Fertility Medication

All of my medication

Okay so in this blog post, I am going to be telling you all about fertility medication. I will tell you what they do, their costs, and the side effects. This picture above is all the medication I will be taking over the next two weeks. There are a lot of needles, wipes, and 3 different kinds of medication!

Treatment

First things first: your treatment plan. Before you leave the hospital, you and your nurse will discuss the medicine you'll be using, the dosage, and when to take it. There are many different kinds of medicine. The ones I am taking are microdose lupron, follistim, and pregnyl (hcg). I am on the highest dosage of all of them, but that is because of how low my AMH and FSH levels are. Depending on your levels, will depend on your dosage levels. Dosage means how much of each medicine you inject inside of you.

Next, you will lay out a calendar of when you will take each medication. You don't start taking them all at once. I will go over my treatment plan, just know that this is something that will vary:

Day 1- I take 20 units (dosage amount) of microdose lupron at night

Day 2- I take 20 units of microdose lupron in the morning and at night

Day 3- I take 20 units of microdose lupron/225 units of follistim in the morning and 20 units of microdose lupron/225 units of follistim/10 units of pregnyl at night

And I continue Day 3 until my "trigger" day. I will explain more on this tomorrow. On your trigger day, you take a different kind of medication. And then 3ish days later, you have your egg retrieval. This typically happens after 2 weeks.

Costs

The costs of the all of the medication is insanely crazy. I only had to pay for one and my pockets started hurting. The one I had to pay for was microdose lupron. It cost about $600. The follistem comes in different units. I got 900 units of follistem. It all costs about $1,000. I got this medication for free. Pregnyl costs about $300. I had to get two tubes of that so really $600. That's about $2,200 just on medication alone. The only reason why I got the majority of this paid for was because of my past history of having cancer. The financial burden fertility preservation puts on families is so incredibly sad. I really do hope one day as a country we can reevaluate our healthcare system. 

What Does the Medication Do?

Each of these medications serve a purpose in helping stimulate the follicles in your ovaries. 

Microdose Lupron

Lupron is the medication that stops your body from ovulating. It stops the bodies process of hormone and egg development. When you first get the medication, You will have to mix it together. Your nurse will tell you exactly how to mix it and the dosage amount to use. It sounds a lot more complicated than it really is. You will have a very long needle that is only used for mixing. This medication needs to be immediately refrigerated after you mix it.

Follistim

Follistim is in a little tube and you use the blue and yellow pen. Follistim is a man-made form of a hormone that occurs naturally in the body. This hormone regulates ovulation, the growth and development of eggs in a woman's ovaries. This is also another medication that has to be refrigerated as well.

Pregnyl (low dose)

This is another medication that you will have to mix. The pregnyl is a powder that you turn into a liquid. This is a hormone used to cause ovulation. It also needs to be refrigerated after use

Usage

So the usage of each medication is a little different. The follistim is my least favorite. There is a special pen you use just for this medication. How it works is you put one of the tubes inside the pen

You then put the yellow part down and twist it onto the blue. The tube has a specific amount of medication in the tube.

 Mine all of 900 units. Your nurse will tell you what your dosage is for each injection. You will then turn the knob to that dosage amount

The needle goes on the top yellow part

You have to screw the needle on yourself. The needle isn't too big

The reason why I don't like this needle is because sometimes the medicine runs out before you have the right dosage.

This probably about 100 units of medicine. So I will have to inject the rest of this. Then take the empty tube out. And then put another one in. And then inject the rest. AKA getting poked TWICE. I hate needles so I don't like this. The pen will remember how much more of the medication you need, so you don't have to remember that.

Lupron and pregnyl are both a little easier to inject

Both of the needles look like this. You stick the needle into the vials. Turn them upside down and then take out the correct dosage amount.

I always ice 30 minutes before I get my injections. But to be honest, after awhile, the ice doesn't work. I am on day 5 of injections and they've ALL started hurting like yesterday. You have to give yourself the injections in your stomach. Your stomach starts hurting and it is so sore. It always hurts

:( you get 5-6 injections a day. It all depends on the follistim. It is horrible. I will not sugar coat it haha. 

Side Effects

The side effects are the worst and almost mimic pregnancy symptoms. I feel like my side effects have been 10x worse than the last two times I've done this. I feel nauseous every single day. And if I don't lay down for 30 minutes after taking the medication, I will have a headache all day. You get hot flashes and are so exhausted. You are very moody and hormonal. I am so irritable all the time and I randomly feel like crying. You also get bloated. These are the ones that I notice the most that effect my day. It is a challenge sometimes with working but I definitely make it work. 

I hope you enjoyed this blog and learned a little bit more on this process and all about medication. My next blog will focus on your second doctors appointment and what all the entails.