Dianna’s PCOS Story

Names have been changed for confidentiality

I’ve known Dianna since 2003 when aged 28 she and her husband were referred to my fertility clinic by another colleague to help her get pregnant with her PCOS.

Dianna was diagnosed with PCOS as a teenager and back then, was commenced on the contraceptive pill by her family doctor to control her periods.

She had stopped the pill at age 26 years in order to become pregnant. After 6 months of no periods she was commenced on the ovulation induction fertility tablet – Clomiphene Citrate (also called Clomid) – to help her ovulate and get pregnant.

But after 6 cycles of increasing Clomiphene Citrate doses… she had not ovulated and was therefore resistant to the simple fertility treatment (see Getting Pregnant With Clomid).

Dianna’s weight and Body Mass Index (BMI) was in the normal range, however she did have Insulin resistance and was taking the tablet Metformin (also called Glucophage/ or Diabex). You can read further about Metformin in the Clinical Notes section Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome Treatment and Metformin.

I organised for Dianna to have further fertility tests to rule out other causes of infertility as well, before helping her to get pregnant on another fertility treatment regime. These were; a semen test for her husband and testing Dianna’s fallopian tubes to make sure they were open and not blocked. She also had a pelvic ultrasound to rule out any problems in the ovary and uterus.

To help Dianna and her husband to conceive I commenced her on the fertility treatment called Ovulation Induction using FSH hormone injections to grow and ovulate her eggs (Getting Pregnant With PCOS: Ovulation Induction). This fertility treatment is the next step up to help women with PCOS get pregnant when Clomiphene Citrate has failed.

During her FSH ovulation induction treatment it became obvious that more than 1 egg was going to grow and ovulate, giving her the risk of a multiple pregnancy. In fact more than 4 eggs grew, so her treatment was stopped. This is one of the risks with using ovulation induction as a fertility treatment for helping women getting pregnant with PCOS.

When this situation occurs, Invitro-fertilization – IVF – is the safest fertility treatment to use, as we can be more certain of one pregnancy happening rather than the risk of multiple pregnancy. (see Invitro Fertilisation (IVF) – Fertility Treatment).

Thankfully and at last! Dianna and her husband only needed one IVF treatment cycle to get pregnant. They had a beautiful little daughter called Sammy now aged 2 years and they’ve returned to me recently for my help with baby number two. This time, rather than “mucking around” with all the previous fertility treatments they will be having IVF.