# prednisolone



## Cammie (Aug 12, 2008)

Hey there

Just wondering if any of you girls were prescribed Prednisolone?
Or if anyone got a BFP when they took Prednisolone? 
When did you start taking it?  (After ET, before trasnfer)
How long did you continue to take it for?
What symptoms were you prescribed it for?


Would really appreciate some feedback
cammie


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## Bronte (Jun 20, 2005)

Hello Cammie, I have been prescribed Prednisolone from Day six of stimms and am still on them.. I was given 20mg a day due to high NK cell activity and as you can see from my ticker all is well.. 

Bronte xxx


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## Old Mum (Apr 16, 2007)

Hi Cammie,  I am on 25mgs per day which started 2 days before IVF transfer (I had transfer on Monday).  I was on them before and only side effects was a little difficulty getting to sleep at night and it does give you a much bigger appetite.


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## ☼♥ Minxy ♥☼ © (Jan 13, 2005)

Hi

I've been prescribed 20mg Prednisolone for most of my IVFs/FETs due to raised natural killer cells. Start taking them from EC onwards. Both FETs resulted in chemical pregnancies (very early miscarriages) but all our fresh IVFs have been BFN. Our consultant believes that I may need IVIG instead of the steroids (Prednisolones a steriod that suppresses immune system) as it's not being completely succesful for us.

Didn't really suffer from side effects but do ensure that you take your pills in the morning....and make sure you eat something too as that was the only thing, if I took them at home when woke up and then didnt have anything to eat until I got into work (about 2 hrs later) then I did feel nauseous.

Have a read of the Investigations and Immunology board as there's lots of info about Prednisolone and immune issues on there...

http://www.fertilityfriends.co.uk/forum/index.php?board=52.0

Good luck
Natasha


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## Caz (Jul 21, 2002)

Hi, I was given 25mg prednisolone from first day of stims for my last cycle, which resulted in a BFP and baby boy. I had taken prednisolone on a previous fresh and 2 FET cycles to start taking day before ET but got BFNs. Don't know if starting it earlier made a difference or not. 
I took it until the 12th week of pregnancy. I was prescribed it to treat mild immune issues, although at the time of my last immune test right before that tx they were actually normal but, cons felt previous dodgy tests and multiple failures indicated a possible problem that wasn't showing up on standard (i.e. non pregnant) blood tests. I was more than happy to try anything by that point!

C~x


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## Cammie (Aug 12, 2008)

Thanks Bronte, Old Mum, Natasha and Caz
Bronte & Caz congratulations on your success- it must be such a wonderful feeling!  I"m hoping beyond hope that I will have that experience too   
Old Mum - may this be your month too!
Natasha - I'm sorry about the early m/c - may they give you hope to continue on this frightful journey  .

Well my RE put me on Perdnisolone because I basically begged him to.  I live in Oz but from what I gather the RE's here don't believe in immune testing.  He has only given me 5 days worth of tablets.  I'm on a fresh FET so I start the tablets 1 day after ovulation.  I will stop the perdnisolone on Monday and will have my 2 x day 6 blasts put back on wednesday.  As you can see from my ticker I have 2 failed blast transfers already.  My main concern is the cramps I get especially 2-3 days after ovulation or after transfer (could this be my body rejecting everything).  Do you reckon it is worth doing immune testing. My RE said that its all about egg quality and not to worry just yet about anything...
Any advise you have for me is so appreciated... 
BTW the tablets are making me feel good - that have really helped with the cramps that I normally have!!!!
C x


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## Caz (Jul 21, 2002)

Cammie, personally, I think that if you are having prednisolone it seems logical to have if for the duration of the 2ww at least as it would be pointless to supress your immune system for just 5 days if it is that. What benefit would that gain?  At the end of the 5 days your immune system would just kick in again and all benefit from taking them is lost. I would go back and say you want enough for 2 weeks and then, if you get a BFP that can be reviewed. But I do think you probably ought to look into proper immune testing if you can. You might want to look on the Investigations & Immunology or the Australia loacations boards to see if anyone can reccomend someone near you who does deal with this. 
I would also say, if you have managed to make blastocysts there can't by much wrong with the quality of your eggs. 
I suspect the cramps are just cramps and I have never heard anyone say they have had much physical evidence of embryo rejection for immune reasons and, if they have it's normally been more of the temperature / flu like symptoms type. 

You might just have been incredibly unlucky yo have not suceeded yet but, if you are going to take preds, no point ding it by half measures!

C~x


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## ☼♥ Minxy ♥☼ © (Jan 13, 2005)

Hi

Have to say I agree with Caz here....seems little point in only taking Prednisolone for 5 days.  Also, when you do stop taking it, you should "wean yourself" off them and not stop abruptly eg I went from 20mg to 15mg for couple of days, then down to 10mg for couple of days, then down to 5mg couple of days....then off completely.

I do understand what you mean about the cramps....they probably are just a symptom of the EC and then ET....the EC obviously leaves you feeling very tender and sore anyway and the ET can cause uterine contractions from where the catheter is inserted via cervix into the womb....so this could well be what's causing cramps during IVF....in natural cycles, again, it's pretty common to get all sorts of aches, pains and twinges from ovulation onwards, I know I do.

However, I have had occasions on treatment cycles (think it was both FETs actually) when I was prescribed clexane and prednisolone and few days following ET I got terrible sharp shooting pains which made me catch my breath and I was quite warm with flushes....I mentioned it to our consultant and he said it could "possibly" be where my body was attempting to reject the embryos but obviously no way of saying for certain....as I mentioned before, both these FETs resulted in chemical pregnancies.  When I conceived naturally and have had early miscarriages, I've had no indication I was even pregnant, let alone going to experience a miscarriage.

I would definitely take the advise of Caz and request further Prednisolone from your consultant for at least the duration of 2ww.  If we'd achieved a good BFP (ie HCG levels higher than what we had !) then I have to take Prednisolone (and Clexane) until at least 12 weeks.

Good luck
Natasha


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## Cammie (Aug 12, 2008)

Thanks Caz & Natasha...
Sounds like very good advice to me!  Unfortunatley my RE has left the clinic (disagreements with the other gynes)  however he has agreed to come in and do my tranfer on Wednesday, Which I am very grateful for, but I finish my tablets on Monday and have no contact details for him.. I called the nurse to ask whether I should be taking the tablets for longer and all she said was that the effects will last for longer than 5 days and just to do as my doctor told me   - but that is typical of the nurses at my clinic  
My RE is the only RE where I live and I like him a lot.  However I must say that australia seems to be a bit behind with the whole of the immune testing thing.  

I've been worried about the pains for a while now and that's why I demanded a Lap (minimal endo was found but RE does not think that this is the reason for my infertility).  Today (exactly 2 days after ovulation the pains started again - wondering if it is just some left over endo! or the fact that I ate wheat today).  The other pain I get is serious sore bbs at this time too.  I honestly feel that on so many occassions that there is a embie trying to tuck in there but my body just goes beserk!!!

My RE really believes that its just a matter of timing, i took the smallest amount of stim drugs and got 7 eggs - 1 was immature, 2 dropped off after day 4 and of the 4 remaining 1 was a day 5 and the other 3 were day 6.  My RE just thinks that it is all to do with egg quality!  I'm confused now.  If they are getting to blasts does that not mean that they are good quality or does it mean if they take 6 days instead of 5 to make it to blasts then they are poorer quality..
This is oh so confusing 

I totally understand what you said Natasha about when you were pregnant that you didn't have any symptoms at all - I've convinced myself that the month where I don't get any symptoms is the month that I will get pregnant.  I too get the sharp pains and hot flushes.
btw the prednisolone makes me so hungry - I'm waking up absolutely starving!
Thank you girls for taking time to answer my questions   
A problem shared is a problem halved... 
C x


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## Caz (Jul 21, 2002)

> My RE really believes that its just a matter of timing, i took the smallest amount of stim drugs and got 7 eggs - 1 was immature, 2 dropped off after day 4 and of the 4 remaining 1 was a day 5 and the other 3 were day 6. My RE just thinks that it is all to do with egg quality! I'm confused now. If they are getting to blasts does that not mean that they are good quality or does it mean if they take 6 days instead of 5 to make it to blasts then they are poorer quality..
> This is oh so confusing


If you got 7 eggs on a really small dose that's great! Just wonder what you'd get on a slightly higher dose, although quantity doesn't necessarily mean quality. 
The problem with taking embryos to blast stage is that you will almost certainly lose some along the way - which is kind of the point because it means you know the ones you are putting back are the ones that are advancing and, tus, that's why blastocyst transfers do have greater chance of working. 
To be honest, getting 3 blasts out of 6 embryos sounds like a great result to me! I have seen a few examples of it taking until day 6 to get to blast stage (including some that ended with little babies) so it obviously does happen although I am not an expert so don't know what they would say about it but to me it seems it could just be a matter of timing (i.e. if they fertilised or divided in the afternoon rather than the morning it might make a difference). I still don't see how 3 blasts from 7 eggs can be considered a quality issue!  
Is it possible that you can get your RE to prescribe you more predisolone when you see him for ET? Failing that, bypass the nurses (don't they always seem to know better?  ) and try and get an appointment with another cons there who, maybe can prescribe them.... or your GP (or Aussie equivilent)? My GP prescribed my preds for me once I had confirmation from the clinic I needed to take them. It was the only flipping thing the NHS did fund for me tx wise and, as I had to pay prescription fee it probably cost me more than the clicni's own phramacy anyway! 

Other than that I don't know what to advise? Statistically you're not actually looking "bad" in terms of fertilisation rates etc. and as FETs do have a lower chance of succeeding I daresay you're not raising alarm bells with anyone at your clinic as a repeat failure case just yet. I know that probably doesn't help much, considering you have had so much disapointment prior to IVF but I know that's probably how "they" see it. 

If this cycle doesn't work then I would definitely advise pushing for something different with your next cycle to improve your odds - perhaps that does mean immune testing and looking around to see who / where you can get this done if at all.

Although, obviously, I hope that doens't become necessary anf you do get a BFP this time. 

C~x


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## Cammie (Aug 12, 2008)

Hi Caz
Thanks for taking the time to reply to me   
You have made a really good point about not raising alarm bells for repeat failure.  I'm sure people may think I'm worrying too much too soon.  It's just when you are aching so much for a baby and you are trying so many years then the alarm bells are contantly ringing in your own ears!
I know I had good results with 4 blasts out of 6 eggs.  But now my RE is saying that not every blast makes a baby.  
Just one last question and please let me know if you think i'm a total    - I've checked back over my diary for the last 4 months.  exactly 2 or 3 days after ovulation I have the following symptoms

Sore bbs
High temp
Hot stomach
Then I get Something that feels like food poisoning
The next morning 
Freezing cold stomact, no pains in bbs and feel cold all over.

All of this happened again this month (last night) and I was on Perdnisolone  

Do you think I'm making too much of these symptoms  and worrying needlessly??  I know they can't be implantation pains as it takes longer than 2 to 3 days for the egg to travel to the uturus and like you said before it would be very unusual for someone to have such that much physical symptoms of rejection of embryo's..

Anyway Caz thanks again for all your support and time - I'm going to demand some more perdnisolone on day of ET.
Wish you all the best on your own journey

C x


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## Caz (Jul 21, 2002)

Cammie said:


> You have made a really good point about not raising alarm bells for repeat failure. I'm sure people may think I'm worrying too much too soon. It's just when you are aching so much for a baby and you are trying so many years then the alarm bells are contantly ringing in your own ears!


Ah bless you.  You know you're dead right - when it's yourself you're talking about there's no such thing as too much worry.
In my case I only had immune testing done after my second cycle ended in m/c becuase I had really good embryos replaced and a fantastic tripling beta level (indicating a good strong pregnancy) to start with and then, it all went wrong. I don't think either myself or my cons expected it to throw up a problem but I was angry and upset and wanted answers and it was just one more thing to tick off. My NK cell levels came back just over acceptable and activity wise normal (activity is, apparently, more the concern than the numbers) but just worrying enough to put me on the preds next time. I subsequently went through 2 2wws on preds and asprin without so much as a flicker of a BFP. I had my NK cells tested again before my last cycle and they were just the right side of normal on that occasion!  But, because I still had repeated failures under my belt depsite great quality embryos and text book cycles, and because we simply didn't know what else to do, I stayed on the preds for that last time, increasing to starting them with stims instead of after EC and it worked. I'll never really know if they made a difference but for me or if I just got lucky that time but it was "doing something" that might help that seemed important at the time and I would not have been happy cycling again without doing something different IYKWIM.

As for your symptoms, I dont think you're making too much of it because it's obviously somethign playing on your mind and, even if it is not immune symptoms, it would be intertesting to know what / why you go through them. In my albiet laymans experince, it seems all sorts of weird and wonderful things can be thrown up at the time of ovulation, including temperature changes - not sure if you've ever done Basal Body Temperature charting but a temp peak / trough is often seen ands indication of ovulation so may be a more extreme variation on that that you are experiencing. Also, prior to ovulation you get a huge wallop of lutenising hormone released into your system (your LH surge) and maybe you are experiencing after effects of this. Some ladies claim to feel ther follicle popping, i.e. in a sharp pain in that area although I can't say I've ever noticed myself amongh the general aches and groans of endo...or maybe I have and mistaken them for endo pains?  
I think, as you say, it's extremely unlikely that you will have a fertilised egg fail to implant every single month since you started monitoring it so I can only conclude your symtoms are not indicative of an immune repsonse to an embryo attempting to implant and are either an immune / allergic response to something else or more likely the effects of other mechanisms at work. I know in Chinese medicine having a cold womb is thought to be one reason for infertility and a lot of acupunctre etc. is aimed at stimulating blood blow - therefore warmth and nurtition - to your reproductive organs. Not sure if that helps at all? I also know that some ladies on FF are trying high fish oil diets as omega 3 is suppsedly good for lowering immune responses. I really am by far from the best equipped person to advise. You will probably find the ladies on the Immunolgy boards have a much greater wealth of knowledge that me on that subject!

^goodlcuk^ with your RE. Don't let him leave the room until he's given you the script! 

C~x


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## Cammie (Aug 12, 2008)

Thanks Caz, you are so good with all the help you have given me. Thank you for your support and all the good information especially the insight into how you determined that you had immune issues. I guess I am just jumping on the bandwagon as someway of explaining all the pains I'm getting and the fact that I'm not pregnant yet. Well I'm in such pain now that I may actually call my doctor and ask whether it is a good idea to put on the transfer for another month. Something just clicked in what you said below 
Some ladies claim to feel ther follicle popping, i.e. in a sharp pain in that area although I can't say I've ever noticed myself amongh the general aches and groans of endo...or maybe I have and mistaken them for endo pains? 
Perhaps what I'm feeling is just pain and simple endo pain   and perhaps i'm making something out of nothing. Last night I was awoken by such sharp pains in my kidneys and down my right had side and into my legs - from what I've read they are all symptoms of endo. Everytime I urinate (sorry!) I feel like everything inside of me is going to fall out 
I hope one day I get to put a picture of my little one up on this site. You're little one looks really cute & cheeky    how lovely!
     
C x


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