Curiosity Question

ebruen

So my RE is tracking my estradoil levels every other day with blood work, starting the day after my first gonal-f injection (CD8) and he mentioned that they will want me to go in for blood work about every other day so they can watch my estradoil levels.  Once the estradoil levels are at a certain point then he will want to bring me in for an u/s to see how things are looking and see if/when we would need to trigger.  My question is, what number are they typically looking at with estradoil levels?  What number should I be looking for for the next step, which would be the u/s?  Hopefully this makes sense.  TIA!

ebruen

Annnnd definitely spelled estradiols wrong lol...sorry!!  

katib77

That seems odd to just do e2 levels without U/S because you get 200-300 e2 reading for each mature follie.  But if they don't know how many follies are growing or their size based off an US then they are just guessing.  Usually it's U/S with confirmation by B/W.  Not the other way around.

For example; I have had follistim (very similar to gonal f) from cd4-cd8 and my e2 on cd9 was 230.  Sounds like one mature follie right?  Except that I have three+ that appear to be growing but they're all just 10-13mm.  So each follie is giving off say about 60ish.  If I go in on Monday and two of those three are over 17 and I have some that stay small around 10-12mm then my reading might be 900...with the two mature giving off 200-300 each equaling 600 and the smaller ones combined are giving off 300.  Make sense?    

So maybe they will do an U/S as long as your e2 is above 300?  But don't expect it to mean that you have a mature one off the number.  Wait for the U/S.   

ebruen

Thank you for this information and what you explained definitely makes sense and this makes me worry some what because at my last RE we did several u/s throughout my cycle and I tend to have A LOT of follicles and one's that do not like to mature : / So, this b/w could definitely be deceiving if I have three or four follicles that make the b/w seem high, which would make them believe I have a mature follicle when really its several mediocre ones instead : /

I'm feeling some what frustrated because we moved to Northern Michigan from St. Louis and in St. Louis my RE was WONDERFUL, but this new one is the only RE in town and I'm not a big fan of how he is doing things....the closest one besides him would be 2 hours away.  Do you think this method of b/w every other day then u/s when b/w shows a "mature follicle" is fishy???  I'm happy that he is at least doing some monitoring, but I don't know if it is up to par monitoring.  Any input would be appreciated!! 

 

katib77

I don't think it's fishy, but I do think it's Bass Ackward LOL.  

If you usually have a lot of little ones he'll probably figure that out as soon as he does the first U/S.  Which I'm betting will be cd10 based off cd8 b/w.  And then he'll see you tend to have lots of little guys and adjust from there (hopefully).  

ebruen

Makes sense.  And yes, it is very backward, so I'm pretty iffy about this cycle and this RE, but we shall see.  Thanks for the all the advice!