Clomid Buddies (moved from TTC board)

[Ask4joy]

Sorry Earth...do you think it's an anovulatory cycle? I'm on birth control right now before starting stims and have had some brown spotting too.

 

[BelleNuit]

Welcome jwilly, I'm sorry to hear about your tube. I think you have a really great plan and doing IUIs while on the waitlist for IVF makes so much sense!

Sara I'm so sorry to hear you haven't had any follicle growth. Do you think your doc would be willing to try you on 150mg clomid or femara? We had some ladies on here who had success with 150mg clomid when the 100mg dose didn't make them O. Rooting for you!

Earth spotting like that is terribly annoying.

AFM I'm on CD 9, should be heading into my fertile days soon. I've been having a lot of twinging happening in my right ovary, so must be something brewing up there. I usually only ever had twinging/cramping when I was on femara, so maybe those herbs I'm on are actually doing something? Tomorrow I have my follow-up appointment with my naturopath. I'll get the results from my adrenal testing while I'm there. Also, something interesting I'm trying out this cycle is seed cyling. During the FP you eat ground flax and chia seeds and then in the LP you eat pumpkin seeds and sunflower seeds and apparently it is supposed to help support healthy hormone levels. Who knows if there is anything to it, but seeds pack a lot of nutritional value, so eating more of them for that reason alone is a good thing

 

[smurphy90]

Ask - Good luck with the injections!

Belle - Seed cycling sounds really interesting. I've never come across that before. All of those are healthy though, so definitely can't hurt!

As far as why my doctor is wanting to go straight to injects, I'm not positive. My assumption for her not wanting to do a higher dose of Clomid is that I have 4 big issues that increase the likelihood of resistance. My guess is that she doesn't want to waste time (and possibly risk worse side-effects, with my bipolar). She's never even mentioned Letrozole. When we were discussing my treatment plan she said if the Clomid affected my moods too badly she would move me to injections, because she was very nervous about upsetting my bipolar issues. My only guess as to why she didn't mention Letrozole is that Germany, in general, is very by-the-books with drugs and Letrozole is formally listed as treating breast cancer in post-menopausal women. Sometimes they flat out refuse to go off-label (and insurance companies often won't cover things being used off-label). That's just my guess, I really have no idea if that's actually the reason. We'll probably ask about Letrozole, but I'm not really opposed to just going straight to injects. Not looking forward to it, but she's thought from the get-go that it would probably be the best route for us. She just wanted to see if I responded to Clomid first.

 

[jwilly]

FX for you Ask!

Thanks Belle! Sorry, I'm a little late to the party, but what herbs are you taking? I am going to see how our next few cycles go, then want to look into seeing a naturopath. Would love to hear how that is going for you!

Sara, sorry your scan didn't go well. Hope the injections do it for you!

AFM, I will be triggering tonight, and going in for my IUI on Thursday morning. I fudged up picking up my ovidrel prescription this morning (didn't realize i could only pick it up at the hospital pharmacy) so I've been running around like a crazy person all morning trying to figure out how to get it by tonight. Im so ready for this cycle to be over!

 

[BelleNuit]

Good luck with your trigger tonight jwilly and your IUI!

Sara I think what your doctor is saying makes a lot of sense. The injects will definitely work well for you and have a higher success rate anyway! Why waste anymore time is what I think!

Jwilly. With the naturopath I think its good not to mix any prescription medications with the herbs due to potential interactions. It can also take a few months for the herbs to work and do what they're supposed to do. So you'd either want to take a break from IUIs while you did the naturopath thing, or do the naturopathy after the IUIs in preparation for IVF!

She has me on a whole combination of things. The first 3 months is working on estrogen/progesterone balance (I have 2 months left of that), then shes going to work on promoting proper adrenal function

She has me on herbs in capsule form that I take 2-3 times a day that include a blend of wild yam, vitex, astragalus, bupleurum falcaturn, dong quai, rhodiola, maca, atractylodes macrocephala, blessed thistle, raspberry leaf, siberian ginseng, ginger root, motherwort, tumeric, schisandra chinesis fruit, rosemary leaf, st mary's thistle, calcium phosphate dibasic, cellulose, magnesium sterate, hypromellose.

She also has me on myo-inositol, N-Acetylcysteine, B50, coq10 800mg (until O), Vitamin E 800mg (until O), multi vitamin and folic acid.

 

[smurphy90]

jwilly - Good luck with your IUI tomorrow!

Belle - That's my thought exactly on the injects. Many people on various groups and forums keep saying to push for a higher dose of Clomid or for Letrozole, but I'm honestly fine moving on to injects. The chances are higher anyway and we won't really being risking mood-related side effects so... why waste time on less likely treatments?

 

[BelleNuit]

Makes sense to me Sara! Are you starting the injects next cycle?

 

[smurphy90]

It seemed like she planned to just start injections now and get the bigger follicles going. I'm not sure how/if that plan would be impacted by us being away for 4 days next week though. I know they usually want to monitor pretty closely with injects, so I don't know how that might impact her plan.

 

[smurphy90]

Sorry for the double-post, but I wanted to update after my appointment.

We went in for my third scan this afternoon and once again, there was no growth at all. She's having me start 50iu of Gonal-F/day. I go back on Monday to see how things are moving along. It might be tricky... we'll be gone Tues-Fri next week, so we'll have to go an entire week between scans. She's hoping we'll have a really good idea of what to expect on Monday so she can tell me which day to trigger. Finger crossed, as always.

 

[BelleNuit]

Sounds nerve-wracking Sara! Good luck!!

 

[Ask4joy]

Good luck Sara!

 

[BelleNuit]

Well CD 13 today, I'm pretty sure today is O. Not that I've done anything to track it this cycle, but based off of cycle history I'm pretty sure today is the day!

 

[jwilly]

Thanks for the well wishes! All went well yesterday. Though I've spent the morning googling the extremely low success rates of IUI with endometriosis. I don't know why I torture myself like that

Belle, that's a good point. It would maybe be something I should try post IUI, before IVF. So interested to see your results with the herbs! I'm a definite believer that natural is generally better, unfortunately with ttc there aren't as many natural alternatives.

Good luck Sara! I hope everything will fall into place for you. Fx!

 

[red_head]

Hey, sorry I've not been on, I'm really struggling with depression and anxiety recently, life is just being so unkind, and it just feels like it's been years since we had any real happiness in our life! I was also told this week that it looks like I may have crohns so that's just absolutely floored me. Im also cd 17 now and don't think I've ovulated - getting high fertility still on cb digital tests (for the past 2 days) so don't know what's going on. I'm so fed up!! I feel like everything I do is for nothing - I quit smoking, gave up alcohol, caffeine, lost weight (still more to go admittedly), I'm virtually vegan (and strict veggie), take the supplements I'm supposed to, etc, etc for years now, and yet my body just seems to hate me and things get worse and worse! So frustrating!! I took the clomid 2-5 but was very ill day 5 so don't know whether that's messed it all up? I don't understand when inovulated both sides last month and now so late, if at all this month?
Sorry, just feel like I'm drowning and needed to vent! I hope all is good with everyone else xx

 

[BelleNuit]

Red I'm really sorry to hear about the crohns. My uncle has that and it can be really difficult to manage at times. It just doesn't seem fair, especially when you're doing all of the right things!

jwilly I did the same thing for my IUIs. The success rates for unexplained are also dismally low for IUI. IVF is pretty much the best treatment for unexplained.. unfortunately. We'll get there eventually I suppose.

 

[OnErth&InHvn]

brown spotting continues..

Not enough to say flow but not enough to say spotting.

I do read, even if i dont comment. I hope all the IUIs and tests go well and i hope any anxiety goes away too!

 

[Calibeachbum]

Hello!
I just wanted to introduce myself. I'm starting my first round of 100mg clomid tomorrow ttc #2 CD 3-9. DH and have been ntnp with no birth control since our DS birth 4 years ago. Mixed feelings about going through all the ttc emotions again!

 

[BelleNuit]

Welcome Cali! Hope the clomid gives you good luck!

 

[jwilly]

Red, so sorry you have been struggling. This is such a hard journey to be on. Reading your post described almost exactly how I feel most of the time. Life can be so unfair, especially when it seems everything is going wrong.

Belle, I guess we have to start somewhere. Its so hard when you know something is so unlikely. In a way, I'm glad I'm not getting my hopes up.Do you plan on doing IVF or are you going to continue with the herbs?

Hi Cali! Hope this clomid is what you need this cycle!

 

[BelleNuit]

I am planning on IVF in the spring as that will give us some time to save up for it. We've been following a pretty tight budget!