Male Infertility

At this point we are pretty positive our issues our due to male infertility. I have had many tests (bloodwork, sonos, hsg, ovary assessment, etc.) which have all come back normal. Recently dr told DH that he believes he has bilateral variocele. DH is having some more bloodwork and another SA to confirm and look for anything else. So, my question is for the girls whose DH is having male infertility. What has been your courase of action? Has it worked? Im not sure what to expect. TIA.

ETA: Has is worked? As in have you seen improvements in SA or did you conceive?

Message edited 11/17/2010 9:00:24 AM.

Re: Male Infertility

Hi and welcome.
My dh has a variocele. We did three IUI's before being told to see a urologist. We were told that surgery is an option however its not guaranteed it would be fixed. The only thing is i think the surgery recvoery is a few months. (not positive though). We decided to go through with ivf bc my doctor said the variocele doesnt matter if we go that route and if in time he decides to go trhough with surgery it wouldnt hurt our chances concieving naturally down the line. So as of now im in the middle of ivf process. hope this helps.

Re: Male Infertility

My DH has slight morphology issues and borderline sperm counts. We did 3 failed IUIs and then my doctor at the time recommended that we do IVF with ICSI. Granted, I also have high FSH but adding the ICSI to the procedure is totally to help out with the male factor. His issues were just borderline but he was still put on the ICSI list. He has been on different types of supplements and a special diet and his numbers kept fluctuating up and down, like they always had. Seems like IVF is the general solution for MF.

Good Luck!

Re: Male Infertility

My situation is different than yours, but we also have significant male factor issues. My husband has CBAVD and does not have his vas deferns, but does have sperm. The can often fix the varicocele through surgery. You would then have to wait several months for your DH to build up his sperm count. I think it is a possibility it might not work, but definitely talk to your urologist. We have to do IVF. We just had our first failed cycle and did TESA-sperm aspiration from the testicle. There are a few different procedures they can use if you decide to do IVF over the surgery if that's definitely what your DH has. Also, if his count is just low, they might not have to do TESA or a similar procedure.

If you need any other information, let me know.

Tons of luck!!

Re: Male Infertility

my DH has varicocele. We saw urologist and he recommended surgery. our RE said IVF only. We are taking a different route. DH is on TONS of supplements and as a miracle they work. His counts are up from 10 mil to 99 million, and motility is waaaaaaaaaaaaaay better. He is taking a lot of them though, i think like 26 pills twice a day

Message edited 11/17/2010 12:24:28 PM.

Re: Male Infertility

wow girls!! thank you so much for your responses. did a lot of you find that many drs just say IUI or IVF as the soltuion for eveything?? DH felt this way and therefore has seen 3 drs. Finally, this 3rd dr seems to be going a little bit more in depth and has said there is def. things we can do before advancing to treatments. I am not at all against IUI or IVF, we just feel we would rather try some other things first, that wont cost us as much money. We would love to have a baby now BUT we do not mind waiting, even if that means another year or so. We are both relatively young (me 26 DH 30). Sometimes I just feel it is a little difficult to know if the dr really has your best interest and desires at heart or they just want the quick fix and be done with you. Sorry for the long winded description....I guess I am just trying to comes to terms with all this.

Re: Male Infertility

We are only MFI (low counts, low morph, low motility). We did 2 IUI's with horrible post-wash #s and then moved to IVF w/ICSI. We got pregnant on our first cycle. If I had known how low of a chance IUI has, I would have just gone straight to IVF (at that point everything was out of pocket so we spent over $1k on unmedicated IUI's).

Re: Male Infertility

We were pretty much severe MFI also and we did 1 IUI (with bad results, like 500,000 post wash....they usually like to see at least 5 million!), but I had to know that I at least tried it before moving to IVF/ICSI. We transferred back 2 embies our first go around and were very lucky that they both stuck!!
Good Luck!

Re: Male Infertility

We had slight MFI. Low morphology and low count. We did one IUI but after seeing how low the numbers were I asked if I could move straight to IVF. We did ICSI and I got pregnant the first shot. Also, we have a son that was conceived naturally and it only took two months. If your husbands numbers aren't that bad you probably would get pregnant it just might take longer.

Re: Male Infertility

Re: Male Infertility

Posted by MrsG72907

Posted by lululu

We had slight MFI. Low morphology and low count. We did one IUI but after seeing how low the numbers were I asked if I could move straight to IVF. We did ICSI and I got pregnant the first shot. Also, we have a son that was conceived naturally and it only took two months. If your husbands numbers aren't that bad you probably would get pregnant it just might take longer.

thank you. that gives me some hope. his numbers are not that bad. they have actually been all over the place. for example, count was low on one test but normal on 2 others. morphology was poor on one and good on 2 others. we dont mind waiting a bit so that makes me hopefuil!

Re: Male Infertility

thanks again to all of you ladies for sharing!! It's nice to know that we are not alone in this.

Re: Male Infertility

Posted by MrsG72907

Posted by lululu

We had slight MFI. Low morphology and low count. We did one IUI but after seeing how low the numbers were I asked if I could move straight to IVF. We did ICSI and I got pregnant the first shot. Also, we have a son that was conceived naturally and it only took two months. If your husbands numbers aren't that bad you probably would get pregnant it just might take longer.

thank you. that gives me some hope. his numbers are not that bad. they have actually been all over the place. for example, count was low on one test but normal on 2 others. morphology was poor on one and good on 2 others. we dont mind waiting a bit so that makes me hopefuil!