Genesis Fertility Clinic Blog
searching: “fsh”
June 16, 2010
AMH
Fertility declines with age because egg number and quality decrease over time. This happens to all of us (unless you are a celebrity it seems! Ok, that’s a donor egg discussion I’ll leave for another entry).
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April 22, 2009FSH disappointment
My relationship with my patients is very important and there is nothing better than being able to help a patient fulfill their dream. But sometimes I have to deliver bad news. One of the most difficult things I have to do as a doctor is to tell a patient she has little or no chance of conceiving because her FSH is high.
FSH (Follicle Stimulating Hormone) is a hormone that the pituitary gland in the brain releases to grow eggs. As a woman ages and the number of eggs in her ovaries declines, the pituitary gland needs to release higher and higher amounts of FSH. So, FSH is a fairly good test of ovarian age and therefore fertility (older ovaries have eggs that are less fertile than younger eggs). There are other test of ovarian age that I use, but in general a day 3 FSH is a good start.
If a woman’s FSH is high – which generally means > 12 U/L – I worry. If the level is > 20 U/L I panic as this usually means there is little to no chance of a woman conceiving with her own eggs. While lots of babies are born to women with higher FSHs the chances go down as FSH goes up.
Telling a woman that her FSH is high and what that means isn’t easy but more importantly this is very, very hard news for her to hear. I have had to deliver news of a high FSH to women as young as 16. It’s tough and many women feel angry, sad, hopeless, lost and more. Some lash out on the internet, some isolate themselves, some enter a prolonged depression. There are options for women with high FSH including donor eggs and adoption but often women need a grieving period before they are ready to look at other possibilities for motherhood. The good news is that if they do decide to use donor eggs their chances of getting pregnant are excellent.
Delivering bad news is an art… an art I am still learning.
For more information of ovarian aging you might wish to read this article
Dr. Beth Taylor, MD, FRCSC
Reproductive Endocrinology & Infertility