Can Ibuprofen Sabotage Conception?

So right after returning from India, I got super sick.  I mean like crazy, literally sleeping all day & all night for four days in a row, barely eating, cold/flu-like symtoms sick.

Don't worry, it wasn't anything I caught from travelling to India... more likely it was from travelling in general, after being stuck on planes for 20 hours in that dry non-circulating air, I was bound to come down with something.

As soon as I started to recover from that, I got my period (see yesterday's post).  So there went nearly another week.

After being down for the count for two weeks, I haven't been feeling too hot... just kind of tired and achy.  I've probably just been sitting at my desk for too long trying to get caught up on work.

Ok, so my purpose for sharing all this, is to illustrate why I've been taking a lot of over-the-counter medications lately.  Specifically ibuprofen.

This has been my go-to-drug since I hit puberty in my pre-teens.  During the week of my period, I'll often take three 200-mg pills every three hours for the first three days!  Later, in my mid-twenties when I unknowingly suffered from a herniated disk causing me chronic pain and sciatic nerve damage for three years, I self-medicated nearly daily with ibuprofen.

Since having back-surgery in 2008, I feel like I've become more of a normal person again with my ibuprofen intake, though it's still my preferred drug of choice whenever I get period cramps, headaches, or other random pains.

Anywhoo, like I said above, I've been feeling pretty crummy for the past (nearly) three weeks or so, and B noticed me taking a lot of ibuprofen just to get through the days.  

So he became concerned and started doing some simple googling and showed me this: http://www.conceiveonline.com/articles/which-medicines-could-affect-your-chances-getting-pregnant.

In this article, it states the following about ibuprofen:

"Common pain relievers such as the NSAIDs (non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, which include Advil, Motrin, and Aleve) can sabotage conception, particularly if taken regularly. They may block production of prostaglandins, hormone-like chemicals that regulate inflammation and temperature. But they may also throw off the release of an egg each month. If you’re trying to get pregnant, stop taking ibuprofen from right before ovulation. 'But it’s perfectly alright to take it for menstrual cramps,' says Dr. Carson. Or try acetaminophen (Tylenol) instead."

So this was on Monday night... and of course after some additional quick googling on my part (I even found this one now while searching for an image for this post: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/sep/06/ibuprofen-warning-to-pregnant-women), I found enough chatter on this subject (none of it disproving it, though nothing very scholarly either), that I quit taking ibuprofen cold-turkey.

It's now Friday and I feel like I'm dying!  So many aches & pains and I have to feel them all :(

But I'm in the midst of my fertile period, and of course, if I'm not taking ibuprofen right now and this happens to be the one and only time we've ever gotten pregnant, I'm going to have to blame everything on the loads of Advil I've been taking, lol!

When my period comes in a few weeks I'll load up again.  This will just be something I cut out for a while during the rest of my non-menstruating days of the cycle... just in case.

It's officially over

That's it, it's over.  Yesterday was the deadline for taking advantage of the health insurance program's offer to honor their misprinted rate of only $5600 for a fresh cycle of IVF.  It still kind of hurts to actually type out those words.  What a horrible missed opportunity.


I do feel like I have some closure now, because there is no option to change our minds and make it happen and go for it after all.  That time has passed, now we just have to move forward and accept our decision.


I marked the occasion by contacting my RE down in IL to tell her our decision finally.  It was through email, so no response yet, but what can I really expect her to say?  What can I expect anyone to say?


I contacted my local RE too to ask him why I can't use my Gonal-F pens for the IUI I'm doing in a couple of weeks.  My infertility angel friend (my friend's sister) told me she had used these kinds of injectables for some of the IUI's she had done before moving on to IVF.  Why should I waste ANOTHER opportunity when I have these expensive medications that were given to me for free?


He wants me  to use Clomid again.  Clomid doesn't do sh*t.  I used it for my first IUI and only got 2 follicles from it.  Of course I had the lowest dosage, but still.  Come on.  My friends on the Baby Center Forum who are all doing their IVF's right now are getting like 18 or more follicles from the injectables!  We'll see what he comes back with for a response (this was an email too).


I shouldn't say that about the Clomid either.  Two of my very close friends took Clomid, which regulated their cycles & ovulation and they were able to conceive naturally fairly quickly because of it.  One of them just gave birth two beautiful twin boys not too long ago!  The other one, not only did she get pregnant with her beautiful son because of Clomid, but her brother and his wife also took it and got pregnant with twins as well.  So Clomid definitely can work wonders and is a miracle drug for some... just not me.  Besides, ovulating isn't my problem, I do it like clockwork.  Like I've said before, I *wish* I could just take a simple pill and solve the problem behind our infertility issues.  But for us it is not going to be that simple, mostly because they can't find anything that is obviously causing the problem in the first place.


If my WI RE has a good reason why he won't use the Gonal-F with me, I'll donate them to the clinic down in IL.  The nurse there, Lucia, is another angel who collects unused leftover meds  for women in need.  She's the one who called me last Tuesday saying she had something for me.  Unfortunately it still wasn't enough though and I asked her to pass it along to another couple in need.  If I donate the rest of what I already have, maybe it will be like a good karma effect or something and when our time comes around again, someone will do the same for us.