Help - Artificial occyte activation with ISCI

[WMolly88]

Hi all,Has anyone had artificial occyte activation with ICSI and can share their stories with me, whether they be positive or negative. Last year our clinic recommended my partner have a test to check his sperms calcium levels but unfortunately it is taking forever to find a control (someone else with healthy sperm) and we're due to start our next cycle next week. The clinic has told us we can go ahead with the occyte activation without having the test but they don't recommend it as it could potentially make the outcome worse.

Any advice or help would be incredibly appreciated.

Thank you x

[Cuppppatea]

Do not recommend. Feel I lost 3/4 eggs because of this …..

instagram.com/reel/C37kfy4s... ( feature can be seen at 00.53)

[WMolly88 in reply to Cuppppatea]

Can I ask if your husband had the test to check the calcium levels before going ahead with the AOA x

[Cuppppatea in reply to WMolly88]

No he didn’t even get offered it, nor was it spoken about. Nhs. We got very little information and I couldn’t find any online. I got offered it only on the evening of my trigger injection. Angry about it. My gut told me no I don’t know why I went with it. I’ve now sent him for dna fragmentation test which is irrelevant but might give us more info. Can I ask which clinic you are with ? Dm maybe.

[WMolly88 in reply to Cuppppatea]

Hi Cuppppatea,

We're with TFP Oxford. Unfortunately we didn't get the option to have any rounds on the NHS as my husband has a child already, hence why I'm so anxious about what the right thing to do is because this will be our last shot due to finances 😔 my clinic also spoke about the dna fragmentation test but they said there's no point in spending extra money because if it comes back with a poor result they'll just advise taking supplements etc. Why did you get offered the AOA on the evening of your injection and not earlier?

I'm so sorry you had to go through that, I know how hard it must've been for you. X

[Cuppppatea in reply to WMolly88]

I have no idea why they offered it so late …. It seemed to correlate with my trigger injection being out of stock and us having to use a different one. I regret using it as now I have two rounds behind me which are not really good indicators for information moving forward

[lmno]

hi, I did a post on this a few weeks ago in case you want to search and see the answers - seemed like most people who responded had a positive experience. I’ve not heard about testing calcium levels but I’m going for my egg collection on Wednesday and we’re using AOA for the first time on the recommendation of our clinic based on previous cycles fertilisation rates. All the best xx

[WMolly88 in reply to lmno]

Can I ask what your previous fertilisation rates were and what grade the embryos were?

Thanks so much x

[lmno in reply to WMolly88]

We had zero fertilisation our first round with 11 eggs (IVF) then moved to ICSI. After that we moved to ICSI and had 7 eggs which led to 3 embryos; next round 5 eggs which led to 1 embryo; and next round 8 eggs which led to 1 embryo. I think some others did fertilise but didn’t progress into viable embryos. Just had our 5th (and last!) egg collection today and got 8 eggs so will find out tomorrow how many have fertilised. This round is our first time using AOA x

[WMolly88 in reply to lmno]

Aww bless you, you've really been through it. Did they mention that the low fertisation rate may also be due to egg quality and have they changed your protocol at all? I'm so glad they managed to collect 8 eggs from you today, I always find this waiting part the worst. Fingers crossed for you x

[lmno in reply to WMolly88]

Yes I think egg quality is our main issue which is why there seems to be such a drop off. My understanding is that AOA only helps the initial fertilisation rate so probably won’t do too much for us but this is our last round so we thought we had nothing to lose as we hadn’t tried it before. We also have switched to a short protocol for first time which was way better in terms of timescales and side effects and interestingly got similar results in terms of number of eggs - wish we’d tried that years ago! Xx

[Pkm4321]

we have low fertilisation rate and tired this. It was only extra £250 but didn’t work. It caused us stress as they said they couldn’t source it in time for egg collection because it was over BH but they did get it in the end. I don’t think it made any difference to us

[WMolly88 in reply to Pkm4321]

Thank you Pkm4321. I'm still so unsure what to do. Our embryologist didn't recommend it and said because we got 2 top grade embryos previously it's unlikely my husband has low calcium in his sperm. They're putting me on a different protocol this time round but I'm still so unsure. I wish someone could give me the answer as I'll be started meds any day now 😔 xx

[Pkm4321 in reply to WMolly88]

I don’t think there is an answer in this IVF game it’s pot luck sometime. I was it wouldn’t cause harm so we tried it. It’s good you have had top embyro. We never did so our embryologist was it’s worth a try. Maybe listen to the embryologist and save some money.

[WMolly88 in reply to Pkm4321]

Thanks Pkm4321.

We were also told it could do more harm than good hence why the worries and questions. Yes, you're probably right, we should listen to the embryologist. However as it's our last shot I'm wondering if I want to put all my eggs in one basket - excuse the pun! 🤣 Thanks for your help x

[Elsidee11]

we had a very positive experience - went from 1 egg fertilise first round, 0 eggs fertilised second round and 11 eggs fertilise third round with AOA (calcium ionophore) x

[Elsidee11]

also my husband has the test (plc zeta I think it’s called) and his results were normal but we still went ahead.

[Orttc]

we used it and had 8 fertilise out of 11 despite my husband having very very poor sperm, using frozen extracted sperm. Our clinic charges £400 for this which seems comparatively like a lot, but I wasn’t willing to risk fertilisation failure if I knew I could have tried this add on.

[WMolly88 in reply to Orttc]

Thank you Orttc. Can I ask how many cycles you done previously before going ahead with this? X

[Orttc]

That was our first cycle- maybe we would have had the same results without it, but I think given how bad our parameters were I’d be surprised. Our clinic said it’s definitely worth doing if using frozen / extracted sperm.