Infertility and Hormones
So they discovered that it’s your hormones that are causing your infertility? Hormone therapy can be very helpful in reversing infertility although there are some potential hazards – so ensure that you are educated!
Some medications can regulate the amounts of hormones in your system to aid your body to sort itself out.
These are for the ladies:
· Bromocriptine – Prolactin is great for making milk, but not for ovulating, so bromocriptine suppresses prolactin and encourages your body to release eggs. Side effects include nausea, low blood pressue, headaches and maybe even dizziness as well.
· Clomiphene – FSH (follicle stimulating hormone) and LH (luteinizing hormone) are required to help the ovaries release healthy egg cells and this drug encourages the pituitary gland to produce LH and FSH. Advantages are that it is relatively affordable and effective in women with PCOS (polycystic ovarian syndrome) or unpredictable periods although side effects may include headaches, tender breasts, nausea and insomnia.
· Metoformin – This is used to help women with PCOS (polycystic ovarian syndrome) or insulin resistance as it decreases the quantities of male hormones in the system and thus helps the body to ovulate.
Actual hormones may also stimulate ovulation.
· Human Menopausal Gonadotropin (hMG) – These are administered if you experience pituitary gland problems that don’t respond to other medication and contains LH (luteinizing hormone) and FSH (follicle stimulating hormone) obtained from the urine of postmenopausal women. Regrettably they are not always helpful and are rather costly as additional ultrasound scans are needed to confirm if the drug is working. Your odds of miscarriage or enlarged ovaries are increased, as are your risks of multiple or premature births which have hazards of their own.
· Human Chorionic Gonadotropin (hCG) – These work in partnership with hMGs to stimulate ovulation and can also help for endometriosis although possible side effects include cysts on the ovaries, elevated odds of multiple births and enlarged ovaries.
· Urofollitropin (FSH) – Given if clomiphene is ineffective in stimulating ovulation in women suffering from PCOS.
· Luteinizing Hormone – Releasing Hormone (LH-RH) – Pituitary gland abnormalities and endometriosis can be treated through the use of LH-RH. It is quite tricky to administer and it increases the odds of multiple births and infections.
· Gonadotropin-releasing hormone (Gn-RH) – Stimulates the pituitary gland to aid ovulation.
· Progesterone – Assists the uterus to form a coating for the zygote to implant.
For the gents:
Infertility hormones don’t work for men as effectively as they do for the ladies, although they can be beneficial in certain circumstances. Here are some of the hormones and medications that can be prescribed for the men. You’ll see that a few of them are similar to those prescribed for women.
· Testosterone – Controls general sexual function by imitating natural testosterone.
· Gn-RH – Gn-RH encourages the release of FSH by the pituitary gland which in turn instructs the testes to make sperm and LH which stimulates the manufacture of testosterone.
· Bromocriptine – Men can also have an excess of prolactin and this will inhibit testosterone from being manufactured and cause sperm to be malformed. This can be treated with bromocriptine, make sure that you check out the side effects first! Hallucinations are not fun…
· hCG & FSH – Help promote the production of sperm for men with low sperm count or low sperm motility. These are of the most helpful infertility hormones that could be recommended for men.
Possible dangers
Be sure that you are informed about the risks of each type of medication prior to taking it, as you could have a condition that could be made worse by the medication. A possible hitch with infertility hormones is the high risk of multiple pregnancies. That might not sound like such a negative thing to you now. At first thought it may make sense to get two (or three or four) for the price of one, multiples are more likely to develop complications and be born prematurely, thus increasing the chances of further health and developmental problems.
Once you’ve weighed up the benefits and risks you might decide that infertility hormones are the way to go. Good Luck!
Here is more information on PCOS and Infertility. Here is a website with a free mini-course dedicated to Infertility.
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- Should you worry about side effects of Prosolution pills
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