susie_1234]

Sorry you are going through all of this, it’s hard to know what medical advice to trust sometimes. My husband had a varicocele and his sperm analysis 3 months after surgery showed very little/ no improvement. Then about 4-5 months after that there showed some improvement (still not great so we continued with ICSI), IVF didn’t work for us but I had put him on a supplement to improve sperm health in the meantime and we ended up falling pregnant naturally - huge shock! But I’m a believer that the combination of varicocele surgery and supplements are what improved sperm health over time. He was 42 at the time of surgery xx

[Barenina in reply to Susie_1234]

Hi and thank you for your kind reply 💫So great to hear that you fell natural pregnant after the operation! Yay!

That’s my dream 😂

I guess even though the operation didn’t help a great deal for you, maybe it helped just enough together with the supplements! Can I ask what kind of supplements he was on?

All the best

Nina

[Susie_1234 in reply to Barenina]

Absolutely, and it was crossing off one more thing that might be impacting things so you can stop thinking and wondering which helped me. The supplements are called FertZ. He hates taking tablets and these are taken in a drink form like a berocca.

[Barenina in reply to Susie_1234]

Yeah it’s all about crossing things out 😆✌️ Thanks for the tips on supps!

[Barenina]

and good to know your husband was 42 when operated! 💫Can I ask what kind of operation it was?

[Susie_1234 in reply to Barenina]

It was a GA, just a day surgery. Is that what you mean?

[Barenina in reply to Susie_1234]

I don’t know so much about it but was it a Varicocele Embolization? Just read that is a less invasive operation with very little recovery time. In and out.

[Susie_1234]

Yeah that sounds right. He wasn’t in any pain and swift recovery!

[K8dferXdder]

hi all, jumping in the conversation as we are looking for a clinic in London to treat my husbands bilateral varicocele. The procedure seems to be expensive. Would you be able to PM me the place where your husbands had embolision/surgery and how much it costed. We are based in London but happy to take days off and travel anywhere in the UK to sort this out! Such a difficult journey 🙁 thanks in advance.

[Barenina in reply to K8dferXdder]

My husband finally got the operation, but in Norway so I can’t help you there. Hope some of the others can help you out. You might want to reply directly in their thread or message them directly to make sure they see it 🫶✨

It is such a difficult journey! We finally got pregnant on our last ICSI attempt (before the surgery was done) so other things like antioxidant and frequent ejaculation can also help your husband as it helped us a lot! But I would anyways opt for the operation if you can afford it 👍 Can you get it covered through insurance? My husband complained about pain down there so he got it on the governments bill here.

All the best luck to you and baby dust ✨✨✨