IVF vs ICSI

[HelloLaura]

My husband and I are starting our first round of treatment early next year. We have MFI but have done lots of work over the last year to improve things. We’ve made lots of progress but my husband’s morphology remains at 0%. At our last IVF consultation, the dr said that with the current parameters we’d be doing IVF. I feel quite strongly that I want to do ICSI based on my own research, and I raised this with the dr who said he would speak to the embryologist. Has anyone been in a similar boat with the NHS? Have you had your opinion heard? Thanks.

[DianeArnold Partner Nurse Fertility Network UK]

Hi Hellolaura. IVF does need a lot of tapered wriggly sperm to get into each egg, so my feelings are ICSI would be the better option so that the sperm can be injected into each egg individually. I’m sure all that will be discussed with you. Good luck. Di ane

[HoneyB11]

Is he taking any supplements? My husband also had low morphology but improved from 0% to 3% over 18 months. He was taking impryl.

I think you’d definitely need icsi (as did we) but we didn’t qualify for nhs funding due to my low AMH.

Best of luck xx

[Eloquentia]

Hi! Yes, we were NHS funded and my husband has low morphology. Our clinic recommended and did ICSI, which gave us 75% fertilisation rate. So definitely worth pushing for. It is on the HFEA green list, so the NHS will fund it if recommended by your clinic. Very best of luck!

p.s. Our clinic recommended Proxeed supplement for both me and my husband. We also took CoQ10 in the form of ubiquinol.

[HelloLaura in reply to Eloquentia]

Thanks so much. Our nutritionist also recommended the Proxeed drinks for my husband but he says they taste like eggy water! He’s taking Procieve at the moment as we didn’t know when our treatment would be starting. Now that we know it will be February, I’m going to switch him back on to the eggy water for the next three months.

[Eloquentia in reply to HelloLaura]

That's the spirit! Very best of luck with your cycle, I hope it brings us all you hope for xx

[HelloLaura]

Thanks everyone for your helpful comments. We received a letter from the clinic confirming we’ll be doing ICSI which I’m much more content with.