The stimulation part of the IVF cycle can be the most problematic. If patient is prescribed too little medication then she can get cancelled for a poor response. Give a patient too much and she can develop OHSS which really sucks (as was pointed out in a comment recently by one of my 5 regular readers-my Mom not included). How do we pick the protocol? Well first of all I consult my Magic 8 Ball toy that I bought on Ebay…then I spin a big wheel in my office and then I review it with Dr DiMattina, my partner, who usually changes the dose all around...
jeudi 27 septembre 2007
IVF for Dummies (Part 1)
Posted on 06:24 by Unknown
Clearly Reproductive Medicine changed forever after the birth of Louise Brown in 1978. The first US IVF baby did not arrive until 1980 with the birth of Elizabeth Carr. I was up on Capitol Hill a few years ago on a committee promoting insurance coverage for fertility care and Elizabeth was on the panel with me. I asked her why her Mom had remained in the hospital in Virginia for the entire pregnancy and why they had come down from Massachusetts. She explained that IVF was not available in Massachusetts at the time and may have even been illegal....
mercredi 19 septembre 2007
Are Babies from IVF Normal?
Posted on 08:21 by Unknown
The astute reader of this blog may come to the conclusion that Dr Gordon is not normal. I mean the guy likes Monty Python, couldn’t get a date in high school, tells bad jokes and yet somehow managed to convince a PhD in Engineering to marry him and reproduce with him. Go figure. What really does it mean to be normal? I banged my head on the kitchen counter this morning when I saw that the Red Sox lead over the Yankees was down to 2 and a half games. Is that normal behavior? Well, for a Sox fan it is but that is besides the point.So many questions...
mardi 18 septembre 2007
Sex, Drugs, Rock and Roll....
Posted on 08:52 by Unknown
Back in high school I was the well-behaved, straight A student, Eagle Scout, nice boy who would never do drugs or drink…so of course, no girl would give me the time of day. My wife believes that the real cause of my high school social isolation was the fact that I was a science fiction fan who went to science fiction conventions and had dinner with noted authors like Hal Clement (my high school chemistry teacher), Larry Niven, Isaac Asimov to name drop a bit… She reminds me that this part of my history was kept concealed along with the Monty Python...
mercredi 12 septembre 2007
Is there any hope?
Posted on 13:39 by Unknown
We are often asked the difficult question of whether there is any hope when the beta levels are not rising appropriately. The short answer is that there is always hope and yet I wish that I could know the outcome as soon as possible so that I could spare patients that roller coster ride of emotions when things are not going according to the textbooks. However, I have become very cautious about writing off pregnancies too early. There are several patients who love to write at the bottom of their Christmas cards little reminders like “The little...
lundi 10 septembre 2007
You say tow-mah-tow and I say tow-may-tow
Posted on 12:59 by Unknown
I agree that the medical profession has too many abbreviations and that it is hard to know how to act knowledgeable in front of your RE. So here are some helpful hints about how we on the other side of the desk pronounce various abbreviations:RE (reproductive endocrinologist): are-eeIVF (in vitro fertilization): eye-vee-effGIFT (gamete intrafallopian transfer): gift NOT gee-eye-eff-teaZIFT (zygote intrafallopian transfer): zift NOT zee-eye-eff-teaFET (frozen embryo transfer): eff-ee-tea NOT feteICSI (intracytoplasmic sperm injection): ick-see NOT...
lundi 3 septembre 2007
Labor Day at Dominion
Posted on 07:31 by Unknown
Labor Day is not a real funny holiday for fertility patients. It is really an obstetrical holiday and having worked a fair number of Labor Days during my residency everyone thought that it was so clever to quip about being in labor on Labor Day…yup, a real yuck fest.Of course, for REs the funny holiday is Easter. Not for the religious significance but of course, for all the Easter egg jokes. Same phenomenon of really bad jokes occurs as patients who undergo egg collection on Easter are participating in an “egg hunt” of sorts.Hey, I don’t make this...
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