Gluten intolerance and effect on sperm

[NicErin84]

Hi all,
Dh and I have been on an emotional rollercoaster over the past few weeks. Have done 2 semen analysis with 0 sperm as the result. Have just seen another specialist who has confirmed that there aren't any blockages and everything is right 'down there' with my hubby. We have thought for a long time that he may be coeliac (his mum is). Over the past few weeks he has stopped eating anything with gluten and feels so much better, which is great. New doc has suggested this could be why there is no sperm. We now just have to wait for another 3 months until all gluten is out of his system and then do another semen analysis. I was just wondering if this has happened to anyone else and what the outcome was?

[beck08jebs]

Hi,

I'm sorry you haven't had a reply from anyone so far. I don't know if you've had any luck yet, or found any information. My husband has Coeliac disease. It seems as though he's had symptoms since he was a kid, but I made him have testing when we had been together for a little while and that's when we got the diagnosis. This was about 3 years ago. He wasn't very good with his diet for ages and therefore has probably only been completely GF for 12months. We had been trying for 2 years before seeking fertility advice. He has quite a low sperm count. Mostly morphology and total number problems, his healthy ones are fast swimmers. We went through a roller coaster of emotions when we first got his semen analysis back. I honestly thought I must've been our problem so the result was a real shock. We had real concerns that there might have been a genetic reason for the low count - maybe y chromosome deletion or something similar but all the results came back fine. So I can only put it donw to years of coeliac disease. I'm sure there's lots of other reasons but he's never had a serious illness, injury, chemo/radiation or any of those things you would expect to reduce his count. I did find that seeing a fertility specialist instead of my GP was really beneficial so if you haven't seen one yet then maybe get a referral and have an appointment. My clinic did a free seminar night which was really wonderful and allowed us to talk to the nurses, doctors and scientists which was really comforting. You may not necessarily need IVF but maybe just some sort of ART. We were also told that Menevit (the male version of Elevit) would be beneficial.

We are now on our 1st IVF cycle and its all going well so far. My DH still has a low sperm count but its at a level that is appropriate for us for ICSI IVF and we've had a great outcome. We've now got 1 embryo transferred and waiting on pregnancy results and 2 frozen embryos.

We did not have semen analysis completed before his diet changed so can't tell you if it made an absolute difference but I can tell you that his whole body has changed and he is much healthier over all, which has got to make a difference down below. I suppose I can't offer you total reassurance that a GF diet will completely return his sperm count to normal, but even a few million healthy guys is an improvement from 0 and will give you hope that one day you will be able to fall pregnant - even if it has to be by IVF. I hope you have some positive results soon and that the strict diet will make a difference.

Please if you have any questions - related to coeliac, diet, cooking suggestions, fertility or IVF please write to me. I'm no expert, but it seems as though we might have a few things in common and I might be able to help you or at least give you someone to vent or talk to.