SA results and a ? about motility

jschwind22

DH and I received the SA results today from the urologist.  The Dr. (and DH) was very pleased with the results.  Higher than normal count, normal morphology, etc.  However, motility grade was a II, with normal a III or IV.  The summary states "there is a slightly decreased quality of motility."  During the appointment, the Dr. said that the slight decrease in motility was likely due to such a high count (over 300 million).  I know that since the Dr. said everything was fine, I shouldn't be concerned.  Should I be worried at all about the motility being below normal?

We are officially referred to the RE with the first appointment on 4/16/12.  Hopefully we come up with a good plan to move forward!

Now if only I can simmer down my DH's inflated ego and get him to stop talking about his super swimmers...

adoruhbul

I wouldn't be concerned at all.  Even if the amount of motile sperm was only 10% you'd be above average.  When there are so many the number of motile sperm will definitely go down.  As long as you have at least 20million motile, I wouldn't be concerned at all, and since you have way more, this was really good news!

jschwind22

adoruhbul:

I wouldn't be concerned at all.  Even if the amount of motile sperm was only 10% you'd be above average.  When there are so many the number of motile sperm will definitely go down.  As long as you have at least 20million motile, I wouldn't be concerned at all, and since you have way more, this was really good news!

This makes a lot of sense.  With a higher count it makes sense that the percentage of motility would go down, even if the number of good sperm was good.  Motile count is 210 million (if I'm reading that right) so I think we're good.  Thanks for your help!

katib77

Co-Q10 has been a recent hot topic in IF world for increases in motility.  If you are concerned at all you can buy a bottle of the vitamin (200mg once a day) to help boost that.  The percent of motility is important as well as the grade level.  

Where the grade becomes important is if you move forward with IUI.  On our canceled cycle in January, DH actually had over 100 mil sperm (go DH!) but because of the steroids he had been on three months prior his 38% motility didn't seem bad, until the washed it.  They were all grade two or lower and because they can't swim well they didn't make it in the wash.  Post wash there were only two live swimming sperm found.  Two.  

I do not say this to scare you.  Because in our first and second IUIs his orignal grade was a two, but post wash it was a three and many many swimmers survived but still giving us much fewer to work with if this wasn't an issue.  

Example: IUI #1, he had 70 mil total count, 49 mil/ml count.  Grade 2 with 16% motility.  Post wash it was grade 3, with 32% motility (sounds good right?) but of the original 70 million, only 8 million (they like to see over 10 mil) were put back in me and the "total motile sperm" number was about 3 million (they like to see over 5 million).

If his motility percent is higher, it's not as much of a worry.  But I would talk to your RE about vitamins.  

jschwind22

katib77:

Co-Q10 has been a recent hot topic in IF world for increases in motility.  If you are concerned at all you can buy a bottle of the vitamin (200mg once a day) to help boost that.  The percent of motility is important as well as the grade level.  

Where the grade becomes important is if you move forward with IUI.  On our canceled cycle in January, DH actually had over 100 mil sperm (go DH!) but because of the steroids he had been on three months prior his 38% motility didn't seem bad, until the washed it.  They were all grade two or lower and because they can't swim well they didn't make it in the wash.  Post wash there were only two live swimming sperm found.  Two.  

I do not say this to scare you.  Because in our first and second IUIs his orignal grade was a two, but post wash it was a three and many many swimmers survived but still giving us much fewer to work with if this wasn't an issue.  

Example: IUI #1, he had 70 mil total count, 49 mil/ml count.  Grade 2 with 16% motility.  Post wash it was grade 3, with 32% motility (sounds good right?) but of the original 70 million, only 8 million (they like to see over 10 mil) were put back in me and the "total motile sperm" number was about 3 million (they like to see over 5 million).

If his motility percent is higher, it's not as much of a worry.  But I would talk to your RE about vitamins.  

Holy information overload!  So there's really no way to know what things will be like post-wash for an IUI until you try it out, right?  I will definitely talk to the RE about the motility at our appointment.  Thanks so much for all the info and insight!

adoruhbul

Katib thanks for mentioning that because it totally left my mind.  If you're going to do an IUI, you need to do a mock IUI beforehand.  It's not procedure, but time and time again I've seen great numbers get washed and turn out not so great. 

I had 45million/mil this IUI pre-wash, with 30million total motile.  After the wash we were left with 8million, only 3 million total motile after wash .  The reason I said what I said previously though was, with 300million even with horrible motility, I can't imagine it will be less than 10million, which like Katib said is optimal.  After 10 million it honestly doesn't increase your chances much.  After 20million there is no statistical difference at all.  Between 10-20million it's small and not substantial, so to be a good candidate for IUI you want a washed sample with 10million motile sperm.

katib77

:::blushes::: sorry, didn't mean to be an MFI dictionary tonight.  But yes, it's hard to tell how the grade two will do in post wash...but that said if his starting count was 210 mil you are working with much larger numbers than in the example I gave you were we still ended up with 8mil total post wash and 3 mil motile.  

With over twice that amount to start out with, you should be fine. Sorry, you had not posted an actual number before I started writing my novel LOL. 

adoruhbul

katib77:

:::blushes::: sorry, didn't mean to be an MFI dictionary tonight.  But yes, it's hard to tell how the grade two will do in post wash...but that said if his starting count was 210 mil you are working with much larger numbers than in the example I gave you were we still ended up with 8mil total post wash and 3 mil motile.  

With over twice that amount to start out with, you should be fine. Sorry, you had not posted an actual number before I started writing my novel LOL. 

We had identical post wash numbers! Creepyyy

JBDamonM

I wouldn't be worried.

Like PP's have said - with a count that high - you should still be able to get decent motility numbers post wash.

Good luck!

schnena77

I would not be concerned - sounds like pretty great numbers.