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Yes I feel the burn of follistim. Anymedication with saline in it will burn. Unfortunately, I bruise more with follistim than with any other med.

All part of the ivf torture

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I went to the doctor yesterday (cd 7) after taking follisitm for 4 days. I have PCOS and i didnt really notice any follicles growing yet. The nurse told me that it was normal and that it was going to be a long process because the Doctor did not want to Overstimulate. My E2 came back 51 and i am wondering if you knew anything about this. Is it really normal for the follies to grow so slow? Im worried, we are paying for most of this and i would really want it to work out this month. Please share some of your expiriences with me about the monitoring of the follies and there growth.
Thanks and Good Luck to you!

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Hi Nina

Did you have a baseline ultrasound before you started follistims? It is usually done at the same time that they do an E2 check.

An e2 of less than 70 gives the doc the all clear to start you on stims. But the initial ultrasound should give them your antral follicle count (AFC). That show how many small follicles there are that ca potentially stim and helps them to know how much meds to put you. For example a woman with lots of AFCs could be on ,ower meds.. and one with few is expected to have a lower response. You can get a good understanding of antral follicle counts and the whole response by looking at advancedfertility.com. The website has great pictures that give great visuals of each step.

At day 4, it is not uncommon for the ovaries to still be resting.. but by day 6=7 you should be able to see the follicles growing well. Women can stim from anywhere from 9-14 days. So you do have quite a way to go.

A lot can be determined by age.. but not always. Some younger women are poor responders while others are high responders. I did my first ivf at age 43 and they found out that I as a nirmal responder.. and make the same number of egg sa women in their late 20s.

Good luck.. and take it easy. All you can do is to do the education yourself so you know what to expect, ask lots of questions and take the meds as instructed

Res

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Hi Res,
Well today i went back for another sonogram and E2 and we did see a follicle at 13mm and my E2 came back at 63.5. The Doctor told me to up my dosage of follistim to 100 and come back in 2 days so lets see how that goes. To answer your question yes they did to a baseline ultrasound but i didnt ask much because they always tell me that women with PCOS have always have small cyst in there ovaries and not much more info on that. I really hope this all works out this month. I was kind of hoping to have more follicles growing but i guess since my dosage is so light that would never happen. I guess i just have to be greatfull that i at least i one follicle growing.

Babydust to us all!

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Hi Nina

Are you doing IUI? If so, by day 7-9 of stims, you really should have 2-4 follicles. Anything less than that on injectibles isn;t worth the cost using follistim.

You could do more than that with femara/clond and a combo of 75 Iu of menopur on days 3,5 & 7.

How old are you may I ask?
Best of luck.. you may want to do some research on iuis using injectibles. There's good info here on the shared journey website and there is a patient manual available from the asrm.org website.

ou one follicle is in the mid-cycle stage. After 16 it is considered mature. But with IUI on injectibles they can let it get as large as 18-19 when mature

The e2 will reach 100-150 per mature follicle.

If it were me, and I don;t see at least 2+ more show up, by day 10, I would cancel the IUI, take a trigger shot to force ovulation ahen the 1 is 18 and have natural sex instead of paying for sperm washing and the IUI procedure.
Best of luck

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