When to start clomiphene citrate
Infertility Hormonal Treatments • WCWRC
hormones every woman's got them every
man complains about them and every woman
is terrified of hormone treatments we
use hormone treatments all the time
infertility
we need hormones to grow eggs we need
eggs to make babies frequently we start
with hormone pills frequently people
have heard about a pill called clomid or
clomiphene citrate it is used and abused
all the time by gynecologists and
fertility doctors clomiphene citrate was
designed to help people ovulate and it
does a pretty good job of that when
women don't ovulate and they're given
clomid about 80 percent ovulate only
about 50% will get pregnant so for the
50% who don't get pregnant using clomid
and the 20% that didn't ovulate with
clomid we have to use something else we
have a new pill on the market it's
called letrozole it's in the family of
what we call aromatase inhibitors
aromatisse inhibitors were designed to
treat breast cancer so when you get
letrozole it's going to say it's for
treatment of breast cancer it's going to
be called a chemotherapy it's not a
chemotherapy the way you're scared of
chemotherapy it just means it's a pill
letrozole helps people ovulate you take
it for five days just like you do
clomiphene citrate and it works better
than clomiphene citrate it's out of your
system faster than clomiphene citrate
letrozole is starting to replace
clomiphene citrate as the first line
drug for an ovulation hormone injections
the dreaded hormone injections hormone
injections used to be really scary you
used to have to use really big needles
and shoot them in your butt ouch they've
changed
they now design them in the laboratory
they now are purified and they're really
more like giving yourself insulin shots
little teeny needles most of the time
friends or family give you the shots but
if you really had to take it yourself
you can they're not that scary in the
past there was a lot of mixing involved
the hormones came in powder form and you
had to play chemistry kit mixing the
water and the powder and we still do
that with some of the medicines we use
but many of the medicines now are
pre-prepared they're pure liquid there's
less mixing and there's a whole lot less
anxiety when you take them most people
tolerate hormone medicines with ease
clomiphene citrate definitely has some
side effects of people complain about
I hear complaints about hot flashes
sensitivity to light headaches mood
changes just an all about bloated crummy
yucky feeling letrozole seems to be more
well tolerated what most women complain
about is the effects of the egg growth
so if you're taking fertility shots
you're often making more than one egg in
a natural cycle your estrogen Peaks
around two to three hundred if you're
taking fertility injections you may get
three or four eggs your estrogen may be
1,200 if you're taking fertility shots
for in vitro fertilization your estrogen
may peak at 2000-3000 I've seen 10,000
guess what you might have symptoms then
from the estrogen you might have
symptoms from the ovaries being three
times as big as they were before
you might feel bloated you might retain
water most women hate that but it's all
reversible and it's all for a good cause
these fertility medicines work they help
you get pregnant you can sometimes feel
quite uncomfortable with these medicines
but that is usually temporary and the
symptoms usually go away with time
