Hello, after my cancelled egg collection I am now going privately. During this time I’ve read ‘it starts with the egg’ and as I am 33 with an AFC of 4 and AMH of 3. something I started taking everything! Now I’m worried it is a bit overkill and also it’s really expensive.
I know it’s hard for someone to give me a definitive answer but I just wanted some opinions on what I am currently taking.
N-acetyl-cysteine
R-Alpha Liopic acid
ubiquinol 200mg 3 x per day
Folic acid 400mg
Vitamin E
Magnesium glycinate with vitamin D
Thanks in advance!
Written by
LauraKate30
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I’m incredibly sceptical of that book, I actually wonder if it does more harm than good. I spent almost six years trying to get pregnant, I must have spent a fortune on the stuff it recommends. I also had an AFC of 4 and my AMH was <2. It becomes easy to get obsessed with it all, checking the ingredients of every shower gel and worrying for a week if you miss one tablet. Over my four ivf cycles, my results got worse and worse, until my last cycle aged 37 when I ended up with nothing to transfer. I stopped taking everything, with the exception of vitamin d and that’s when I fell pregnancy naturally, it’s likely completely anecdotal, but it helped confirm my suspicions about all those supplements for myself at least.
It seems a bit telling that no fertility clinics recommend it. In my opinion that author has preyed on a vulnerable target audience. I think the advice on plastics and reducing exposure to certain chemicals is interesting, but not the be all and end all. You will drive yourself crazy trying to eliminate everything so take it with a pinch of salt. Ttc is not a time when you need to be adding more needless stress or pressure! X
Can't agree more with this, despite feeling totally in control I totally after reading it!! Had a worse second round after following the book to a T, and have given up for round 3, not getting stressed when I forget to take supplements etc, I got to the stage I started losing weight as I was scared to eat a carb in case of a sugar spike!! Not good xx
I was taking similar plus prenatals and omega 3. I did IVF and my consultant told me to continue all of those and I'm now pregnant from my second transfer x
I had two failed rounds of ivf and have since stopped taking a lot of the supplements in the book. I’m yet to do my third round but too many of the supplements have risks vs focusing on nutrition which has more evidence behind it.
I’ve upped my calcium intake and started taking a choline supplement because my diet is low in both of those and they’re both known to affect egg quality. Choline is recommended during pregnancy in the USA in the same way vitamin d is here. Calcium is the basis of calcium ionophor treatment to boost fertilisation. Calcium is also given to chickens to make their eggs better so why not ours. Full fat dairy has been recommended for fertility for years.
I still take q10 because my clinic recommended it and a multivitamin. I’ve also started taking myo inisitol because my hbac1 is not far off prediabetes.
My clinic had me take coq10 and DHEA since I was 42 when I started this journey. Did the EC when I turned 43 recently.
Try to get a natural folate rather than folic acid. I switched to wild nutrition - fertility support.
I took a lot of supplements and still am, as I'm actually enjoying the feeling of taking the best care of myself and boosting my overall health not only my fertility.
I'm switching from coq10 to ubiquinol.
I'm also taking
Evening primrose oil
Shatavari (standard in India, where I live part of each year)
Combination 12 tissue salts (prescribed by my homeopath for the essential minerals)
Magnesium
Melatonin
Omega 3
Motherwort (steep and drink as tea)
As other women say, the great supplement debate is always a controversial thing and some will be happy to simply have a healthy diet.
But given my age and some previous poor health (I had burnout aged 38) I know my body needed a boost.
It's paid off as so far I've 3 frosties.
AMH 0.31
I developed 5 good sized eggs. 4 fertilised. 3 made it to day 6.
Now waiting genetic testing. My doc is so laid back that it actually causes me more anxiety lols
I don’t rate that book tbh. It’s quite stressful annd I felt a lot of pressure to take supplements and commit to lifestyle changes (to the point where using soap and touching receipts gave me mild anxiety) yet the logical me knows it was just giving me expensive wee and not improving my health at all.
Also note that she is self published and that she also is making a lot of money from book sales etc from peoples anxiety and fears about their fertility. It’s in her interest to create book content about supplements that keeps people hooked. That author had one round of ivf and fell pregnant fairly young too. Not to diminish her struggles at all but that’s not what ivf looks like for lots of people. The nice guidelines are 3 full rounds (with all transfers) for a reason.
I think your supplement list is fine but that is a lot to take. Our consultant advised cq10 for egg quality in a sort of it can’t hurt way. He told me to take a prenatal with folic acid. That’s all I was advised. It’s worth asking your own consultant if they recommend anything specific to you because I know for some people, certain supplements can hinder more than help too.
I had a chat with wil nutrition and they explained that natural folate is more readily absorbed by the body than folic acid.
Ubiquinol is also better absorbed than coq10 so I've just switched to that.
For me it's now all about egg quality as my first three frosties are all abnormal, according to the PGTA, which is also controversial and not even offered by some clinics. I've since read that some embryos can auto correct.
Those embryos were from eggs that started growing in April when I wasn't taking any supplements at all nor any specific diet. I am now trying to improve quality ahead of the next cycle. I'm already pretty broken by this process.
I am not a fan of it starts with the egg, not zita west, both big names in the fertility book area. With it starts with the egg, I feel it creates so much stress and sets near impossible standards and that isn't going to help anyone trying to conceive. With zita west, so much is aimed at pushing her own drugs at a very high price and they are not actually that good when compared with other brands, in my opinion. So I have been more interested in looking at personal experiences than those, and many women in the IVF groups online give details of what did and did not work for them.
My first egg collection round I took nothing except a basic pre natal, I got 7 embryos which were put back over 5 transfers, and had two negatives, two chemical and a 9 week miscarriage. We are having IVF due to male factors.
So this time around I decided to take some extras as I'm now 39 and want to ensure the best outcome and to know I did all I could to get the best results.
From my own research, I am now taking a prenatal (pregnacare), high dose vitamin d (4000mg tablet plus 4000mg spray per day) omega 3, folate, ubiquinol 300mg X2 per day (health thru nutrition brand), acai berry, and vitamin b (I am deficient and also have 3 monthly vitamin b injections) . We will be doing our next egg collection in a month or two.
Ultimately I would say do what you feel comfortable with. Best of luck.
I also read “it’s starts with an egg”. I’m 40 and my AMH is good for my age; but read it after a miscarriage on my 1st cycle and wanted to make the second the best it could be.
This book did make me spiral into spending a fortune on supplements for both me and my husband. I told my clinic what I was as taking but in their eyes their recommendations were Folic Acid and Vitamin D only and Impryl for my husband which has a variety of ingredients.
The issue is, we have bloods taken for our IVF but never for the levels that these supplements are meant to enhance and so we never know (unless we pay for tests) whether we are ever under or over the best level.
My second round was successful and I’m now 16 weeks pregnant having taken Folic Acid, Vitamin D, ubiquinol, B12 and N-Acetyl Cysteine and açai berry on the 4 month lead up to it but - I really feel that a major change in my diet to more whole grains and greens made the biggest difference for me as it gave me a massive boost in energy which actually heightened my focus on my wellbeing and my positivity.
I feel another issue with the book is it allows the reader to put themselves into a “box” with no knowledge of whether they are deficient in any of the supplements I just wrote a list of what I “thought” might apply to me never knowing whether it actually was doing harm/ nothing or good for ME so I always had a little worry in my mind.
Although my second round was successful my egg collection did reduce from 26 mature on first round and 19 on second.
Sorry my answer is a bit wishy washy with no real advice but I would say despite my doubts if I had to do a third round I would probably continue taking the list above…… and eat a tonne more brown rice 😁
Thank you for all of your replies, it’s been very helpful to hear from others as I was starting to get quite stressed about it all but now I’m going to take a step back and have another look at what I’m doing! Good luck to you all on your journeys 🤍
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