Testing Ovarian Reserve. Improving Egg Quality. How much do you know about your eggs? To understand how to improve egg quality in your particular case, please make sure you understand basic facts about eggs. The most eggs you ever had was when you were a 2. Hard to imagine, right? There were 6–7 million of them. ![]() That was the point in time when your “ovarian reserve” was at its highest. By the time you entered puberty, there were not more than 3. ![]()
![]() What is a low carb diet, really? When can a low carb diet be beneficial? Should everyone follow a low carb diet? Or, can a low carb diet ruin your health? The 10 Laws. The 10 Laws of the Primal Blueprint aren’t a modern creation, but the laws that have governed human evolution for two million years. Fat Flush Diet Designed to Help Take Off 5 Pounds in 3 Days: Weight Loss Plan Details And Recipes This number still seems like a lot, but eggs degrade at a rate of up to a thousand or more every month; with each new period, about one thousand disappear forever. In addition, our bodies accumulate mutations and toxins and degrade in many ways as we age, meaning that the egg’s neighborhood (ovaries, tubes, uterus) may, at some point, not be able to provide enough support for a healthy pregnancy. Eggs are essential and central, but pregnancy can’t happen without those other factors working well, too. Hopefully you now realize how important is testing of ovarian reserve and finding out how many eggs you have left on the first place. Every now and then, there is a stir in the scientific community giving women new hopes: maybe you’ve heard something about ovarian stem cells capable of producing new eggs? Unfortunately, most of these results are limited to mice, to highly controlled laboratory settings, and to the tissue analysis of women who, for some reason, underwent ovarian surgery. For you, the best and most realistic possibility is to try to find out how to improve the quality of the eggs you still have. Improve egg quality before trying to get pregnant. Testing ovarian reserve: How many eggs do you have left? Ovarian reserve is a medical term to describe a woman’s total egg pool. Everything that is left after decades of contraception pills, wrong partner choices, and monthly bleedings, so to say. It is essential for every woman to know as much as possible about her ovarian reserve, to be able to plan accordingly. Thanks to new research, we know that it is possible to improve egg quality to an extent, but it will most likely never be possible to grow any new ones. Or the chance of it happening in the next decade or so is so slim, that it is best to live without relying on it. The importance of knowing about and testing your ovarian reserve can hardly be overstated. Egg leads to an embryo. Embryo leads to a pregnancy. Pregnancy leads to a baby. Eggs are at the beginning of everything, and nothing in terms of becoming a mother happens without them. Supplements which are scientifically proven to increase egg quality: (DHEA, Co. Q1. 0, Vitamin D3, Omega- 3) When it comes to having healthy eggs, everything matters: Your genes: some women enter menopause very early (in their mid- 2. There is, anyway, not much you can do about your genes apart from knowing early enough and planning accordingly. How old you are: what do you thing is better for your eggs, to produce a baby five years or twenty years after your body started ovulating (and sending the message: “I am ready”)? Some not so obvious facts: your ovarian reserve was created during the time that your mom was pregnant. How was her nutrition at the time? Her overall health? Hopefully she was not exposed to radiation or similar extreme circumstances at that time? How is your own health and nutrition? Obviously, the last point is the only one that we can have some control over. With some knowledge and discipline, most women can at least partially improve their egg quality and extract the best out of their individual pool of eggs. This is not only possible, but has proven both scientifically and practically to bring positive results. For example, in addition to eating fresh, organic, and nutritionally rich food, a supplementation strategy needs to be tailored that is specifically focused on egg maturation and growth. Certain supplements are generally beneficial, such as vitamin D and Omega- 3. Some others (like Co. Q1. 0 and DHEA) need to be individually adjusted and aligned with other parameters to achieve the best results. Knowing how to do that is enormously important as it will save you time when you come to a phase in life that you most need it. If you need help or a second opinion anywhere in this process, you can always talk to me, once a week I am available for a chat on Skype. Importantly, results will not occur over night; a time frame of 3- 6 months should be allowed. High or oscillating FSH is not a good sign for those trying to get pregnant Testing ovarian reserve: two hormones you need to know about FSH (Follicle Stimulating Hormone)When it comes to testing ovarian reserve, this is likely the first parameter your fertility doctor will look at. This method is inexpensive and easy: FSH is measured in the blood at the beginning of the menstrual cycle (usually on day 3). As we age and our eggs decrease in number and quality and our brains must produce more FSH to stimulate eggs to ovulate. That’s why it is best for women over 3. FSH values less than 1. When FSH goes beyond 1. The menopause will not occur overnight, but you are probably entering a phase of decreased fertility and there could be some waiting involved in getting pregnant. Typically, a rise in FSH does not happen overnight and often there are several years during which FSH oscillates before settling at a higher value. At some point, FSH will become greater than 2. However, even then, ovarian reserve is still not completely empty. We all know of small miracles and healthy pregnancies that happen to women already in menopause. It is important to understand that elevated FSH levels are related to reproductive age rather than chronologic age, and high FSH can also occur in women much earlier than the age of 4. There is one more factor which is (in combination with FSH) really good in determining how many eggs a woman has left. It is called Anti- Mullerian Hormone (AMH). Combined with other factors, AMH is a fair predictor of the remaining egg reserve. Anti- Mullerian hormone (AMH)In the process of testing ovarian reserve, AMH is the next parameter which will be checked and makes a fair predictor of the remaining egg reserve. In a very simplified form, AMH is a substance produced by the cells that supports egg cells. When AMH goes down to 1 or less, it is another sign that the biological clock is ticking its last reproductive hours. But, when AMH falls under 0. Under 0,4 AMH many clinics won’t bother to perform IVF, to not ruin their success rates. AMH of 0,2 and under is already at the detection level in many labs and suggests that the egg pool is so exhaused that hardly anyone can tell whether this woman can still get pregnant with her own eggs. Inhibin B: similar to AMH in terms of its predictive value. Most labs rather go for AMH, which finally doesn’t matter because they are very similar in terms of telling about the status of ovarian reserve. There are few more lab tests for assesting remaining fertility: Clomiphene citrate challenge test (CCCT), Exogenous FSH ovarian reserve test, ovarian vascularity test (measured by using Doppler), ovarian biopsy. They all can be employed to complement FSH, AMH and other hormonal values, but they are patient- and clinic- specific so please talk to your doctor about it. Treatment of diminishing ovarian reserve. At some point, there are no eggs left in the ovaries. This process is called “diminishing ovarian reserve” (when doctors describe anything, it starts sounding like a diagnosis). Treating a diminished ovarian reserve is often mentioned in context of treating infertility and it is one of those phrases where you don’t know whether to laugh or cry. Treatment for something which is not there any more? Treatment for not being able to become a biological parent? Treatment of not being young any more? So let’s see which medical options are offered. The first line of treatment for the dimishing ovarian reserve is IVF, either with own remaining or with donor eggs. Unfortunatelly, women with reduced ovarian reserve usually have fewer than four follicles after stimulation with hormones, which results in a high IVF cycle cancellation rate. This can mean wasting time, which is very bad because this group of women anyway has not much time left in the reproductive sense. Therefore, if you happen to have a low ovarian reserve, you definitely should try to improve the quality of eggs which are still left. Luckily, there are supplements which are proven to increase egg quality, especially in women over 3. If you belong to these groups (of if you feel you don’t have much time to waste and would like to get pregnant fast), you may want to consider taking: DHEA (like this supplement here),Co. Q1. 0 (good supplements you will find here and there),Vitamin D3 (I take this or somethimes that supplement thoughout most of the year but you can also take this one with 2. IU if you live in a city with more sunshine then Berlin, or test Vitamin D regularly) and also. Omega’s- 3 are extremely important (very good supplement you will find here and here is the version for vegetarians). But whichever supplements you take, please keep in mind that they will improve egg quality only when combined with right nutrition, exercise, and even relaxation techniques. Toggle. Done right, improving egg quality will increase your chances to get pregnant in the advanced age, either naturally, or via IVF and ICSI. There is of course no guarantee that efforts to improve egg quality will work for all women, but what is left to lose? For any healthy woman, improving egg quality means also improving her general health, in addition to giving a best start possible to her baby. If you are 4. 0 or above IVF patient and don’t undertake any effort in this direction, we are speaking of about 3- 5% pregnancy chances in the next few years or less. Is that a chance you want to live with? Beyond Diet . Plus, I now have the energy to cook and do activities with my family and enjoy my grandkids!
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