Prednisolone/ corticosteroid prior to IVF & embryo transfer

[Electro2023]

Hi everyone, Happy 2024.I'd like to know if anyone was advised by the clinic to take Prednisolone 5mg (corticosteroid) every day for 3 months prior to a potential embryo transfer. This was recommended by my gynaecologist in Greece ( even if we did not reach any embryo development or transfer as our fertilization sadly failed). I understand the use of corticosteroid is not a practice in the UK as explained by a fertility gynaecologist here in London. Therefore, I stopped taking it as we will try an ivf treatment in the UK this year. However, I'm curios to hear anyone else's experience with prednisolone to support embryo transfer and implantation.

Thank you !

[MagsGK]

Hi, I'm on 20mg of prosnicolome daily so 4x more than your dose. It's due to multiple misscariages I had more tests done and turns out I have too many NK cells which could potentially be responsible for my misscariages. So i was advised to take 20mg once a day start few says before transfer. I was told I need to take it up until 12 week of pregnancy, but at 10th week it could be reduce by half.

I'm now pregnant (6weeks) anything can actually still happen however I started struggling due to side effects eg insomnia and gained weight so doctor decided I can reduce the dose from 20mg to 15mg.

Good luck x

[Electro2023 in reply to MagsGK]

Thank you for your reply! I understand how this was important for you. It makes sense. I guess in my case it was advised more as preventive action considering the low dose.

All the best and congrats on your pregnancy 💖💖

[MagsGK in reply to Electro2023]

Thank you lovely. So far I'm not bleeding (I was bleeding by now with my previous pregnancies) so I am hoping it's a good sign🙂 my scan is on 9th Jan so will find out then 🙂Yes, looks like it's just a prevention for you. 5mg is a small dose in comparison to me but still, steroids are steroids.

Did you have any misscariages at all ? X

[Electro2023 in reply to MagsGK]

All the best 💖💖💖 stay positive !

No, I have never been pregnant

I agree. It's always steroids, and if there is no big evidence to benefit from it in my case. As I'm sticking with the clinic in London, they recommended stopping it. So now I follow their advice. But I could check my NK cells .

Thank you! Wishing you all the best 🌟🌟🙏🙏

[JoleneR]

Hi, I was put on 5mg Prednisolone 2 tablets twice a day for 4 days, reduced to 1 tablet twice a day from transfer to test day. I was told more than this is not advised because of the risks to the embryo. I took it in case of immunity issues with implantation. I didn't have immunity testing due to the cost.

[Electro2023 in reply to JoleneR]

Thank you, JolenR, for sharing your experience I am considering testing NK cells in my blood even if it's not super accurate to understand the level of active cells in the uterine environment. But still, this could give me an idea around my immunity since I have no history of pregnancy and if there is any risk of immune response during implantation. I have to check the cost, as u pointed it out this could be a limiting factor for me as well.

Thanks a million and all the best 🌟

[JoleneR in reply to Electro2023]

The main reason I didn't do NK testing was that my clinic didn't offer it and it just got to be complicated. I had 2 losses and 1 was due to trisomies, so probably not immune response in my case. Best of luck!

[Coffeeone]

Happy new year all. My consultant initially put me on a protocol which had a steroid in it prior to egg collection to help with egg quality. I did some research and found a cochrane review which suggested no benefit so didn’t take… they can have some side effects I didn’t want to put up with. Showed the consultant who agreed there wasn’t a lot of evidence for it. Unless there are inflammatory or immune response issues I wouldn’t be keen on it. X

[Electro2023 in reply to Coffeeone]

Thank you !! Well done, I agree. I also checked in literature if there is any benefit for egg quality but not. Thanks a lot for sharing. All the best 🌟

[PinkCat22]

hello, late to the party here but wanted to chime in. I had no steroids for my first two egg collections. I then changed clinics and generally had a MILES better result. One of the big changes was a steroid during stims. I have endometriosis, so our consultant felt it would help. I had way less pain and our results were so much better. Hard to know if that was down to the steroids or the fact it was a FAR better experience generally and that I was switched from menopur to a lower dose of another drug…

But I will say my pain was so much better. Xx