Number of Follicles from Follistim

I'm very dissapointed because my expectations were too high, as usual... I had my appointment with Dr B for monitoring and he said that I only have one mature follicle. I'll be doing b2b IUIs tomorrow and Wednesday. This cycle I was on Femara from day 5 to day 9 and 150 ius Follistim on day 5, day 7, day 9 and day 11. After all this I only produced one follicle. I'm really confused with why I need to take all these meds... I was ovulating before I started with all this on my own.... and now that I'm taking these medications I'm only producing one follicle I feel like I'm wasting my time I don't even want to go for the IUI tomorrow To all you girls that used Follistim what was your dodage and how often did you inject? Was it every day? Maybe my dosage wasn't high enough to produce more follicles? I'm thinking more follicles=more chances for a BFP....

Re: Number of Follicles from Follistim

Don't be discouraged!!!
I was on Gonal-F injections and I had 4 maturING follies, but only 1 matured fully. I went in for my IUI and wasn't very optimistic bc I defintely wanted more than 1 follie to increase my chances. 14 days later, I got a positive beta!! All you need is 1 follie!!!!!! I wish you the best of luck!!!

ETA: I just realized that I didn't even answer your questions! I started at the lowest dose possible and based on my progress, they up'd my dosage several times. They were really cautious bc they didn't want me to hyperstim. I was doing these injections daily for about 20 days... such a slow process!

Message edited 5/3/2010 3:19:22 PM.

Re: Number of Follicles from Follistim

Posted by Maria31

Don't be discouraged!!!
I was on Gonal-F injections and I had 4 maturING follies, but only 1 matured fully. I went in for my IUI and wasn't very optimistic bc I defintely wanted more than 1 follie to increase my chances. 14 days later, I got a positive beta!! All you need is 1 follie!!!!!! I wish you the best of luck!!!

ETA: I just realized that I didn't even answer your questions! I started at the lowest dose possible and based on my progress, they up'd my dosage several times. They were really cautious bc they didn't want me to hyperstim. I was doing these injections daily for about 20 days... such a slow process!

Re: Number of Follicles from Follistim

This is my first cycle on follistim and I'm on a massive dose due to my age so that won't help you.
but I did want to second the "don't lose hope" sentiment. All you need is one.

Re: Number of Follicles from Follistim

I know you hear it all the time but definitely don't feel discouraged. I jsut want to share my story with you and tell you that I was on Gonal-f (which is the same as Follistm) at a high dose of 450 units per day . After stimming for 10 days, i only produced 5 folicles. I know it's hard to hear other people producing over 10s or even 20s of them and we only have single digits, but just because this cycle you only had 1 folicle, it doesn't mean that you are doomed to fail. All it takes is 1 and you are probably tired of hearing that too. I really have read a lot of stories on other forums where a lot of women were in the same situation as you and still got pregnant.
Keep up the good faith! You will get there!!

Re: Number of Follicles from Follistim

I had your identical protocol (i go to Dr. B too). The first time i had 4 mature follies, the 2nd i only had 2 (21 and 19) It only takes ONE

Re: Number of Follicles from Follistim

everyone reacts differently to this stuff so dont be discouranged! believe me, one good follie is better than 10+ when you arent doing IVF. my first cycle with dr. b was same protocol - femara 2.5mg and follistim 150ius every other night. i produced 10+ follies, hyperstimmed, had the cycle cancelled and suffered mild OHSS and was gigantically bloated for the entire week of Xmas and to make matters worse i had to go on BCP for three weeks to dissolve all those follies. so in total i lost about 5 weeks of TTC that cycle...

my next cycle was femara 2.5 and gonal-f 37.5ius - and that didnt result in ANYTHING. i actually had to repeat the protcol again that cycle and upped the femara to 5mg and the gonal-f to 75ius. in the end that cycle took 21 days of stims to get two mature follies. all for that to end in a chemical!

finally this cycle i did 2.5mg femara and 75ius follistim. took 14 days from stim to trigger with 2 mature follies.

these meds are A LOT of trial and error since our bodies all react differently. dont be discouraged not only does it only take one egg, but its also better to stim slow and steady then to hyperstim and be out of the game and in pain for a while!!

Message edited 5/3/2010 5:19:42 PM.

Re: Number of Follicles from Follistim

Posted by FlowerWife

everyone reacts differently to this stuff so dont be discouranged! believe me, one good follie is better than 10+ when you arent doing IVF. my first cycle with dr. b was same protocol - femara 2.5mg and follistim 150ius every other night. i produced 10+ follies, hyperstimmed, had the cycle cancelled and suffered mild OHSS and was gigantically bloated for the entire week of Xmas and to make matters worse i had to go on BCP for three weeks to dissolve all those follies. so in total i lost about 5 weeks of TTC that cycle...

my next cycle was femara 2.5 and gonal-f 37.5ius - and that didnt result in ANYTHING. i actually had to repeat the protcol again that cycle and upped the femara to 5mg and the gonal-f to 75ius. in the end that cycle took 21 days of stims to get two mature follies. all for that to end in a chemical!

finally this cycle i did 2.5mg femara and 75ius follistim. took 14 days from stim to trigger with 2 mature follies.

these meds are A LOT of trial and error since our bodies all react differently. dont be discouraged not only does it only take one egg, but its also better to stim slow and steady then to hyperstim and be out of the game and in pain for a while!!

Re: Number of Follicles from Follistim

Posted by CellarDweller

This is my first cycle on follistim and I'm on a massive dose due to my age so that won't help you.
but I did want to second the "don't lose hope" sentiment. All you need is one.

Re: Number of Follicles from Follistim

Posted by BBmaking

I know you hear it all the time but definitely don't feel discouraged. I jsut want to share my story with you and tell you that I was on Gonal-f (which is the same as Follistm) at a high dose of 450 units per day . After stimming for 10 days, i only produced 5 folicles. I know it's hard to hear other people producing over 10s or even 20s of them and we only have single digits, but just because this cycle you only had 1 folicle, it doesn't mean that you are doomed to fail. All it takes is 1 and you are probably tired of hearing that too. I really have read a lot of stories on other forums where a lot of women were in the same situation as you and still got pregnant.
Keep up the good faith! You will get there!!

Re: Number of Follicles from Follistim

I was on Gonal-F for over 14 days we started out real slow at the lowest dose and I worked my way up to 225. I had myself convinced that i wasnt going to react to the meds at all and at the end i ended up with 8 mature follies and just had a b2b IUI on friday and saturday...believe me I would have rather had 1, 2 or 3 b/c im now in so much pain from hyper stimming a little

All you need is one and these dr.'s really know what they are doing.

Re: Number of Follicles from Follistim

Posted by Maria31

Don't be discouraged!!!
I was on Gonal-F injections and I had 4 maturING follies, but only 1 matured fully. I went in for my IUI and wasn't very optimistic bc I defintely wanted more than 1 follie to increase my chances. 14 days later, I got a positive beta!! All you need is 1 follie!!!!!! I wish you the best of luck!!!
!

Re: Number of Follicles from Follistim

Im sorry

You still have a chance though!!

Re: Number of Follicles from Follistim

Thank you ladies for all of your positive thoughts I hope that this will be our month

Re: Number of Follicles from Follistim

What everyone on the board is correct. It only takes one!! This is my first cycle with Dr. B, we are doing an iui. He has me on femera 2.5mg 2x a day, follistim 150 every other day and prednisone 10mg every day. I dont know yet how many follicles that it will produce I will find out Monday afternoon. Just stay positive and hang in there.

Message edited 5/14/2010 4:25:35 PM.

Re: Number of Follicles from Follistim

My DS was a Clomid/IUI and was a single follie

I only got 2 follies one time and it was a BFN, so it truly does only take one !!

Re: Number of Follicles from Follistim

I feel the same as you do.. I ovulated on my own and swear I had liek 4 follies, started IUIs and Clomid were I would range but never had as many as 4 now I am doing injectibles Gonal F and feel like I have ONE!! Its frustrating but I agree we dont want to overstim and one is all we need. Mentally we think the more the better but I am learning that is not true!