Follicles on femara

[teddybearkit]

Hi
I'm looking for feedback from anybody that was having ultrasound and bloodwork monitoring while only taking femara for fertility.  The ultrasound monitoring is new for me as my previous fertility doctor only did bloodwork monitoring.  So I'm looking for feedback on number of follicles and size on.  Thank you so much

[Alexis2358]

I always took the femara cd 3 - 7 and the gonal - F injections on day 5 - whatever day they decided the follicles had grown enough.   I also did acupuncture in conjunction with this and occasionally took herbs from the acupuncturist.     I did notice that when I took the herbs in conjunction, my follices were ready by CD 12 or 13 and without the herbs it was more like CD 14 - 16.    Now with that being said, I got pg this time on a cycle without the herbs and a very thin lining and a huge cyst on my left side.    

all my cycles of the "perfect situation" resulted in nothing....so NEVER give up on a cycle.   I think sometimes it IS in our heads.   I totally relaxed the cycle I got pg and figured it wasn't going to happen anyway, so I didn't even worry about it, and whammmmmo, here I am 17 weeks pregnant.

[Risa615]

I took fermara 10 cycles through Jan. 2010 and then didn't take it again until this cycle.  I took  it cd 3-7 most of the time and it usually makes me ovulate later than I do without it. When I go in around cd 10-12 they decide if I should be given HCG to make me ovulate, or let follicles grow longer a few more days.  I usually only had 1-3 good size follicles.  I have been having 1-2 good size lately on vitamins, so I hope see some good results going back to fermara and continuing vitamins.  I may do an IUI this cycle, depends on what they see on Nov. 15 and if I have time to go. It all depends on my work schedule.

I took clomid two cycles before fermara and I didn't like the side effects.
Risa

[teddybearkit]

thanks so much for your answers.  I'm new to femara.  With my previous fertility doctor, he liked clomid better.  With Clomd my estrogen level was always well in to the 1000's by day 12 or 13 but I'm on day 13 now (used femara on day 5-9) and my estrogen is only at 600.  And I don't have any signs of having my LH surge yet where as I always surged on day 14 naturally on clomid.  So I'm finding femara is working different for me.  No idea if it's better or worse.  By day 11 of this cycle which is my first cycle on femara, I had one follicle at size 17 and the others looked slow to be growng.  But today (day 13) there are 3 that she says are catching up - I believe 2 were at 13.  
Now I'm not sure what day my fertility doctor would have normally started me on femara but because my very first initial consultation with him happen to land on my day 5 of my cycle then he started me right away on it that day.  He knew that I was taking clomid prior with my other doctor so we just wanted to start again with the same regimen.  When I did clomid it was always day 3 to day 7.  I'm not sure whether or not the other follices will mature or not but I'm concerened that it might be too late because my dominant follicle stopped growing at size 19 already.  And perhaps I'll ovulate later since I started femara on day 5???  What day of your cycle did you always start your femara?

[Alexis2358]

I had u/s monitoring on femara, but I also used gonal-f injections.   I had between 2 and 3 follicles each month that were considered "matured".    My RE told me that once they hit the size of 11 they would continue to mature.     Occasionally I would have 1 or 2 that were under and basically were useless in the cycle.    I had u/s's on cd 3 and cd 10 ALWAYS.   CD 3 was to let them know if there were any residual cysts and if I was cleared to start on the cycle.  CD 10 let them know how many follicles were maturing, which side and how the lining was doing.    From that point each cycle changed.   they try to estimate when they will be fully mature without being too late and they schedule a date for IUI.    If at CD 10 they are not where they think they should be, they may schedule another u/s before they schedule the IUI.

I think they try to have the follicles between size 18 and 24 for optimum results.

I've got my fingers crossed for you.