Fsh levels and estradiol. Need advice

[atomic sagebrush]

AMH is the more modern test. If your AFC was low and your FSH high, your AMH is likely low too. None of that matters unless you were trying to do IVF. You would not be an IVF candidate but if you were able to get pregnant before you can do it again. I would not do any swaying that compromises your fertility though.

Agree 110% - ladies, please understand that many fertility doctors view you thru the lens of "success with IVF y/n" and for IVF you need tons of eggs. We old birds can't lay that many at a time LOL so from the doctor's perspective that means we're good for nothing but the soup pot.

For natural conceptions, all you need is one egg. And we don't even need one every month, even if we only have 3-4 good eggs a year we can still get pg! We just gotta wait for the golden egg to show up and just like Nuthin says, we can't be doing tons of sway tactics that really reduce fertility. And this is esp. true for you trishy since your hubby has issues too.

[atomic sagebrush]

AS no, I never heard of that test. Should I be requesting it?

Well, that depends. Would it change what your plan is?? Would you go HT? Use donor eggs? Because that's where they're going to go with that.

[atomic sagebrush]

Trishy, your doctor said it's normal because it IS for a 40 year old. It would be a miracle if it wasn't higher than a 20 or 30 year old. Tons of us got pg with FSH that was probably totally crapola (myself included!) it's just part of aging. What your number was 3 years ago is irrelevant because fertility drops off like a stone as we get older.

I think you need to let go of your prev. experience with your number of follicles because you had high prolactin then and that really has a neg. affect on fertility and doesn't tell us anything about what your body is doing in the here and now.

The reason you are not a good candidate for IVF is because for IVF to work, they need you to be able to pop a lot of good eggs and for whatever reason, when we get older, we just can't do that. Most ladies are going to have better chances of conception TTC naturally.

Your temp dips and rises are meaningless, that's just how some people experience the temp rise. Most times if you do not ovulate, you will not get a temp shift, yoru temps will just seesaw up and down with no pattern to them. Getting older means more anovulatory cycles regardless of FSH.

I honeslty can't tell you what to do in terms of number of attempts. It is 100% possible to get pg with one attempt. I did it at 41 years old but my husband doesn't have sperm issues (that I am aware of anyway). All I can say is that one attempt is best odds for pink and if you haven't given it a month without using Astroglide, then you really haven't tried to get pg with one attempt. But you never know when it's the last fresh egg in the carton either so you have to weigh those two things against hte other in light of how much you want to be in wiht the best sway and how much you just want to get pg. That's something I can't really decide because Im not inside your head.

I think you are a little confused about what the issue really is here so I just want to clarify - the problem is that you may not ovulate and/or may not ovulate good eggs, every month. It's not something that is solvable by having lots of attempts every month, altho if you DID have a golden egg then having additional attempts will only help sperm meet that golden egg.

I ~personally~ am not of the opinion that supps for egg health are super effective for those TTC naturally. I think many people even over 40 are gonna get pg eventually anyway and they start taking supps and get pg and assume it was the supps when really it was just luck. A lot of the studies done were in gals going HT and yes for them supps may make the difference but I feel like most of us already have the means via a normal diet, to make that one egg happen every month and if it's not happening, it is largely down to genetics and a lifetime of accumulated damage and not something that is gonna be magically undone by Coq10.

So if you want to take Coq10, I don't think it's that bad for a pink sway. But do I think it's going to be a magic bullet for conception, not so much.

[Trishy74]

Well, that depends. Would it change what your plan is?? Would you go HT? Use donor eggs? Because that's where they're going to go with that.

When you say HT does that mean donor eggs? If so no that's really not for me. I was thinking to ask for that blood test bc I feel it would give a more stable rate as to how my egg supply is doing.

I know you've recommended coenzyme q10 to other posters on here. I'm just wondering would you recommend that for me too? Dirs it help make the eggs better quality?

I'm not doing any other sway tactics aside from the diet. I stopped using astroglide and actually dtd this month with no lube. I have fed noticed in recent mos that I barely have cm, my cycles are getting shorter. Thought it was le diet but read online it could be from fsh level risibg so not sure if that's the case or diet. Would you still recommend trying a little preseed next month if I don't get bfp this month? I noticed today my temp dropped about a hslf degree which is strange! I had a huge spike yesterday (ovulaton shift) and even had my monthly ovulating migraine and today temp dropped. I was shocked. Never saw that happen before. Anyway just really wondering about coenzyme q10 supp and if you think we should use preseed next month.

I take it nobody knows if antibiotics could cause fsh levels to change? I've been suffering with utis every month since sept so hsve taken levaquin 2x and other antibiotics since then. I mean an antibiotic every month! Crazy! I was taking levaquin when I had my fsh checked on cycle day 3.

[Trishy74]

I just realized you responded with your last post when I was typing mine. Thanks for addressing everything. I was hoping you'd say the coenzyme q10 would help quality of eggs. As for temps when we have anovulatory cycles do you know if progesterone still rises with out actually ovulating? I think but obviously done know for sure that I'm ovulating most months with not so great eggs bc there isn't a month that goes by that 48 hours after the first lh surge that i dont get an ovulation migraine.

Also still wondering if anyone knows if antibiotics can affect blood tests, etc.

[nuthinbutpink]

Antibiotics do not affect FSH. Our age does. Is additional fertility testing going to change anything you are doing? It doesn't sound like it so I wouldn't bother with it and just keep trying.

[Trishy74]

Well I actually spoke to my gyno yesterday and he explained the fsh to me as a random number and explained yes it does mean diminished ovarian reserve. He heard the concern in my voice bc I brought up how long it took to conceive my son so he referred me back to the fertility dr I used 3 years ago. He said why not go that route bc my insurance covers that area. I know that they will rerun all my bloods bc this is what they did the last time I was referred. My DH has not had blood run since then either so it will be helpful for him as well bc he is a kidney transplant recipient so who knows what his hormone levels are like. His sperm count is on the lower end of normal. I will bring up the amh test bc I'm the type if person who would rather know that number than hsve to hear my fsh bouncing back and forth. Yes I'm a total boy mom and this proves it in my personality! Lol.

Antibiotics do not affect FSH. Our age does. Is additional fertility testing going to change anything you are doing? It doesn't sound like it so I wouldn't bother with it and just keep trying.

[atomic sagebrush]

Trishy, I think you are grasping at straws looking for a quick fix, and ignoring the elephant in the room here. the issue is that you're 40. All the rest of the stuff, whether you were on meds or what your diet is; your cycle did NOT go from 28 days to 26 because LE Diet is making your FSH shoot up, it simply doen't work like that. The issue is age. And it's not an insurmountable issue either but I dont' think it's good for your sway in terms of the Mary-Martha stuff, to be obsessing over "was it this, was it that, what happened 3 years ago" - KWIM?? And certainly not good to be misdiagnosing the problem and focusing on things that ahve nothing to do with the core issue here.

Forget what happened 3 years ago. That has nothing to do with what is happening now and was totally down to the prolactin and none of it matters. Past results do not predict future success/failure here.

Re diet, I am working on a more fertility-friendly LE and trying to get that out to you guys as soon as I can. I do not think that LE is by nature bad for fertility but you may need to bump it back on the empty carbs for some people. That having been said, I got my girl at 41 1/2 eating tons of empty carbs so I do know it's possible but may not be best for everyone.

I do not recommend start taking a prenatal because of this. The thing that helps the most in terms of egg quality is hte high dose folic which you are already taking. 150 IU iodine may help you sustain a pregnancy when one occurs and I recommend that as long as it's ok with your doctor (I know you've been on some medication and had some health issues, so I think you ought to have it cleared with a doctor first). If you WANT to add in Coq10, that's ok. and I have some people add in zinc 8-15 mg 3x a week and you may do this if you so desire. But most other nutrients just aren't proven to even help with egg quality much if at all and I hate to see you feel so panicked over something that is totally normal for your age, that you throw away a sway trying to take things that aren't even going to help.

Re DHEA, I do not recommend that for anyone swaying pink. It raises T levels and I personally think that it may cause problems for as many people as it helps.

I know it's not as "sexy" as starting a "magic fertility pill" but the real solution is just to keep TTC every month and wait for the golden egg. If you're truly ready just to get pg then switch to SMEP to be in for best shot at conception and add Preseed for even better odds. If you're not ready to do that, then I would stop poring over what happened when and looking for the magic fertility pill, because the obsession is going to hurt your sway way more than switching to SMEP ever could.

[atomic sagebrush]

When you say HT does that mean donor eggs? If so no that's really not for me. I was thinking to ask for that blood test bc I feel it would give a more stable rate as to how my egg supply is doing.

I know you've recommended coenzyme q10 to other posters on here. I'm just wondering would you recommend that for me too? Dirs it help make the eggs better quality?

I'm not doing any other sway tactics aside from the diet. I stopped using astroglide and actually dtd this month with no lube. I have fed noticed in recent mos that I barely have cm, my cycles are getting shorter. Thought it was le diet but read online it could be from fsh level risibg so not sure if that's the case or diet. Would you still recommend trying a little preseed next month if I don't get bfp this month? I noticed today my temp dropped about a hslf degree which is strange! I had a huge spike yesterday (ovulaton shift) and even had my monthly ovulating migraine and today temp dropped. I was shocked. Never saw that happen before. Anyway just really wondering about coenzyme q10 supp and if you think we should use preseed next month.

I take it nobody knows if antibiotics could cause fsh levels to change? I've been suffering with utis every month since sept so hsve taken levaquin 2x and other antibiotics since then. I mean an antibiotic every month! Crazy! I was taking levaquin when I had my fsh checked on cycle day 3.

Here is what happens when you go into a RE. Their job is to get people pregnant and their milieu is using tchnology in order to do that. So when someone comes in like yourself and technology is really not going to be terribly helpful to do that, they aren't always able to be very encouraging (and nor should they be, because odds of successful pregnancy over 40, particularly where high-tech is concerned, are not that fab) so you end up going in there putting yourself thru the whole shebang only to hear "well, your options are round after round of HT for a distant chance of pg with your own eggs or else a better chance with donor eggs". The idea that someone might just go home and TTC naturally, it is almost not really even on their radar screen. But the fact is that people over 40 can and do get pg all the time, it just takes longer, and in many cases, the people who can't, weren't going to have success with HT anyway, if that makes any sense. So to ~me~ it is kind of pointless to go in for some big expensive fertility workup when all they're going to tell you is, "it's because of your age" and their only solution is going to be "donor eggs".

Poring over your cycles lookign for anything different is not going to help you here. Everyone's cycles change all the time and it just doesn't tell us anything. Your FSH did not suddenly drop over the last couple months. It is a natural and gradual decline and the rate may start to pick up the older you get but at no time is there ever a switch that gets flipped where you go from good levels to bad levels.

[atomic sagebrush]

I am 99% sure I did alreayd answer this so sorry for repeating myself but yes it will be pretty obvious on your charts if you have an anovulatory cycle. Your temps will seesaw up and down with no clear pattern.

But I do want to also mention that even if you do ovulate, the unfortunate fact is that more of our eggs over 40 are duds and so we have to be patient and wait for "Goldie" to show.