Another SA Question

Laylarue

What seems to be more important: Total count or total concentration?  I'm just curious what your RE's say about this since mine seems to think our SA was just fine for TI, but looking back on the report she noted low concentration and normal count.....

katib77

Personally I think it's the total count based off concentration.  If you have only 20 mil/ml in just 1ml then you only have 20ml.  If you have that in 2.5ml then suddenly you're dealing with 50 mil.  While both are right on the edge of "normal" count of 20mil/ml but obviously one person has a better advantage KWIM?  If they both went in for an IUI the person with the higher concentration has more to work with for the post wash sample.  

 

BUT if you have great count...say 80mil/ml but only 1 ml then you're still doing better than both of those people.  So it all comes into play.  But if you're dealing with apples to apples of same count then concentration matters more.  If you're dealing with apples to apples with same concentration, then count matters more.  

Hope that makes some sense.... 

Laylarue

katib77:

Personally I think it's the total count based off concentration.  If you have only 20 mil/ml in just 1ml then you only have 20ml.  If you have that in 2.5ml then suddenly you're dealing with 50 mil.  While both are right on the edge of "normal" count of 20mil/ml but obviously one person has a better advantage KWIM?  If they both went in for an IUI the person with the higher concentration has more to work with for the post wash sample.  

 

BUT if you have great count...say 80mil/ml but only 1 ml then you're still doing better than both of those people.  So it all comes into play.  But if you're dealing with apples to apples of same count then concentration matters more.  If you're dealing with apples to apples with same concentration, then count matters more.  

Hope that makes some sense.... 

 

It does thank you!  We are going for a 2nd opinion the end of February so I'm gathering all our history and looking back at this I'm getting concerned.  It says his total count was 53.62 but concentration was 9.75 and volume was 5.5.  We would be moving on to IUI next cycle anyhow, but why wouldn't she seem concerned at all with it?  See things like this are the reason I question her!  grrr 

katib77

Do you mean then that he has low count but normal concentration? You put it the other way around in OP.  

Because you are right that his concentration is really high so that helps alot with his low count.  But his count is low, about half of what they'd like to see (normal being 20mil/ml).  

But since normal concentration is supposed to be 1.5-3ml that means the average man at 20mil/ml and say 2.5ml volume would have 50 mil total count you are just above that barely.  

So I can see a little that they think TI *could* work...but I agree if you've been TI for over a year and now done a medicated cycle or two as TI it is definitely time to move on to IUI.  

Laylarue

katib77:

Do you mean then that he has low count but normal concentration? You put it the other way around in OP.  

Because you are right that his concentration is really high so that helps alot with his low count.  But his count is low, about half of what they'd like to see (normal being 20mil/ml).  

But since normal concentration is supposed to be 1.5-3ml that means the average man at 20mil/ml and say 2.5ml volume would have 50 mil total count you are just above that barely.  

So I can see a little that they think TI *could* work...but I agree if you've been TI for over a year and now done a medicated cycle or two as TI it is definitely time to move on to IUI.  

This SA thing is really confusing to me.  On the report she noted that 9.75 is low for concentration.  Total sperm count is marked as normal.  I guess I'm just hoping either way it is good enough for an IUI.  I'm starting to wonder if I should try to convert this cycle into an IUI instead of TI.