Trying For a Baby II

becs

Ah Kencokenco :grouphug:

Don't give up hope! Your fab new doctor is willing to explore the avenues with you so he must think it's worth trying. As you said Clomid wasn't monitored properly the last time you tried it so please try and stay positive. I don't have any experience of Clomid but I can tell you what an incredible difference the right doseage etc of medication does! I started Bromocriptine 12 months ago after being diagnosed with a pituitary tumour that was produing prolactin. Because of this my prolactin levels were too high so I hadn't had an AF for over a year. within 4 weeks of starting 1mg a day of bromocriptine af reappeared and all appeared normal. It wasn't until levels were checked again in January and still too high I went to 2mg a day still an incredibly low dose. My levels have now dropped unbelievably and are absoloutely normal and it has brought my ov day down from CD22 to CD13 again within 2 months and the difference has been astounding. I have gone from absoloutely zero CM to loads this month (sorry TMI). So my point is medication is an extremely powerful thing if done correctly and if not then it doesn't do it's job properly. Please please keep positive and have faith that your new doctor is the one who knows what he is doing and not your old one!

kencokenco

Becs can I ask how did you find out about the tumour. I only ask as this was mentioned to me a while back as a possibility. Due to the fact I had no af for yrs and then started to get extremely bad headaches with some bad pressure. My normal gp said they are migraines but they drive me mad some days, I have also put on a little weight, not alot but a bit and I ust wonder what your signs / symptoms were. If you had any.
thankyou.

MadMac_2

Kencokenco, I agree completely with Becs, don't give up all hope as medication and assistance might make all the difference to your situation. Hang in there and of course come on here and rant as much as you like - we don't mind! Many of us sympathise completely and just want success for each other, even if it means jumping through many hoops to get there!

Huge hug to you and lots of positive thoughts being sent your way xx

becs

Hi Kencokenco,

My main symptom was no AF for over a year although I do get kind of pressure/tension headaches at the front but not enough to have caused me to worry about anything. I have also gained weight although quite alot over the past couple of years and now find it virtually impossible to lose any despite having tried numerous healthy eating plans/diets and even slimming pills but we do have a pretty healthy diet. Not going to say 100% virtuous but generally majority healthy home cooked not processed food with normal size portions.
Anyway I digress, the tumour was suspected from a blood test that my GP did to test prolactin levels. Apparantly a lot of GP's don't test for this which seems utterly bizzare to me. She ordered the test and it showed I had very high prolactin so the test was repeated and again showed high levels. I then had to have an MRI scan to confirm the tumour, we paid for this ourselves as didn't want the wait on the NHS. The scan showed I had a 6mm tumour. My endochrinologist said at first meeting that it was just a tumour and not a prolactin producing tumour but still prescribed bromocriptine. My second meeting I had with him he changed his mind and said it was a prolactinoma (prolactin producing tumour) because of the way it had responded to the drugs.
Since being diagnosed I have joined various other support forums and there are an awful lot of women who spend years trying to convince their GP that something is wrong before they eventually get diagnosed. My advice would be to ask your GP or your new dr for a FULL set of bloods, this includes the usual FSH,LSH etc as well as cortisol as pituitary tumours can cause any of the hormones to be out of sync.

nickynoo08

Fingers crossed for you catherine H, dont give up kencokenco.

I'm totally confused. I wish i'd never bothered with opk's. I've been using them for 2months now and i'm getting confused with my results. I thought af was due this week ( i got a pos on opk on the 20th and 21st of april) but something made me do opk last night (dont know why i did it my gut just said to try) and it came back positive. I've not had a bleed and my tummy still feels odd but not like af is on her way. I found a hpt lurking in the back of my draw and did it first thing coz i'd read that opk's can sometimes detect pregnancy too and it was neg.

dizziblonde

AF's due next couple of days so I'm on pant patrol - been feeling utterly exhausted but I'm sure that's down to the hours I'm putting in at the gym more than anything promising.

Nikabella

nickynoo08 wrote: »

I'm totally confused. I wish i'd never bothered with opk's. I've been using them for 2months now and i'm getting confused with my results. I thought af was due this week ( i got a pos on opk on the 20th and 21st of april) but something made me do opk last night (dont know why i did it my gut just said to try) and it came back positive. I've not had a bleed and my tummy still feels odd but not like af is on her way. I found a hpt lurking in the back of my draw and did it first thing coz i'd read that opk's can sometimes detect pregnancy too and it was neg.

Nickynoo when I was using HPT's & OPK's after my miscarriage to try & figure out if my hcg was back to normal/if I was ovulating I found that the OPK's showed a lot stronger positives than the HPT's as the HPT's showed feinter & feinter positives each day. Which led me to think that maybe the OPK's are more sensitive to detecting a pregnancy than even a HPT - which seems a bit mad but looked to be true. (Just to point out the OPK's definitely weren't picking up ov as once the HPT's showed up negative so did the OPK's which stayed negative for about another 2 weeks till I did actually ov.) Hope that all makes some kind of sense to someone other than me!!!!

"Sorry for rant ladies but as I said feeling really low and worthless today as a women. I feel I have failed completely."
kencokenco - Please, please don't ever think that about yourself. Lots of women get pregnant & have children that they don't want & can't be bothered with - they certainly haven't suceeded as a woman - being a woman isn't about how how good you are at making/carrying a little bean, it's about many other things & one of which is how good you are at being a mother, which I'm sure one day you will be. I know things seems difficult at the moment but don't loose hope, we have friends who had to have IVF for their first as they were told they couldn't conceive naturally & then low & behold 3 years later they suddenly find they are pregnant again - nature has funny ways. Keep strong.

A.x

nunnygirl

nickynoo, this was on a website jha posted yesterday

opk as hpt

kencokenco

Hi thanks for that becs.

Im gonna ask my doctr about this as after further research my symptoms could me this. OHHH I dont know anymore. First im told it's pcos and then im told it could be cushings disease, but cushings disease is through be very very overweight which I am not. (although a little over weight) I eat healthy and dont have fatty foods etc but still no weight loss, even with rigorous exercise.

I just dont know what else it could be now. I even feel very dizzy every day around 12pm afternoon and have to go eat a biscuit or something to feel better, i get very hot and clammy during the episode as well. Even went to the extreme of thinking maybe it ws menopause (lol).

My mind is truly playing havoc with me at the moment. Well im seeing doctor on tuesday and will let you all know what is hapening next.

Baby dust to you all

becs

Hi kencokenco,

The only way to know for sure is the blood tests and MRI scan. Certainly many women have found with prolactinoma's weight gain and very difficult to lose weight. Also they are commonly misdiagnosed as PCOS as symptoms can be very similar. My GP thought initially mine was PCOS until obviously the blood tests showed up the high prolactin. Have a look at https://www.pituitary.org.uk as they have lots of useful info. Pituitary tumours they now think are far more common than they had forst thought. In America they've been looking to check for tumours on post mortems they do (completely unrelated to the patients death, but they just want to see how many people have them without ever knowing) and they'vc found it to be 25%. Going on that info there are hundreds of thousands of people who never get the diagnosis because they have no symptoms. Have you had your prolactin levels checked? My initial test came back at 1800 and it's now 150 to give you some idea of the levels. Even when they were first checked after starting the meds and af had returned they had dropped to 350 which I was told was normal. It appears that wasn't the case as now they're 150 I'm ov'ing on CD13 of my cycly instead of 23! I was looking on the pituitary website last night and high prolactin also causes lack of progesterone which will also stop ov and conception.
Sorry for highjacking the thread everyone but think it's useful for a lot of women to know about if they're having difficulty conceiving or problems with irregular cycles.
The main thing is Kencokenco, as scary as it sounds (my GP ringing on a friday evening telling me I had a brain tumour was perhaps not quite what I had expected to hear and was scared witless!) I have learned through my own experience and research now that it really isn't that big a deal, has no evil implications other than to be a pain when trying to conceive. But once diagnosed and given the right medication the majority of women go on to become pregnant within a couple of months! So stay positive! If I can be of any further help or you have any other questions, or anyone else does please don't hesitate to ask.