Poor egg quality

[helly]

Hi Ladies,

I have been told that I have poor egg quality. I'm 37 and my DH and I have been TTC for 2 years now. I had one m/c in Dec 06 and have had 3 IVF cycles all unsuccessful.

Is there anything that I can do to improve my egg quality?

Any advise or similar experiences to mine?

[talisen_cat]

I was told that I have poor eggs and should consider donor eggs. That was on my 3rd IVF. I waited 2 years, went to another clinic and had 5 eggs make it to day 5, with one perfect one. Poor eggs my *****

I also did accupuncture and changed my diet (liver clense because according to the Natropath I was not processing the drugs - I was considered a poor responder).

Thta's not to say what your issue might be, but I hope that, that gives you some ideas on other options.

[Tracii]

I did the same thing as talisen cat - with success My daughter will be 1 year old next week! I was such a poor responder - after 25+ days of stimulation - I had only 2 eggs of which only 1 fertilized...well that is all we needed. I did acu for over 1 year and did detox diets on and off for over 6 months (basically getting rid of all the junk inside my body). I took very good vits, exercised, and got LOTS of fresh air - and changed my thinking with lots of positive thoughts.

[daly]

I was also told by 2 very respected REs "poor egg quality" was my main problem and 1 suggested to do DE - at 34!!!! He was shocked I had had a baby earlier that year and said he wouldn't have considered me an IVF candidate without DE. I went to a different RE who found and removed an uterine septum, which he felt largely explained my 4 mc's. He also changed my protocol and said the high amounts of follistim in previous cycles, 450, could be "over-cooking" my eggs and said he would not categorize me as a poor responder. WEll, the prior cycle where I was on a "poor responder protocol" with the previous RE, I only got 2, day 3, 4 celled embies- I did have a beautiful baby girl from it, but what a dismal egg turnout! After switching and being put on literally half the dose of meds, I am 24 weeks preggo with twins! I had 9 embies.....I won't win awards for many of my embies, but I managed to get a couple 9 celled compacting

I also did acupuncture weekly. I'm not saying this is what will work for everyone by any means. Poor responder protocols are excellent for alot of people. And some people do great with high doses of follistim. I'm just really glad I tried something new given my poor prior outcomes and couldn't be more grateful it worked out. It is good to get a second opinion when you don't feel settled with what you're being told. Even if the second opinion is the same. You will feel better about your decisions. I also checked SART.org and found my current Re has amazing numbers. The other ones had high numbers too, just not as high.

Tons of luck to you!!!! I also checked into arginine and DHEA when I was working on egg quality and increased fatty acid rich food and took aspirin 81 mg daily on my RE's recommendation because it is thought to increase ovarian blood flow and more oxygen makes happier eggs. An acupuncturist might be able to help with arginine research and fatty acid rich food. It's usually safe to increase arginine rich foods.

I hope this helps and isn't totally confusing. Egg quality is an easy catch-all for RE's to fall back on. I'm sure I don't have stellar egg quality, but I am so glad I found a second opinion. Even if it hadn't changed anything, I'd felt better about making such huge decisions as swtiching to DE, which I was totally prepared to do. I'd even picked someone out from the list!

Good Luck!!! and tons of babydust to you