Dr. M Visit

Update on my wife's appointment with Dr. M this morning:

• Based on a digital exam (bi digital, to be more precise) no cysts were found. My wife was provided a prescription for 2 more months of Femara.


• Dr. M stated that most couples who are put on fertility drugs achieve pregnancy within the first 4 months. If we are still unsuccessful after 2 more months of trying we will begin IUI, and my wife will undergo laproscopy to investigate for endometriosis (which is present in 30% of women seeking infertility treatment, according to Dr. M) I was pleased to hear that IUI only costs around $300 per shot. That's manageable.

I had my wife ask him three questions about the male side of things:

• Caffeine: He said a few cups of coffee a day are fine, but due to their excessive amounts of caffeine, energy drinks are not. This is unfortunate, as I am a big fan of Monster Energy drinks and have consumed a lot of them over the past few months. From here on out, I will cease and desist all energy drink consumption


• Vitamins: A one-a-day multivitamin is more than sufficient for most men, according to Dr. M. I intend to continue my antioxidant cocktail of Vitamin C, E, B12, Zinc, Selenium, Beta Carotene, L-Arginine, L-Carnitine and Fish Oil until my current supply runs out. Then, I might switch to Wellman tablets, per some friendly advice from England.


• Semen Analysis: I wanted to know if it would make sense to have my levels checked again, but Dr. M advised that many active, swimming sperm were witnessed during our post coital test, which, in his opinion is a superior test to semen analysis as it evaluates the function of fertilization (part of it, at least) He provided some numbers: Normal counts are 20 million, but my counts are ~169 million, and my motility is above average as well. My morphology was low at 13% normal (below the 15% normal "fertile" cutoff) Let's do the math ... 15% of 20 million is 3 million. 13% of 169 million is ~22 million. Translated, I have over 7 times as many normal sperm as an average guy ... but at the end of the day it hasn't really mattered because none of them have made it to the destination ... or maybe they have and we're failing to implant. Either way, there is no need for another SA.

That is all, for now.