Follistim vs. Follistm+Femara

wishiwaspreggo · June 2014

I had my RE appointment this morning and my doctor thinks my last cycle didn't work because I did a hybrid cycle and now she wants me to do all Follistim (or should I say, Folli$tim). Said the Femara wasn't doing anything for me.

I read somewhere, though, that IUIs with Femara + Follistim are equally as effective as Follistim alone. Would all Follistim give me an edge over doing a hybrid cycle? Maybe it just depends on the person. I dunno. Anyway, just curious to see if anyone knew anything about this. Many of you are much more informed than me but I'm learning

lebradford · June 2014

I brought no science with me, but it seems like all injects would be better! Are you starting right away?

wishiwaspreggo · June 2014

Huh. Haven't heard that argument before, @NariaDreaming but I suppose that makes sense @lebradford yeah, I'm starting right away. Well, tomorrow anyway. I get my drugs from California. That's a bit of a hike from here so they're gonna have to put them on a plane and fly them over to me.

I'm a little pissed that this cycle is going to be really spendy but my sperm was free, at least. Wish I could've waited to cycle until July but alas, I'll be going on a grand adventure.

lebradford · June 2014

Good luck this cycle! I decided to bring a little bit of science with me after all!

Ok, so this is the article I keep reading when trying to think about what my limit of mature follicles would be before I would cancel myself for over-stimulation (in case it is borderline and my doctor gives me the choice). The article is about Clomid, Clomid + injects, and straight injects, and how the number of follicles at different sizes correlate with HOM. So, the study isn't really about what type of response people get with different treatments, but it talks about it indirectly. Also, this is obviously about Clomid and not Femara, but I still thought you might find it interesting.

Link to summary of article: https://www.advancedfertility.com/revmultiplescoh.htm

Part you might find interesting: The incidence of three or more implantations was identical in clomiphene and in HMG or clomiphene + HMG cycles when six or more follicles were >12mm. However, six or more follicles of >12mm occurred in only 5% of clomiphene cycles compared to 38% of HMG and 27% of clomiphene + HMG cycles.

So, I know you don't want 6 or more follcies >12mm, but you can see the comparison of oral meds + injects to straight injects. I don't know if you'll find that useful at all, but I think it is pretty interesting!

Mommalawyer · June 2014

I don't have any experience with a hybrid cycle, I have only done follistim. This is my second round with follistim. At our first initial consult, RE went straight to the follistim because he mentioned that it produces better egg quality. My first IUI I was over stimmed and had 4, possibly 5 eggs. That was a BFN and I ended up with OHSS and cysts. This round, they lowered my dose and based on my last ultrasound, I will have 2 eggs. We are MFI. Hope that helps.

MrsM429 · June 2014

I've done all 3 type of cycles (clomid/iui, follistim/iui, clomid & follistim/iui).

On Clomid, I was a SUPER SLOW repsonder and often times needed a double dose to make a mature follicle. The higher the dosage, the fast I responded. It took me over 14 days to get a mature eggs last clomid cycle and that was on 250mg, so you can imagine how long it took while I was on the lower doasges lol.

On Follistim, my RE was overly cautious and didn't want me to start too high because he as afraid I would over-stimulate. So I did 50iu for 3 days, 75iu for 3 days, 100iu for 2 days, then 150iu for 3 days and finally 175iu for 3 days. 14 days of stims to make 1 egg

(

The Clomid + Follistim cycle was the best one yet. The only reason I pushed for it was because the cost of Clomid was $10, compared to the $1100 for 1 follistim pen. And since I had some left over from last cycle, I wanted to save money. I was on 50mg of clomid for 5 days, and 6 days of 100iu Follistim and produced 3 mature follicles. I think the combination of both really helped the quality. Beta is on the 18th, so I can't say if it was successful, but it did give me the best and quickies results. Both of my RE (its a large practice with 2 doctors per office) were extremely pleased and confident.

Wishing you the best of luck!!

wishiwaspreggo · June 2014

Thanks, y'all! Yeah, after this cycle I'm stopping and letting C give it a go. We may not have the manly goods, but at least we have another set of ovaries and a spare uterus so maybe if my parts are defective hers will work better.

My next step after this is weight loss and then looking into IVF for me. I may do IVF, depending on how things work out with C. If C has as many problems as me then that would have to be the next step. I'm girding my loins in case that's what we end up having to do.

I'm hoping and praying that this cycle works so we don't have to worry about it. But then, I've been hoping and praying for all other previous cycles and here I am. My optimism is very low for this cycle so at least assuming I get the BFN yet again I won't be horribly crushed. As long as I have a plan moving forward I can keep my head up and truck along

Want a personalized experience?

Follistim vs. Follistm+Femara

Re: Follistim vs. Follistm+Femara

Choose Another Board

Search Boards