Dealing with azoospermia?

[lukasandy]

hi ladies, i have a question related to azoospermia.. Can it be healed with natural supplements or alternative medications? anyone who have some experience with it, please help me.. Thanks.

 

[Deb111]

Difficult one to answer as azoospermia just means that there is no sperm getting into the ejaculate.

In the cases where there is no obstruction (non obstructive azoospermia) it can be because there is simply no sperm being made (in which case I've yet to hear of anything natural or otherwise that will help), but if the sperm count is INCREDIBLY low (it is still unlikely that any sperm would get into the ejaculate hence a diagnosis of azoospermia) then there can be things that will help to improve things in some cases. I've not heard of natural things / alternative meds that can sort this out as it's usually hormonal, but I guess you can never say never

 

[MJ73]

Hi Girls,
Sorry I haven't updated since our appt yesterday afternoon, this is the 1st chance I've had. Well, it was a really informative appt. This time we didn't worry about how demanding or silly we sounded, we asked loads of questions. Basically we found out that DH has Sertolli Cell Only Syndrome type II. From what I understood, the sertolli cells are the most immature form of sperm cells & in type I of the syndrome that is as far as the cells mature. As DH has type II, he has some areas in the tubules where the sperm is produced, where the sperm cells do mature to almost fully mature sperm. Apparently these sperm are able to be used for IVF/ICSI, whereas the less mature sperm will not fertilise an egg. He seems to think that as DH's one testicle is of normal (only slightly small) volume he will be able to find sperm again for another stimulated cycle. He told us that DH's persistant pain is not the norm (do any of your DH's who've had TESA/TESE still experience pain?), he is sending DH off for bloods & an ultrasound. He also said that he would prefer to bypass the frozen sperm altogether & go for fresh as the fertilisation rate is not as good as fresh. Some good news girls; he said that using testicular sperm only affects fert rates by about 5%, so not too much of a disadvantage there!

He told us that it is a pity that money is an issue for us as he is 'very confident that he could get us a baby eventually'. He said that just as a fertile couple may need many cycles to fall pregnant, so may we & that at my 'advanced maternal age miscarriage is a real risk' (as we've already experienced).

So, we came away feeling a bit blah, just kind of mixed emotions. As whilst it was lovely to hear that he felt confident he could eventually get us a baby, it may take several cycles. We had decided that we could beg, borrow or steal enough for 1 more full stim cycle & any frozens that we might be lucky enough to get, but that would be it... It just kind of bummed us out that whether or not we have a child may all come down to finances.

I know that all you gals understand the stresses, financial & otherwise that this bloody IVF business can place on us & you are all a godsend! It is so lovely not to feel alone in this I feel bad for complaining as I know that there are many on this thread who would love their DH to have sperm found, I am so sorry if I sound ungrateful. But for us, in some ways it feels useless if we can't afford to have the op to get it out. I'm not sure how Aus compares to the US & UK? We are looking at 12k for my IVF & 5k for DH's procedure, then we get 5k back from medicare (our govt healthcare).
Thanks for listening; told y'all it was a long one.

 

[deafgal01]

MJ- No worries about venting. That is a tough decision to make. Wow... to go thru with that and risk not getting pregnant (and have more debt on account of that) or find a way to get pregnant with all the risks known... Hmmm... I wouldn't know what to do in your shoes. It's good you got to ask lots of questions. It is a bit of good news that they are able to use fresh sperm rather than thaw out the frozen ones.

It is a bummer that it has to cost us all so much to just get one baby in our arms when it's "free" to make a baby for other people. It ain't fair. It should be free to make a baby for all who wants one. Then the only costs we'd have to worry about is the prenatal and post-pregnancy care.

 

[wibble wobble]

MJ so sorry your facing such a difficult situation. You don't need to feel bad that you have sperm and some of us don't.

In a way I'm happy now that none were found at our biopsy, it's given us the chance to move on which wouldn't have happened if there was sperm present. Who wouldn't want to cling on to the hope that they could one day have their husbands biological baby.

Your Ivf cycles seem to be pretty expensive, I'll have to find out what the exchange rate is. I checked out prices to go private when we first got diagnosed and the Tese was £2200, and an icsi cycle was around £5000 on top of that we would have had to pay for blood tests so maybe an extra £1500 for those... way too much money for me to afford at the minute.

Hope everyone is well and resting up (Deb) I'm off to the Ivf open evening tonight it's a 2 hour thing I can see us leaving and hubby asking me all the questions that the professionals have just answered! Not sure if I've said either but I've had a date for my results follow up March 20th... so that'll be everything done almost exactly a year after we sat in the Gp's office and he told us ZERO (That was march 18 2011,The day life changed forever)

On the pain after surgery, I don't think my hubby has any, he hasn't mentioned it anyway and men are such wimps that love attention for anything (or maybe thats just mine!)

 

[KB38]

OMG, I've just spent an hour trying to catch up on everything. Its amazing how much goes on in two weeks when you haven't been on here for a while!!! DH and I had a lovely time away. It was just the break I/we needed to clear our heads.

When we came back DH and I have decided we would get things rolling and my first job has been to find a FS that I trust. We're booked in to see a new one on 9 March 2012. While we are at it, we have decided to talk to the donor coordinator, do our counselling and tick all the other boxes so that we are ready to go if we decide to go with a donor.

We've been told that it's likely to take some time to find a donor (like up to 6 months). I'm trying to be positive about it as it will give us time to go on an overseas holiday and for me to get healthy before we start but I just want to get this baby making happenng!!!

MJ could I ask you a quick question? What sort of specialist is your DH seeing? I'm getting confused by the inconsistent information about what standard Aust practice is. ...

 

[Deb111]

MJ - we paid pretty much £12K for our synchronised cycle including the mTESE - the IVF side of things for me could have been done cheaper but we had to use the lister because of the surgey hubby was having and the fact that it was synchronous

 

[CanadianMaple]

It's such a shame that any of this costs us even a dollar. It just adds to the unfairness and I really hope that someday they realize this is truly a medical issue and we shouldn't have to go bankrupt to have a baby. It's not like we are all wanting plastic surgery or something.

Can someone help me take a guess at what's going on with DH? My fertility clinic did genetic and hormone testing on him. They said they will not refer him until the genetic results are in to see the urologist. They said it could be May. I asked today if his hormone results were in. She said his LH was "a bit" high, not really high. His testosterone was "a bit" low. She didn't give numbers and didn't want to really guess or discuss it with me. No mention of the FSH, which I think is good? Does it sound like it could be testicular failure or should I be a little bit hopeful?

 

[raelynn]

I completely agree with the finances issue. Ideally, we'd like to do a microTESE but (at least here) insurance covers none of it and we just cannot handle the costs on top of IVF unless we are willing to forgo all our plans for after kids (like moving closer to family). It is a terrible situation to be in knowing that we are making major decisions about our chances of creating our ideal family based simply on money. I wish money was the lowest factor in these decisions not the leading factor.

CM - Sorry I can't be of too much help but when we saw the urologist, he told us the elevated FSH level indicated testicular failure. I've read that elevated LH can be the brain's way of trying to deal with low testosterone so maybe they'll be able to treat with clomid or something to help with the testosterone levels?

 

[God give me]

Hi,
I read many of the pages because my husband suffers from the same problem. I am 27 and also my husband.
We got married 4 years ago
I want to be joined to you I do not speak English very well. I know a few of the words and the rest do I translate it.
My Story
My husband is my cousin. He loves me and I also love him very much and when we got married was a beautiful day (thank God)
One year later we found out that my husband is suffering from infertility, small testes size.

 

[God give me]

my name is Noora, I wish become your friend.

I ask my God
To give
Us
Children

 

[God give me]

hi ladies, i have a question related to azoospermia.. Can it be healed with natural supplements or alternative medications? anyone who have some experience with it, please help me.. Thanks.

Have you ever asked yourself what is the cause of diabetes?
Have you ever asked yourself what is the cause of anemia?

Each disease has a cause may be hormone deficiency or vitamin or amino acids.
Well
Zero sperm has a cause. Will we get the result when we make all the hormones in the normal range and address the lack of Alvaitaminat.
I know men have a zero sperm in the testicle and even got to address food supplements came out full of sperm.


That, God willing, I will write later
Nutritional supplements and amino acids used by men to one year and left the sperm in the semen

 

[Deb111]

Noora

I would suggest your husband sees a specialist
They might be able to tell you the cause

 

[Sar187]

Mum-Your little one is so precious. So sorry that the L&D didn't go quite as planned but so happy to see a healthy baby at the end!

Luv-Welcome! This is an awesome group of ladies!

wibble-So glad to hear things are going well for you and that things might move faster than you though!

Rae-It is so hard sometimes to make these decisions with all the financials involved. We were lucky enough that my in-laws loaned us the money to pay for IVF # 2 or I would still be waiting to try again. The total cost for DH's surgery, some of which was covered by insurance, was somewhere around $7,000 that includes both the surgery and processing the samples to ready them for ICSI. There was also a $225 charge to freeze.

Deb-Great news! I'm not sure how accurate it is, but I've heard that there is a higher chance of implantation occurring and sticking when the embryo is hatching already at transfer time! All I can say is do everything you can to keep yourself relaxed and positive until you test, Our mind has so much more control over our bodies than we realize sometimes. Hugs!

MJ-I think the view of frozen vs. fresh sperm really depends on the dr. We were told and all research I did pointed to the fact that frozen sperm gives almost exactly the same outcome as fresh sperm. We actually had better embryos with our 2nd cycle which used frozen sperm than with our all fresh cycle, though I have no idea if that had something to do with my egg quality or the sperm quality, though the Dr. seemed to think it was sperm quality. Our fertilization rate was between between 25 and 30% with ICSI for both of our cycles. As to pain after TESE, DH doesn't necessarily have pain, however he does say his left ball especially where the incision was done at is still "sensitive" and still feels differently than his other one. As I told Rae-DH's TESE was around $7000 plus freezing fees. Our IVF cycles were around $12,000 each, not including meds or monitoring, however a lot was covered by insurance for our first cycle, our 2nd cycle our insurance was maxed so that was completely out of pocket. My meds were about $4000 per cycle but I only paid $950 out of pocket total.

AFM-OB appointment on Wednesday was fairly uneventful, we did get to hear our baby's heartbeat again, however we didn't get an ultrasound which we were both of the understanding we would be getting since the fertility clinic had wanted us to have one around this time. So we requested one and will be getting one next week. The good news is that the heartbeat was strong and healthy! I got lots of information and stuff this time around that I need to go through so that should keep me busy.

I hope anyone I missed is doing well!

 

[Deb111]

Sar - so great that things are going well with you and your LO

We were also told that frozen can be as successful as fresh because it takes the element of selection out of the process. It is not down to the enbryologist to hunt out the BEST sperm (and I don't know how detailed they can be with that info anyway), but down to a process of natural selection. They know that the ones that survive the thaw are fab quality sperms!

 

[raelynn]

Thanks Sar. Did you have microTESE or non micro? We finally heard back from the financial adviser at the urologists and she quoted us about $10,000 for microTESE and $4,000 for biopsy/mapping. DH is strongly leaning towards the biopsy/mapping so far in favor of us not putting too much of a financial strain on us. I hadn't even thought about the insurance running out if we needed round 2 so that is something else to factor in as well.

 

[silverbell]

Happy 12 weeks, Sar So glad that all is going very well and that you'll get an USS next week.

 

[Deb111]

Not having a good day today girls - I'm scared

 

[tigerlily1975]

Not having a good day today girls - I'm scared

 

[Pink Lolly]

Deb - keep that PMA up xxx


Congrats Sar on being 12 weeks, that time has flown xxx