NHS treatments for PCOS.

[BabyBrain10]

So here's a bit of back ground been ttc 3 years, had 3 rounds of clomid end of 2010 begining of 2011, all BFN's i then had to wait until october 2011 to have ovarian drilling done which also failed...

I had my follow up appointment in november and the gynae gave me 6 months worth of clomid at 150 mg and told us if this didnt work it would be straight to IVF but he also sent me for 21 day bloods and when i spoke to the nurse she was incredibly rude saying its too early to tell and if it hasnt worked in the first 4 months its not going to at all and theres no point!! which at this point i was crying

I want to see a different gynae for a second opinion... and was wondering what other treatments they could offer me as IVF is a bit of a last chance.

The reason i want a second opinion is A-IVF is a last chance attempt and B- I'm 21 and in my area you have to be 23 to get it and C- (my main reason) is that i know there are other routes to go down before IFV, like a different drug. not 100% on what though...

Please help going out of my mind...

x x x

 

[Justwantababy]

Hello I'm so sorry to hear you've been treated like this.

I was ttc with pcos, and was started on 50mg clomid, which didn't work, neither did 100mg, but 150mg did. But even then it took 3 rounds at 150mg (the first one they gave me an hcg trigger too early, the second we just didn't catch the egg, and the 3rd bingo!). My PcT were great tho. All my cycles were scan monitored with progesterone tests at 7dpo.or

However, we had started talking about the next step if clomid wasn't going to work (they wouldn't go GP 200mg). And the next step was going to be FsH hormone injections to try to stimulate my ovaries and the hcg trigger shot to release the egg.

Other girls i've met through this forum have also tried clomid alternatives metformin.

Are you sure clomid isn't working for you? (are you tracking your temperature?)

You must be so fed up after 3yrs ttc. I hope it all works out for you xx

 

[Baby_Fever]

Urgh! It makes me so mad for you that you've been treated like this! I had a horrible GP - back in 2009 when we were first TTC my GP ran some bloodwork (I didn't suspect anything wrong at the time it was just a routine physical) and my thyroid came back low but "not low enough to treat" (her words) and then told me I needed to lose weight. A few months later I knew something was really wrong and she started giving me the run around saying she forgot to test this or that and only referred me to an ob/gyn because she was going on her Mat leave the next day - rude right? I'm convinced it's because she thought I was too fat to be bothered with! Thankfully the ob/gyn was awesome and after clomid was unsuccessful she referred me to an RE who finally diagnosed me with PCOS and hypothyroidism (low thyroid) and I've since lost 16lbs since starting my thyroid treatment.

Anyway, IVF shouldn't be your only option - definitely get a second opinion. I'm definitely not excusing the way you've been treated because it was unacceptable but it might stem from you being so young - which can make Dr's a real pain to deal with (I have a friend who had no fertility issues but because she was young at the time (despite being married) they refused to tell her the gender of her babies etc

I've now tried clomid, femara (letrozole) and metformin - all without success (although I do seem to get AF a little more often with the Metformin - usually I have to take Provera to get AF). My RE told me I could either go with ovarian drilling or FSH injections with IUI (the IUI part is sort of optional since DH's sperm are great). I chose the FSH injections (though I can't start them until I lose another 30 lbs but at least that seems possible to do now). I didn't want to do the ovarian drilling yet because my RE said when I asked that if I sustained any scarring it could make the drilling unsuccessful AND we'd be left with only IVF as an option. Since we had another option I didn't want to risk making IVF our only option since it's the most expensive. FSH injections are expensive but way cheaper than IVF.

Aside from that the only other thing you could do to increase your chances would be to try some natural holistic medicine/methods - like acupuncture, fertility yoga or diet. There's a book called Making Babies that might help or even just switching to a PCOS diet or an insulin-resistance diet might help. I'm going to be attemping some natural methods since my main focus will be weight-loss right now and see how they work - hoping we won't need the FSH injections by the time I'm ready for them.