Amazon.com lists over 8,000 items under the search term "fertility"

Interesting Protocol - Mini-IVF

Catherine McDiarmid-Watt | Monday, March 26, 2018 | 0 comments

Image: Twins Darby, left, and Reagan Christian play with drawing toys in their Belleville home Monday Dec. 26, 2011. The girls were conceived by parents Fred and Linda Christian through mini in vitro fertilization, a procedure advocated by St. Louis doctor Sherman Silber which, he says, is safer, cheaper and easier on women while maintaining comparable pregnancy rates
Photo credit: Infertile.com - All Rights Reserved
This article brings up lots of interesting questions!

I wonder if lengthening your dosage of Clomid alone would help some? The only thing is, how long would you lengthen it, if you weren't being monitored? Perhaps to day 10-12? And then I wondered, some are using Soy Isoflavones as if it were Clomid - would it work the same, taking it for an extended time?

Mini-IVF
When patients contemplate IVF, their first reaction is often the fear of daily injections of hormones for months, the incredibly high cost of the drugs, the risk of multiple pregnancy and consequent prematurity, side effects related to high levels of estrogen resulting from large numbers of eggs, hyperstimulation syndrome, and the prospect of painful daily progesterone injections for a full ten weeks even after the IVF procedure.

Mini-IVF is a very unique approach developed by our colleagues in Japan to circumvent these problems and to simplify IVF for patients, reducing the cost while maintaining comparable success rates.

Mini-IVF is designed to recruit only a few (but high quality) eggs, thus avoiding the risks of hyperstimulation, reducing the cost of drugs from an average of $4,000 to closer to $400, reducing the number of injections, and completely avoiding the painful progesterone injections.

This approach is not just a simple-minded reduction in hormonal stimulation. It is an ingeniously conceived and completely different approach to IVF, that saves the patient much of the complexity and cost associated with more conventional IVF protocols. Here is how it works.

On Day 3 of the menstrual cycle, you start on a low dose of Clomid (50mg), but you don’t stop the Clomid in five days as is usually the custom. You just keep taking the Clomid until ultrasound monitoring shows the follicles to be ready for ovulation. A very low booster dose of gonadotropin (just 150 iu of FSH), is added on Days 8, 10, and 12.

Clomid not only stimulates your own pituitary to release FSH naturally (by blocking estrogen’s suppressing effect), but also staying on the Clomid (a unique new approach) blocks estrogen’s stimulation of LH release, and so also usually prevents premature ovulation. Thus, with this simple change in protocol, the old-fashioned, cheap Clomid is able to stimulate the development of great quality eggs for IVF.

Another advantage of this protocol is that you did not have to go on Lupron first to suppress the pituitary. Staying on Clomid blocks estrogen from stimulating your pituitary to release LH, and this prevents premature ovulation without your having to be suppressed.

This means that you can be induced to ovulate with just a simple injection or nasal sniff of Lupron. This causes a more natural LH surge, and avoids the luteal phase defect caused by HCG that would otherwise require months of progesterone injections.

The next step is to recognize that Clomid has a negative effect on the uterine lining (because it prevents estrogen from stimulating the endometrium). That is one reason why results in the past have been so poor with the use of Clomid for ovarian stimulation. The embryos are less likely to implant in such endometrium.

But that problem is solved by using the Japanese protocol for embryo freezing, vitrification, which I discuss elsewhere. We can now freeze the embryos almost with impunity using this approach, with only a 1% risk of loss. Then these embryos are transferred the next month in a natural cycle with no need for taking any hormones at all.

The frozen embryo transfers can then all be performed in a later natural cycle (without hormones). Even if you don't normally ovulate predictably, you can be given one injection of Lupron in the follicular phase (once your follicle reaches 1.5cm) to induce natural luteinization, and still have a natural cycle embryo transfer with no hormones.

The Day 3 frozen embryo would then be transferred five days later, and there is no need for your taking any hormones at all.

Even for poor prognosis cases of older women with low remaining ovarian reserve, there is an advantage to mini-IVF over high dose stimulation. Such patients normally yield very few eggs anyway even with huge megadoses of gonadotropin.

If they have any quality eggs remaining, mini-IVF is just as likely to yield as many eggs (very few, of course) as giving huge megadoses of gonadotropin. Even in the worst case scenario, if there are no good eggs left at all, at least they can discover this with only $400 spent on drugs instead of $7,100 (cost of maximum dosage).

Think of this simple parable: If you are sitting under an apple tree, and wish to eat the most ripe and ready apples, you have a choice. You can chop down the tree, and look at every apple on the fallen tree to see which ones were ready. Or you can simply try to shake the lower branches and eat the one or two that have fallen.

That is the idea of mini-IVF. It may not work for everyone, but for many patients, it will remove much of the aggravation and complexity associated with IVF, and also dramatically reduce the cost.

Source: Infertile.com

A few women said that this was Dr. Zhang's protocol, as well as Dr. Silber

Dr. Zhang and Dr. Silber are affiliated with each other, and also with the Kato Clinic in Japan, where these techniques were developed. The Kato Clinic is the largest IVF center in the world.

Dr Zhang works out of NYC - newhopefertility.com



Here is what my doctor told me. Most doctors prescribe it 5-9 because that's what comes with the literature for the drug.
Most doctors who have a lot of experience prescribing it choose days 3-7, because it has less effect on the lining.
Clomid reduces cervical mucus and reduces the thickness of your lining.
Taken earlier it gives a chance for estrogen to build up again before ovulation.
My doctor said to take it 3-7 because he's seen too many chemical pregnancies taking it 5-9.   From the Clomid board on FertilityFriend.com


TODAY'S BOOK SUGGESTION:
Image: 3 Steps to Fertility, by Marina Nicholas. Publisher: Carroll + Brown Publishers (February 1, 2006)3 Steps to Fertility
by Marina Nicholas

-- The world of infertility can be complex and daunting.

This book helps couples navigate the world of infertility treatment and tells them how they can maximize their chances of conceiving by following the three essential steps—gaining a full understanding of what conception entails, completing the necessary fertility tests at the appropriate time, and choosing the treatment that will improve their chances of having a baby.

Each infertile couple is unique, and what suits one couple may not suit another.

Some may be more comfortable first looking into complementary therapies while others will opt for immediate in-vitro fertilization.

With detailed information on assisted conception techniques, all possible tests, and how diet, ovulation tracking, hypnotherapy, reflexology, acupuncture, and herbal medicine can improve one's chances of having a baby, this book will help all couples find the right approach for them.

It also will ensure they are both better informed and more open to all forms of treatment as they embark on their journeys to parenthood.

Image: Buy Now on Amazon.comPaperback: 160 pages
Click to order/for more info: 3 Steps to Fertility







Category: , , , , ,

Catherine

About Catherine: I am mom to three grown sons, two grandchildren and two rescue dogs. After years of raising my boys as a single mom, I remarried a wonderful man who had never had a child of his own. Unexpectedly, I found myself pregnant at 49!
Sadly we lost that precious baby at 8 weeks, and decided to try again. Five more losses, turned down for donor egg, foster care and adoption due to my age and losses - we have accepted that there will be no more babies in our house.

Find Catherine on Google+ - Circle us on Google+ - Join us on Facebook - Follow us on Twitter

0 comments

WE LOVE COMMENTS!
Don't just sit there, reading this story or article - say something! Do you believe it? Do you think it is impossible? Do you wish it was you? Do you have a story to share (it might get published!)

NOTE: Comments are moderated - just to stop the spambots - and so may take up to a few hours to be approved.

Catherine reserves the right to review, edit, refuse or delete any comment.

Popular Posts