Serum/Penny

FBTTN8079

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Has anyone ever looked into or used these in Athens? X
 
I think one of the girls that used to be on this forum looked into this for gender selection in Greece.

Not sure which one, but hopefully you find some answers :)

xxx
 
There's lots of information on Fertility Friend about Serum including FAQs and there's also a thread for ladies cycling there. Look under International and Greece xx
 
I think Mishi did and someone else in ltttc too but can't remember the name. Alwaystrying is coming to mind but I could be wrong. I have thought about serum too, so many positive success stories and also a fair bit cheaper xx
 
Thanks girls I thought it may have been Mishi that did

Hubby was with a lady that had successful pregnancy with them and was highly recommending them, 4,000 euros for two cycles I think so was going to look into it. X
 
Wow, that seems really good. I might look into that after my free cycle...
 
I'm using them, I had a hysteroscopy and full immune testing and hubbys sperm dna fragmentation test in June with them and will being having IVF and another hysteroscopy in January, freezing all embryos then do FET the following cycle x
 
I also have had 1 cycle in UK and 3 in cyprus for comparsion!
 
Wow how has it been RAFMrs? With scans and logistics of getting there and back?

Have you found them better in comparison to what you have here and in Cyprus? X
 
They have been fantastic, I wish now with hindsight I'd gone straight to them and never touched Cyprus, but you do what you think is right at the time....

I have a chat with Peny on the phone and she had already read all my notes if sent her and she had a plan and some ideas, she's lovely. I'd already done the period blood tests so next was to go there for testing.
It all went very easily and smoothly, also stayed in Penys apartment right next door to the clinic. I got ryanair flights from stansted. I went over one day had consult, bloods and then pre op at hospital, next day was hysto day then back to the clinic to watch the dvd then flew home the following day.
I'll pop on tomorrow with an idea of our IVF timings xxxx
 
Wow that does sound really good, randomly do you work? I work long day shifts and wondered how I could fit that in around that but sounds like it can. X

Hubby also said that a local mothercare does private scans and for this lady she paid for her scans and would send them to serum that way. X
 
No I don't work, I do think that will make it more difficult come an IVF cycle if working but most people do it.

I usually go to a clinic in outer london for my scans but next time I'm going to one in peterborough.

An idea of an IVF cycle I'm looking at:
Day 1/2 have scan and send results to Peny. She will then tell me what dosage and when to start Stimms.
Day 7 another scan and then Peny will tell me when to fly to Greece.
As I'm a random responder on previous cycles I'll get a one way ticket (or flexi return) to Greece.
Peny will then do regular scans and bloods, adjust meds until it's time for egg collection.

I have heard of people needing to be in Greece for 11 plus days depending on how they respond and also a 3/5 day transfer.

I will be having an hysto after egg collection. Taking any embryos to day 5 to freeze (it is expensive to freeze so I want to only freeze blastos). Then I will be doing a full immune FET cycle with steroids, intralipids, clexane, aspirin, and GCSF which my bloods revealed I needed.

It's not going to be cheap, particularly with booking last minute flights/hotels, lengths of stays and the meds required etc (plus another hysto etc). But without a doubt I have full trust in Peny and think she will give me the best shot of this working. X
 
Thanks hon, it does sound really well organised, where will you get the medications?

Hubby is really keen to just not do anything now with the nhs and just email penny and see what they can do for us

Were you nervous when you first went abroad for a cycle?

Thanks so much for the info. X
 
Not sure on the meds front, there are quite a few options so I'll go with the easiest/cheapest but will cost up from Serum direct, Asda, Superdrug, Fertility2u etc. sometime Asda etc can be a bit hard work as some won't do it with a greek prescription but others will. I have alwYs used fertility2u before as its been a non-eu prescription but more choice with it being from Greece.

For my FET cycle I will bring all the meds back with me from Greece while I'm there for ec. All pharmacys have to charge the same price out there so there isnt a price war which makes things cheaper but they have a short supply of Clexane so will probably need that from the UK.

If you go on there website there is a medical questionnaire that you will need to fill out and send to them as a first step.
What is your history for fertility? Xxx

I was very nervous about cycling abroad particularly when thinking about sedations and generals but I had a bad experience with the NHS and what you can get abroad for your money to me beat paying private in the UK. I don't believe a cycle worked out cheaper abroad but we got more for our money (more tests, meds, embryos put back etc).

Any questions just shout or PM me I'm happy to answer anything I can xxx
 
We have male factor, been ttc nearly 4 years, hubby has low count plus issues with motility and morphology and everyone we've seen has said ICSI is our only option, we had a bad consultation with nhs and ended up going private, had one unsuccessful cycle in December and outside of nhs guidelines currently as BMI is 32 and they want 30 or under which is what made hubby really keen to look into Athens

Thanks so much for that it really is super helpful :-)
 
We have male factor too (as well as other things), Peny was very keen on putting my hubby on her sperm improving protocol and then go out and have a dna fragmentation test, which for us came back as high so the following day Peny had hubby do 2 samples an hour apart and tested his 2nd sample which was an massive improvement in all areas so we froze that sample for use with our cycle next year (save hubby doing the protocol again). I'm guessing that Peny will advise something similar for yourselves x
 
Sorry for the half a message, was waving hubby off at the same time as his away on a course.

Really sorry your cycle was unsuccessful, how did you respond, no/quality of eggs/embryos?
Peny doesn't bat an eyelid at BMI.
X
 
That's ok, that's really interesting as hubby very keen for further tests and investigations but over here they don't seem to want to look into it further, he feels very let down by the whole system and with me the only issue is BMI!

That's excellent with hubby's samples that's great to know

Thanks, we didn't realise how hard it would hit us, we had the cycle, then Christmas and in the new year it all just felt really low!

It had been a really positive cycle, I responded really well to the medications with little side effects so I was really lucky there, we collected 18 but only 11 fertilised and by day 4 we were only left with 2 one of good quality and one not so good, we had them both transferred

I think the embryologist said that some of the outer layer zona were a little thicker so maybe even though I had responded well the quality could have been improved but they didn't really go through it in the follow up consultation at all.

The BMI thing really gets my goat ! I'm about a stone away from the BMI needed but the amount of people I see that are bigger than me and having babies and it's very frustrating! X
 
I think she will certainly want to look at dna frag of the sperm to try and get the best possible sperm, also if needed they use IMSI with no extra charge. Peny will probably aim for less eggs then last time as less eggs is normally better quality (it's a balancing thing number/quality). Also, are you on a good multi vit, I (and hubby) also take the dha from zita west for quality, plus co enzyme q10.

I totally understand the bmi thing, for my nhs cycle my bmi was 31, I put myself on the cabbage soup diet to get the extra weight off which made me really ill. Every single thing that went wrong with my cycle was put down to my weight, whereas all the tests we have had since prove otherwise, as much as my weight probably doesn't help it certainly isn't the reason for my infertility, miscarriages etc. the tests with Peny showed I had ployps, scarring, dead tissue, infection (from the nhs leaving me so long to miscarry each time) plus bad immune issues which would all cause my problems. If it wasn't for those tests I could of just kept going for cycle after cycle of IVF (if we had the money) and never got pregnant x
 

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