Ghost Question

[Nadia123]

Ghost,
I'm a little confused and I wonder if you can help me.
My husband tested positive for Enterococcus Faecalis and the doctor
said that he would not go ahead with our cycle unless this was cleared.
so he took antibiotics and we retested and the results were still positive--actually
the tests show that there were two types of Enterococcus Faecalis (EF). Dr now says that he
does not trust these results and does not want to treat him with another round
of antibiotics. And he wants us to go ahead with our cycle. So, I'm confused.
Does this infection (EF) influence his sperm quality and
hence embryo quality and success of a cycle?
Thanks, Nadia

[kerribell]

On our first ivf cycle, my husband also tested positive for enterococcus, took antibiotics, and still tested postive for it. We proceeded with the ivf, but used ICSI. We were already going to use ICSI before finding this out. We got a positive and have a little boy as a result. We have done two cycles since then (he was never tested for the infection again, or if he was they never said anything about it), one negative and one positive resulting in our little girl. I was also worried about the sperm/embryo quality because of the bacteria (and even asked Ghost some of the same questions), but we had good results in the end. I hope this helps you some.

[Ghost]

Ghost,
I'm a little confused and I wonder if you can help me.
My husband tested positive for Enterococcus Faecalis and the doctor
said that he would not go ahead with our cycle unless this was cleared.
so he took antibiotics and we retested and the results were still positive--actually
the tests show that there were two types of Enterococcus Faecalis (EF). Dr now says that he
does not trust these results and does not want to treat him with another round
of antibiotics. And he wants us to go ahead with our cycle. So, I'm confused.
Does this infection (EF) influence his sperm quality and
hence embryo quality and success of a cycle?
Thanks, Nadia

Up to your RE, but if the sperm is washed and ICSI is used, it's generally not an issue. You don't want the bacteria getting into the embryo culture. It normally does not affect motile sperm that have normal morphology, and those are the ones selected in ICSI.