supplements for egg quality

harleyquinn0621

Ok ladies.. tell me, what supplements are you all taking for fertility, specifically for egg quality
everything i'm reading says egg quality at my old age of 35 sucks, so i'm hoping to find suggestions to help make it better
also, has your REs actually suggested anything?

(... and yes I will talk with mine before i start taking anything, i just want to bring a list of ideas and see what she says)

SP128

My re said he didn't recommend any supplements besides the prenatal. I didn't ask specifically for egg quality. 

I spoke with a genetic counselor yesterday and she said at age 36, 44% of the eggs are bad

KLake42

Our RE had us on DHEA and CoQ10. It didn't do much for my eggs, but my wife, at 38, just did an excellent job growing eggs.

Cutting out alcohol and cutting way down on sugar and simple carbs may have also helped. We've both leaned in the direction of a Mediterranean diet.

harleyquinn0621

Thank you ladies! 

@KLake42. **tw** I cut out carbs and sugars while I was pregnant- since my loss I've struggled a little with diet but I'm working on cleaning it up again.....I'll look into the Mediterranean diet

i've read a lot about CoQ10...I'll be asking my RE about that and I'll add DHEA to my list....thank you!

artemis618

My RE suggested prenatal vitamin and Coq10 (I'd been taking PNVs, ubiquinol, and fish oil since Feb 2016/four months before my wedding). I asked her about DHEA, and she said that it needed a few months to work and the testosterone priming with Androgel kind of aimed to accomplish the same thing.

But because I need all the help I can get (based on my first IVF cycle, but also I'll be 40 in October), I take the following:

PNV (Megafood Baby and Me)
Ubiquinol (200mg 2x daily)
Fish oil (Carlson's Very Finest - I've been taking this for my cholesterol anyway)
Life Extension Mitochondrial Energy Optimizer (per label)
L-Acetyl Carnitine (this was an ingredient that was excluded from the Life Extension MEO new formula)
NAC (600mg 3x/day)
Vitex (between cycles to try to get balanced again - though I understand it's slow to work)
Vitamin C (500mg)
Vitamin D (5000iu)
Vitamin E (400iu)
Myo-Inositol (a teaspoon - not quite 4g - I take this with whole milk - supposed to be divided doses but it's kind of a pain)
Magnesium (400mg before bed - I get cramps in spin and dance class without it)
Melatonin (3mg while stimming - don't take this/this quantity if not going thru IVF - can suppress your LH surge which you need to ovulate!)

The bulk of this I started in desperation after my first IVF cycle went so poorly (around 2/9).  I did read _It Starts With the Egg_ (have you read it?) before my first IVF cycle, but stupidly it didn't occur to me to supplement (more) till February.  I suspect I can credit the protocol change for the improvement in my second cycle, in the meantime I'm making some very expensive pee!

Most of my diet's pretty good (especially when DH cooks for me), but I really need to be better about cutting out sugar

Labluver2

I'm taking CoQ10 which my first RE recommeneded, prenatal, E, B12,C,D,zinc and A. I also heard DHEA but my Re didnt recommended it for us but I may start taking it anyway. 

I've tried cutting sugar and changed my diet. I was doing so well for the longest time but with the stress of this whole process I haven't been really good. I'm an emotional eater. 

harleyquinn0621

@artemis618 wow that's quite a list! the fish oil i was going to ask about because i've read some things about it.. and i believe it's just overall good for you

regarding prenatal vitamins, does anyone know if there is a difference between all the brands....? I am taking one, but it is a generic store brand I don't know if I should switch to something else 

vlagrl29

I'm not going to take anything extra at this point.  I take the rainbow light prenatal - Its a vegetarian capsule made from food sources.

SP128

I take a prescription prenatal called prenatal plus.  I asked the pharmacist what the difference was between over the counter and prescription and she said that prescription is better.  I haven't bee interested enough to compare. I've been taking it for over a year and tolerate it well so why mess with a good thing?