hi all, my consultant has said no to hgh (human growth hormone) via the nurses - so requesting more explanation. I know of one of the very popular london clinics prescribing it but curious on if other people have asked and being successful in getting HGH prescribed
Thanks so much ❤️
Hello 👋 My first clinic (not London based) would not prescribe this as it simply wasn't on the repertoire of meds that they used.
My second clinic (London based) prescribed it for me on one fresh cycle but I had to keep on at them that I wanted to try it. My consultant did not feel my case warranted it as she said its for people with extremely poor ovarian reserve who have very low follicle count (she was saying like 2 or 3 follicles).
So whilst I considered myself eligible, my consultant was of the view that it was not needed in my case (I had approx 8 follicles at baseline and an AMH somewhere between 3 and 9).
I did try it and it didn't do anything for me personally which was disappointing but I have seen for others it makes a difference so its one of these roll of the dice situation like most IVF things sadly.
If you feel strongly about it (like I did) I would do what you're doing and push them on it, it's your cycle at the end of the day xx
Thanks hun! This is very interesting. So annoying it didn’t positively contribute to your cycle, I’m sorry about that :(. I normally get 7-9 eggs but my problem seems to be quality & no. of blast (and then then being normal!). I have a friend in the US who had male factor issues but said it really helped her get her embryos. But to your point everyone is so different. I am going to find out why he said no… thanks 
xx
Hi!
I haven’t used it but here is the link to the Cochrane review.
cochrane.org/CD000099/MENST...
It looks like the evidence is quite limited. I believe HGH is also very expensive. Hopefully you’ll be more informed about why it might not be the right thing when you speak to the doctor
Xx
Thanks for this
Yes it defo not cheap but I am coming to the end of this chapter after 7 rounds.. I have 1 maybe 2 left in me. We have overcome many hurdles along the way (inc MFI) but now I’m 3 years older than when we started 
I need to consider all options & I have heard lots of success - as well as not helping for all xx
Thank you for sharing. You said that you overcame male fertility issue. Could you please share? My partner has a high DNA frag and we are unable to reach blastocysts unfortunately. TIA
no problem! So we went to Jonathan Ramsay and did tests, we both needed antibiotics and we use Zymot now and helps us get to Blast every time now!
Thanks. We also went to DR Ramsey but unfortunately he decided my partner to go on surgery and he was wrong as we didn’t get anything from that. Could you pls send me the name of your clinic in private? Thanks!
Hi. I’m at a clinic in London. I was prescribed Growth Hormone in my first cycle in May, but I had a really bad reaction after a few days, so stopped. I’ve just completed my second cycle and gave the Growth Hormone another chance - and I was fine with it this time.
The GH was prescribed by the Medical Director at my clinic, who is a renowned fertility expert in the UK. I didn’t request it - I’d actually never heard of it before! I used Genotropin MiniQuick, which wasn’t that expensive compared to some of my other medication - £48 per box of 7 injections from Asda. I was on 0.4mg in the four weeks before my cycle, and then 1.2mg during stims.
The Medical Director was v honest and said that GH can’t improve egg quality. Rather, there is some evidence that it can help push embryos to blast stage. I did push back on this, because what is the point of pushing embryos to Day 5 if they are abnormal to begin with? I’m not sure he gave me a straight answer, but I figured that I had nothing to lose because I’m 44 and need all the bloody help I can get!
P.S. I have a high ovarian reserve for my age - it’s just that the quality is crap.
Good luck x
Hello - I just thought I'd add my thoughts on the mechanism for DHEA potentially working. I know that older eggs have problems with their mitochondria which means they lack energy and this could contribute to less reaching blastocyst. It could be that DHEA promotes growth, so embryos that are normal but lack energy stand a better chance of reaching blastocyst. Once the growth pattern is established they have more success from there.
Hope you managed to get a decent number to blastocyst this round? Am interested to see if the DHEA worked 🙏 Good luck everyone
Ohhhhh….that makes sense. So lovely to hear from you - hope you’re well ❤️❤️
I am not sure hgh and dhea are the same, from my understanding but maybe you can’t take both together 🤔. Both do have a goal improve eggs, but I’m taking dhea but I am wonder about hgh. From my knowledge you are correct about mitochondria decreasing in cellar energy as we age. This is why we take things like COQ10/ antioxidants and need to focus on good sleep, no stress etc (so easy - not!). The other things that “could help” mitochondria that I try and do are infra red light and also HBOT (not cheap!) but there is little evidence on these directly. From reading about both concepts I believe that can only help even if minor!
Just to note not getting to blast can also be MFI - this happened to us for our icsi rounds 2-4, the sperm kicks in day 3, and we had issued day 4-5 but we have resolved this now. So not always egg x
Thanks for sharing, I did wonder if some people don’t react well to it, but interesting that you didn’t the second time. Every cycle can be so different! A friend of mine took it in the US who is 42 and now has 4 normal tested blasts even with pretty bad MFI! So it’s made me curious, but every person/ cycle is different and I know clinics heard don’t readily prescribe it. Like you I’m not deems as having a low ovarian reserve nor poor respond. But we only get 1 poss 2 blasts a cycle and the one time we tested the 2 blasts we had were abnormal (I am 39) .. like you shitty eggs hoping to improve them. I still have hope for us ❤️xx
Hi. Anyone replying with clinic information, please do so by PM so as not to advertise. Thanks. Diane
I don’t think anyone did mention clinic by name here…
Hi Lotofluckneeded - I’m on HGH at the moment (london clinic) for my second round. For my first round the doctor did the standard short protocol but it was pretty poor response. My AFC was 13 and AMH was 19 but only 4-5 follicles were responding which he said was unusual. So for the second round we are doing a long protocol with HGH (Genotropin 0.4) added to it. My understanding is that it doesn’t change the egg quality but moves some eggs from the long term reserve to the short term reserve - so if there is a difference between the AMH and the AFC then it can increase the follicles that might respond to stimulation. They told me it can give you migraines and if so you have to stop. I had the odd headache here and there but nothing major. In the scans I’m seeing that the left ovary at the start of the stims had only 4 follicles but on day 7 (yesterday) it had about 8 - the doctor said that’s what the HGH is doing: increasing the number of follicles so it’s consistent with the AMH. Hope that helps and good luck with everything. It’s a tough road.
Ohhh that’s is soooo interesting about number of follicles recruited! Thanks so much for sharing. I have asked for me explanation why my currently Consultant doesn’t want me to do it let’s see ! I’m so curious as to what it might to for me given I’m going into round 8😱 wishing you luck and success
Hi Wildflower thanks for sharing. I am reading this old thread as I am thinking if I should or not take HGH. I am 40y old and for me is MFI issue, so wondering if you could share your experience now that one month has passed.
I was at one of the very popular clinics in London (which turned out to be a hell disaster) and they prescribed Zomacton for me. I suffered extreme insomnia as a side effect during my stimulation. Both the number and quality of eggs were worse my previous NHS round. Zomacton cost me around £700. A total waste in my case.
Oh no I’m so sorry to hear that, thanks for sharing! I did need to know about risk of it making things worse, so do appreciate it
hi I used dhea and HGH stopped my dhea in the build up to my stimulation though. For me it worked with egg quality. I got the most eggs but then tested them. I too have low reserve and age factor ( 39)
I’m glad to hear it helped you! I wonder as I’m not a poor responder or low res candidate that’s why he doesn’t want to give it to me (plus maybe my clinics just doesn’t do it ever). But I’m hopeful it could improve quality but I guess the jury is out, I know it doesn’t work for all but I’m glad it helped you!
My consultant prescribed in our last cycle and although it wasn’t ultimately successful I feel hgh helped to get ‘better’ results, so keen to use it in the next cycle and my consultant supports/recommends that. It is costly though but the whole process is! I would say push for what you what unless you are medically advised not to have it. Best of luck xx
Thanks so much! I’m tempted to try it for a final cycle… but I might do one first with just dhea as been on that since June, planning next cycle for oct. I also send loads of luck back to you xx
I tried it on my 5th IVF stimulation cycle which was the one where they put me on some super duper protocol where they said they were throwing everything at it. This was my worst ever cycle and we ended up cancelling it before egg collection as it looked as though we were only going to get 1 egg and as this was going to be our last ever attempt at IVF I thought I could get more (and ultimately looked as tjough I would get 6 at the same stage on my 6tb stim cycle and got 4 eggs). Apparently this was a flare protocol designed for people with really low ovarian reserve and as I had an AMH of 6.9 at my last test (later confirmed to be 3.8 after they tried to argue I would obvs have really low AMH around the 1 or lower mark due to being 46) I should not have been put on that protocol in the first place. So it is difficult to tell if there was any benefit from it for me at all. It doesn't look like it but was worth a try I guess. It was also very expensive (over £200 I think) and I had to go to a specific pharmacy in Baker Street to collect it and no-one told me I needed to keep it refrigerated on way home - it was a really hot day so I had to pop to a shop and buy some frozen potato wedges to keep it cool as they didn't have any peas, ice or anything else suitable to help me get it home safely!
I’m sorry you had a lack of support for that cycle and it sounded really stressful. That makes me so angry and sad! Thank you for sharing you experience, I think I might retest my amh to see where I’m at but not sure when as I’m post endo surgery and I think they can affect it 🤔. anyways do appreciate your feedback x
Thank you and all the best with it. I don't know whether endo surgery affects AMH unfortunately but hopefully someone on here will. I got my AMH tested through another consultant ie not at my clinic as I didn't want to give them the possibility of saying I was no longer eligible if it was really low especially because they had already had to go to a special committee to allow me to do that round due to me being 46. Also I didn't want to give the opportunity to say "I told you so". This way I kept it to myself even though it was a lot higher than they had speculated it was. Sadly I didn't have the last laugh by getting pregnant with my final round though as it didn't happen
Hello,
Our problem was getting embryos to reach day 5 and we suspected an egg issue. Yes, my Dr recommended I try it for my 4th cycle as it was my last attempt with my own eggs and he suggested I 'throw everything at it'. It was our best round and we got 2 embryos, both resulted in pregnancies - one ectopic and one doing well at the moment. Best of luck, I hope you find someone who will prescribe it if you do decide to go ahead. xx
Hi, I’ve used it for two rounds and in both I got better quality and more embryos than previous rounds without it. It didn’t alter PGT testing results though just more to test. It is expensive though so definitely something to consider. Lots of luck moving forward xx
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