IVF For People Who Hate Shots
Good News For Infertile Couples Who Are Phobic Of Needles
Jan 25, 2009
During the IVF procedure, there are several different types of injections which will be used during the cycle.
Firstly, a drug such as Menopur will be injected on a daily basis to stimulate your ovaries to produce eggs. Normally, a woman would only produce one egg per cycle, but in IVF more are needed to create as many viable embryos as possible, so this drug will cause the body to produce an abnormal number of eggs.
Once you have a good store of mature looking eggs, which is confirmed by trans-vaginal ultrasound, you will then have more injections to shut down your ovulation. If you were to ovulate, all of the eggs would end up in your womb and they need to stay in the follicles so that the surgeon can harvest them.
This shut-down drug is normally a chemotherapy drug called buserelin acetate and is either given as an injection or a nasal spray.
After you have had your egg retrieved, the doctor will need to prepare your womb lining for the implantation of any embryos that have successfully divided, using the hormone progesterone. This is either given as an intramuscular injection or as a vaginal pessary.
I Hate Needles! What Can I Do?
Many people are scared of needles and the pain associated with them. Some women have even put off having IVF because of the treatment they will have to go through. As there are so many injections over a long period of time, the woman herself will be taught how to self-inject, and this is terrifying for some.
At this time, the stimulating drugs are always given by injection so you will not be able to avoid those, but you can reduce your shots:
- Your shut-down injections can be given as a nasal spray, so if you're really phobic, ask for this instead.
- Intramuscular injections are particularly painful, but you don't have to have these either, as your progesterone can be given as a pessary.
Vaginal Progesterone Is Equally Effective at Achieving Pregnancy
According to a study supported by Columbia Laboratories, a progesterone vaginal pessary was just as effective at achieving pregnancy as an intramuscular injection. 225 patients were studied. 120 of them had the injection and 105 had the vaginal pessary.
Of those who had the pessary, there was a 58.1% pregnancy rate and a 51.4% delivery rate (as some babies do not survive pregnancy). In the injection group, there was a 53.3% pregnancy rate and a 48.3% delivery rate. So in fact the pessary appears to be slightly more effective than the injection.
Dr. Brian Berger, who presented the study to the Pacific Coast Reproductive Society, said
'We found no significant differences in pregnancy outcomes between patients treated with vaginal progesterone versus progesterone administered intramuscularly. Further, vaginal progesterone has the added advantage of avoiding painful intramuscular injections.'
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