Hypothyroidism & IVF

[Kalina]

That is amazing! and 12 IVF cycles, how many stim cycles did you have to do? You are an amazing woman doing all that! And here I am struggling over 2 cycles haha

I went in for bloods 3 weeks ago to check all my antibodies etc. Not sure exactly what tbh, it was my old doctor who got me to do it before we swapped Drs a couple days later. I am not sure how old you are but I am still 28, so hopefully I still have a chance to try with my own eggies!

I go in on the 20th to get the results for the blood tests and the karyotype test. I am starting to get really nervous now!

At 28 age is definitely on your side, that's great. I switched to donor eggs at 41 - after all that IVF by then it was a no brainer. Nine of mine were stim cycles. Hopefully getting your thyroid stabilised will do the trick - stay positive, you have every reason to think it will work in the not-too-distant future. It may not be as quick as you'd hoped, but so far there's no reason to think it won't work out well for you.

[emilyc]

Hi Kalina,

I hope you are well and had a great weekend! I ended up going in for a blood test on Saturday morning to check my thyroid levels, as I feel like the thyroxine had really started to work as I was have bad mood swings, very hungry all the time, and just overall more hormonal and irritable. Dr called this morning advising to drop my meds from 100mg down to 50 as I had responded quite well, which he was surprised about. But now I am flight over cooked (his words) haha

I asked the nurse on Friday what my levels were when they found out I had underactive thyroid, and apparently I was at level 33 when it should be under 4. So will be interesting to see what he says next Wednesday when I meet up with him. Hoping to start another cycle in 2 weeks..

[Kalina]

Hi Kalina,

I hope you are well and had a great weekend! I ended up going in for a blood test on Saturday morning to check my thyroid levels, as I feel like the thyroxine had really started to work as I was have bad mood swings, very hungry all the time, and just overall more hormonal and irritable. Dr called this morning advising to drop my meds from 100mg down to 50 as I had responded quite well, which he was surprised about. But now I am flight over cooked (his words) haha

I asked the nurse on Friday what my levels were when they found out I had underactive thyroid, and apparently I was at level 33 when it should be under 4. So will be interesting to see what he says next Wednesday when I meet up with him. Hoping to start another cycle in 2 weeks..

@emilyc I did wonder whether you were too far gone in the other direction when you mentioned how you felt in a previous post! Do you know how low your TSH went? I was overmedicated with thyroxine once and it dropped to 0.4 - I felt so jittery, could barely sleep or sit still. My unmedicated level is only 4, it takes 50mg per day to get me down to about 1.6-1.8, which is my sweet spot.

Now.....of course discuss everything with your Dr, but if you do a bit of research you'll see that while "under 4" is technically within the normal reference range, your TSH needs to be lower for fertility purposes. My endocrinologist wanted TSH at under 2, ideally between 1 and 2, because the moment an embryo implants your thyroid is pushed and TSH can climb within days and a higher TSH is associated with higher miscarriage rates. If you start with a TSH of 1-2, there's room for it to go up slightly without causing a problem.

[emilyc]

Yeah I knew something wasn't right and really thought it would take 4 weeks to kick in, however, that was not the case at all.

No I didn't end up asking what my levels got to unfortunately. I will ask next week in our appointment. Yes after reading a fair bit about it, I have seen that it needs to be under 2, so this is something I will definitely ask next week as well.

Obviously I don't want to question him too much. But also I feel like it is the only way to take some kind of control over this whole process. I am definitely getting nervous about doing a 3rd cycle. As I will no doubt start stimming around the 24th of this month. Do you think you will try again for another baby. Or you all set with your little ones? I would love 2 of my own maybe 3. But not sure if that is pushing it!

[emilyc]

Nurse just called me, my levels went from 33 down to 0.84 haha

[Kalina]

Yeah I knew something wasn't right and really thought it would take 4 weeks to kick in, however, that was not the case at all.

No I didn't end up asking what my levels got to unfortunately. I will ask next week in our appointment. Yes after reading a fair bit about it, I have seen that it needs to be under 2, so this is something I will definitely ask next week as well.

Obviously I don't want to question him too much. But also I feel like it is the only way to take some kind of control over this whole process. I am definitely getting nervous about doing a 3rd cycle. As I will no doubt start stimming around the 24th of this month. Do you think you will try again for another baby. Or you all set with your little ones? I would love 2 of my own maybe 3. But not sure if that is pushing it!

No wonder you didn't feel right, that's quite a drop. It makes sense that you want to feel some level of control, ivf is such an emotional investment.
I won't be trying again, I feel incredibly lucky and still pinch myself daily - two was always the goal. I know how easily my journey could have ended differently though. We do have some frosties overseas which I just paid to keep frozen because I can't bear to have them destroyed.

[emilyc]

yeah pretty crazy how quickly it dropped. It is such a huge emotional investment. Like I would love 2 or 3 kiddies. But at the same times, how long is it going to take me to get 1 and will I actually be prepared to do it all over again. My partner already has 1 child and I know he wants 2 with me. So I guess we will wait and see.

That is great though, at least you have your 2 babes! How long do they hold on to the little embies before saying their is no point keeping them?

[Kitty89]

Hi emilyc, We have been ttc for 2 years and nothings happening no matter what they have tried so IVF is just the next step. I do have elevated natural killer cells so the theory is that there maybe a failure to implant! and im praying that IVF is the answer!

When i first started the meds, yes. I still had the anxiety and general moodiness that seems to go hand in hand with thyroid issues. Also, it took me a while to settle into to the meds, I would get heart palpitations and all kinds of odd feelings when I'd try to fall asleep.
I found that taking them 2 hours after dinner/ before bed really helped! Hope it all settles down for you soon.

[Cooki]

I don't have hypo but I do have Hyperacitve thyroid.. and yes I had to get it under control and once it was under control I had a success bro resulted in my now near my 2 yr old son.
I don't know how much the thyroid under control took part of our bfp since we did a bunch of other things and pgd embryo was used also at the time.

Apparently it's better to get it under control as it helps with implantation and so I heard

[emilyc]

Hi Cooki, how are you?

It is so crap haha, I can't believe they misdiagnosed me I saw my FS on Wednesday and he confirmed I also have thyroid antibodies. AF showed up last night before bed, so I am hoping to start my 3rd stim cycle. Out of curiosity how long after your thyroid was treated did you fall pregnant? Both our Karyotype results came back perfect so we won't be going ahead with the pgs. However, if we do get viable embryos to transfer back in, I will need to go on prednisolone. If I do become pregnant I have to stay on the medication until I am 12 wks. I have never seen a BFP, it is all I want. It is so hard sometimes as I question if I am even capable of being pregnant...

Where are you at with your journey at the moment? x