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Success after IF
lovinglife30
member
Chemical Pregnancy/Immune Issue
lovinglife30
member
Long time lurker, occasional poster here..
My last 2 IVF cycles have resulted in chemical pregnancies. I have read that immune issues can cause CP's. Are immune issues something we are born with or is it possible for them to come and go? Could I have an immune issue now or is that not possible since I have had a successful pregnancy in the past with no issues?
This discussion has been closed.
Re: Chemical Pregnancy/Immune Issue
I"m so sorry for your losses. I've had several CP's myself, they sting, regardless of how the happen :-(
I could talk HOURS about immune issues, but the jest of MY opinion is this:
There's a huge "niche" right now in the ART community in addressing and treating for these issues. Beers, SIRM, etc. you'll see their names pop up all over. I was pretty sure that's what I was dealing with (of course, my thesis of why we were losing "great" embryos changed weekly, lol) and to some extent I think I still am.
However, it's a slippery slope to start chasing that as a reason & treatments. The testing is VERY expensive, and hardly ever covered by insurance. You learn the results, and maybe have some baby aspirin, steroids, etc thrown at you, and you'll never really know if that's what got you pregnant, or in my case, what made things worse. "Intralipids" (just fats and vitamins) are a popular infusion with fabulous claims, but there's really no way to measure if they work. I'm on an auto-immune board, and girls spend THOUSANDS of dollars on tests, IVIg, etc. to sit there and watch the SAME things happen over and over again, their NKA numbers go UP instead of down... etc.
I'm not here to dismiss your question or the efforts made in the AI community. Looking back, I suggest you find an immunologist in your area, and have them run some basic tests. (I found more answers with a great hemotologist, actually) and read read read with an open mind. I ended up just skipping most of the testing and just TREATING for some stuff (cheaper and easier) and none of it worked.
In hindsight, I would have saved myself the time and money and gone to CCRM and done PGD. But here I am.
Happy to help more if you want.... GL !
Ditto DavezWife....she's probably done more research than anyone on the board. I had 4 (possibly 5) CP's. One was the second month we started trying, one was a Clomid cycle, and 3 were during injectible IUI's. I had all the testing done, and my results came back w/ some mildly elevated NK cells and postive antiphospholipid antibodies. We decided to quit wasting meds on IUI's and went to IVF, and my RE agreed to add treatment for the autoimmune issues, even though he didn't really think it was the problem. His theory was that the earlier the loss, the more likely it was to be a bad egg/genetic in nature. But, I wanted to give it a shot and "throw the book at it" so to speak, once we did IVF. I did intralipid infusions a few days prior to ER, and again upon positive beta. It was cheap ($50 ea) and painless. I also went on blood thinners starting w/ stims (low dose Lovenox), since APA's can sometimes cause clotting issues. I also have DOR (diminished ovarian reserve, low egg count), so even on a max dose of stims, we only got 5 eggs and 3 embryos. We transferred all 3, lost one at 8.5 wks, and had healthy twins.
Like PP said, you'll never really know if it worked or helped with your issues. But, for me I can't help but think the treatments played a role. To go from so many losses to having twins the first time we tried it (along w/ IVF) was too much of a coincidence for me to think otherwise. I am glad I did the treatments.
In your case, with two CP's, odds are they were genetic, but if it were me, before I spent money on another IVF, I'd at least do the basic testing to make sure something obvious is not being missed.
GL and I'm sorry for your losses. Wishing you lots of luck!
I'm sorry for your losses. I had two successful pregnancies and then two losses which could not be attributed to chromosomal issues and then my ob/gyn suggested I look into immune issues. There are some theories with immune issues that a first pregnancy is normal but it is that pregnancy which then triggers your body to respond adversely to subsequent pregnancies. Honestly, I don't believe any of those theories have been proven but I was willing to look into any and all possibilities after my losses.
I saw Dr. Carolyn Coulam in Chicago and had testing which showed basically nothing was wrong but then after I became pregnant again I had weekly testing of my natural killer cells and when they were too high I would receive IV intralipids. I had a great pregnancy and am thankful I did the treatments as I felt I needed to do everything I could to have another healthy baby, however, I will never know if the intralipids (and dexamethasone) made the difference or not.
If you google Dr. Coulam you will find a bunch of information regarding immune issues.
Kelly, Mom to Christopher Shannon 9.27.06, Catherine Quinn 2.24.09, Trey Barton lost on 12.28.09, Therese Barton lost on 6.10.10, Joseph Sullivan 7.23.11, and our latest, Victoria Maren 11.15.12
Secondary infertility success with IVF, then two losses, one at 14 weeks and one at 10 weeks, then success with IUI and then just pure, crazy luck. Expecting our fifth in May as the result of a FET.
This Cluttered Life
I should also add, I had a couple CP's prior to Ava, she was spontanous/unassisted, and then I proceeded to have a helluvalot of problems after her. It's taking a $10K a month pharm bill a month to keep me pregnant. (amen to insurance!) due to some transient blood clotting issues, snake oil infusions (not literally, lol, IVIg b/c I got my insurance to pay for it somehow) and other things.
Also, I've had 3 geneticists tell me that "90%" of CP's are caused by ill-fated chromosome problems. I used to think - "well, how on EARTH does my body know that? hogwash!" but now I'm realizing that those funnky chrom'd embies just don't have the means to continue. Nothing against ME, they were doomed from the start.
Again, NOT being dismissive of the AI stuff... it's got some great success stories and there's legit cases warranting the interventions. Just raise an eyebrow at it, and proceed with caution, and a mindful pocketbook ;-)
(at MINIMUM you should have basic blood testing done (check insurance for RPL panels, again, not always covered), blood issues, and have BOTH you and partner's karyotypes done. )
Wow, this is a lot to take in.. but exactly what I needed ;-)
You have all given me so much to think about, research and discuss with my Re at my next appointment. Thank you so much for sharing and I am sorry for all the losses and heartache you all went through to learn all this..