Anyone use prednisone and lovenox for your bfp? (Loss mentioned)

lkaylee721

I've had 5 early losses by trying at home and with an RE. We have been checked out and ruled 'unexplained'. My instinct tells me that my body is attacking the embryo before it can get too far along. My next IUI (3rd) were adding prednisone and lovenox, in addition to clomid, bravelle, and ovidrel. I was wondering if anyone was on this protocol when you got your bfp?

J&D2007

I know several people on here have been. I was put on the antihistamine protocol after a natural bfp (prednisone, Claritin, and Pepcid) along with lovenox. I think with ivf it's usually started right at transfer, and I assume with an IUI it would after trigger(?). They are new- ish protocols so I don't think there is a whole lot of research yet. I am unexplained too, and who knows if it helped me or not. All meds but the lovenox are typically discontinued at 10 weeks I believe. Lovenox is typically throughout pg. My MFM actually stopped my lovenox 2 weeks ago because he doesn't think I need it. HTH. Good luck.

zeynsom

There are a lot of women who work with reproductive immunologists for the same reason. There are only a handful of them across the country. Beer Center in LA, Dr. Kwak-Kim in Chicago, and Dr. Braverman in NY are the best known ones. I work with Dr. Kwak-Kim (KK). She tested me and told me that my body attacks my embryos. I have been having some heavy treatment to suppress my immune system since October. The treatment includes prednisone and IVIG infusions (the latter are IV infusions through which they infuse you with other people's antibodies in order to balance the good and bad antibodies in your body). I had a frozen embryo transfer in January after being treated for four months with prednisone, baby aspirin, IVIG infusions, and 20-25 supplements every day! I am currently (and for the first time in my life) pregnant. During my frozen transfer cycle I was on baby aspirin for the whole cycle, started on 40mgx1 lovenox on cycle day 6 (when my menses ended), I was also on 20mg prednisone (and increased it to 30mg with the transfer and now am on 40mg because my immune system is still flaring), I had IVIG infusion 1 week before transfer and then upon getting the BFP result. The doctor also increased lovenox to 40mgx2 after BFP. I am also on insane amount of progesterone because she believes that progesterone is anti-inflammatory. I inject 2cc PIO every day, also take 400mg prometrium progesterone pills, and use one crinone suppository every day. 

cshm11

I didn't use prednisone. But I did take antihistamines, Lovenox, baby aspirin, progesterone, and my regular meds: Synthroid, prenatals, and Zoloft.

przemosbabe

With that many early losses, I too would highly suspect immune implantation dysfunction. I have that too and the cause of this for me is endometriosis. Do you have endo as well? I would see a reproductive immunologist if I were you. If you do have immune implantation dysfunction, these are the doctors you want to see. My RI is Dr. Kwak Kim, but I got pregnant on Dr. Bravermans protocol. I used 40 mg of prednisone, 25 grams of IVIg and 40 mg twice per day of lovenox to get my bfp along with a few other regular meds....I had to do IVF and did a frozen embryo transfer with a very aggressive protocol using letrozole and shots of delestrogen. I had to transfer a total of 8 embryos over 3 cycles ( one the first time, 3 the second and finally 3 and now I am pregnant with I think a singleton). If you have any questions please inbox me. I would love to help you. I don't come here every day or every week but I do try to come a few times a month. I wish you the best of luck. You will get there one day soon...you just need to fix the problems.

lkaylee721

I do not have endometriosis but there is a chance I have the lupus anticoagulant. It was a test that fell through the cracks when I first did all the testing and were going to do it at the beginning of the next cycle (4 weeks after last miscarriage to get accurate numbers). I have not seen an immunologist and don't know that I would go that far only because we already have 2 kids naturally and don't want to exhaust our finances and put us in that position. However, my RE in MD is happy to use some 'out of the box' (his words not mine) solutions. I think all he means by that, is treating anecdotally instead of forcing me to go to the immunologist to get more accurate dx when he could prescribe the medication himself. We may not know what were directly treating for, but know that we're aiming for a healthy pregnancy and those have been shown to help in unexplained cases.