Immune issues with donor eggs

[Anisha29]

Hi there,I'm just wondering if any of you have been successful with using donor eggs if you have an auto immune issue or have elevated NK cells and/or cytokines.

I'm worried that we will go down the donor route and then fail anyway because of my immune issues despite any embryos being good quality.

My ivf clinic proposes to use of steriods, intralipids and IVIG to help on that front.

Thank you

Anisha

[PRAYINGFORTHISTOWORK]

my daughter had all these issues (didn’t use donor eggs though) and with that treatment plan she was successful x

[Anisha29 in reply to PRAYINGFORTHISTOWORK]

Thank you that's reassuring xx

[Batsford]

Hi Anisha, I’m 19 weeks pregnant with a donor egg embryo. I have a history of autoimmune disease and lymphatic cancer. I have very high Natural Killer cells, cytokines and anti nuclear antibodies. My first 5 transfers failed (3 with my own eggs and the last 2 with donor egg embryos), as I didn’t know I had immune issues. I was diagnosed and treated by Professor Shehata at his private clinic and treated with humira and hydroxychloroquine a few months before transfer and then I had prenisolone, fragmin and intra lipids about a week before transfer. The prednisone and fragmin continued until 12 weeks and then I finished the hydroxychloroquine at 16 weeks. I’m also having intralipids until 20 weeks. It has involved a lot of meds but hopefully has worked. The programmes are tailored and so less meds are required if the individual has lower natural killer cells. Wishing you all the best.

[Anisha29 in reply to Batsford]

Many thanks Batsford. The information provided is useful and reassuring. I have lupus (SLE) so that adds another layer of complication. The ivf clinc has said its risky giving me humira as I have had shingles many times and it might cause it again. Hopefully intralipids will do the trick.

Would you mind PM me and letting me know what clinic you are at?

[Batsford in reply to Anisha29]

Hi Anisha,

I’ve direct messaged you. I only had 4 Humira injections, one every 2 weeks and it barely seemed to touch my immune system, but my T-cells did eventually go down.

It sounds like your clinic know what they’re doing which is good. Best of luck.

[kayray87]

Hi Anisha29,

I had the exact same concerns as you. I have two auto immune conditions but they never bothered to test me for nkc as they said they would come back high given my medical history. We never made it to transfer with own eggs after many tries so when we moved to donor I was terrified I was opening another can of worms. However we were incredibly lucky that our first transfer worked. I was on steroids but only up until 7 weeks, and for another reason I had been taking hydroxychoroquine so I'm not sure if this also helped to reduce inflammation. Also was on clexane and aspirin. I was also quite obsessive about staying away from inflammatory foods.

Wishing you all the luck ❤️❤️❤️