What strategies are used to improve IVF outcomes?
Problems experienced on a first IVF may provide clues as to what you need to try and optimise for a future cycle. This is not meant to be an exhaustive list but it may give some ideas that you can explore/discuss with your clinic. In general though, in my opinion, it does not make sense to stick with the same protocol for more than 2 or 3 cycles. If it isn’t working for you, its time to look at alternatives, and if nothing else, consult with a couple of different clinics to see what approaches they would recommend. Here is my list of suggested tweaks to investigate/discuss 1) thin lining – see Lining issues (below) 2) poor response i.e., less than 4 eggs recovered – 3 months DHEA pretreatment, estrogen priming protocols, higher starting doses, short protocol with natural cycle start rather than from the pill, long protocol if you have not already tried that, agonist/antagonist conversion protocols 3) poor egg quality – resveratrol and/or pycnogenol and/or lycopene pretreatment (also an
