IVF......How to save costs!

milkydrink

fsdss wrote:

ivf is very emotionally strenuous on your body and relationships, i have been through 7 cycles starting at age 26 (37 now) and obviously with many failures, happily now i have 2 children, but not without alot of pain, health scares, ivf nearly cost me my life, and i ended up on life support. the most i ever paid was £1800 and that was because i had a supportive gp who prescribed my medication

Congrats on your children :-)
You were really lucky with your GP, I think the PCT has a lot to do with it as well.
Can I ask you were you got it for £1,800? As I'm looking at £4,000 ish!

Thanks
Kim

fsdss

kimevans wrote:

Congrats on your children :-)
You were really lucky with your GP, I think the PCT has a lot to do with it as well.
Can I ask you were you got it for £1,800? As I'm looking at £4,000 ish!

Thanks
Kim

i went through BUPA, as a private patient, the consultant also worked at a local hospital and is highly regarded, at the time we explained our financial circumstances with him and i was allowed to attend his clinic at the hosp. for bloods / scans etc, however the extraction / embriology and implantation of eggs were at BUPA. i agreed with the consultant initially to pay as you go so eg. £90 consultation but at the end i paid £1800 for a full cycle at BUPA. my last IVF was in 2002.
the 6th time i had IVF i overstimulated and ended up on life support, it was very painful and i couldnt really take it in to how close to death i apparantly was.

i have noticed though that there is a varying fee dependent on what your needs are, i have difficulty ovulating with PCOS there were no other concerns.

i have a friend who is going through her 3rd cycle, the first 2 were free however she is on holiday at the moment so i will ask her what her fee is.

Petal_3

Hi Heavenly

No particular advice apart from what's already been said 1) look into egg share (although this can be a problem if you don't produce many) and 2) Find out from your pct whether they will fund your drugs.

Good Luck with it all - I'm the very fortunate mother of a 4 yr old son from my first cycle of IVF (I did have an unsuccesful cycle years ago with a different partner). We tried with our frozen embryos earlier this year for a sibling but no joy so have called it a day (and I'm now 44!) :eek:

I hope 2007 is your year!

~x~

LondonDiva

OP, it sounds as though there are some issues which need clearing up. The wait should be if you were having trouble conceiving naturally without any medical reasons for infertility.

In the first instance you need to make an appointment with your GP to work out what your options are. Questions to get clear are:

Who told you had to wait till you were 36?
Does your GP agree that IVF is your only option?
If IVF is your only option, what is the local policy to accessing it?
If you fall outside the criteria, what is the appeal process and will your GP support you during it?

fsdss wrote:

to reduce costs of ivf ask your gp if he will prescribe the medication for treatment, as this drains you financially....

the most i ever paid was £1800 and that was because i had a supportive gp who prescribed my medication

A GP who prescribes medication for an operation / procedure that the NHS has not agreed to pay for is BREAKING THE LAW. S/he can be had up for gross professional misconduct and fraud if the PCT has not agreed to pay for the procedure. As the costs that the organisation works out includes the drugs and an evaluation of risk in context, it is unethical and irresponsible behaviour.

The same goes for the methods that the consultant used, which would not withstand professional or financial scrutiny.

quietheart

If you are going to have IVF I recommend you do as much research as possible I really believe it will help your chances of success. Read up all the HFEA info on your local clinics, make appts to visit them and see what you think. Are you 100% sure you need IVF? I was told it was my only option, my first ivf was successful, 2nd resulted in miscarriage, I then went for eggsharing but was rejected despite being only 31 even though I responded well to drugs and made good embryos. if your FSH level in your bloods is over 10 you won't be accepted. I was then told I was menopausal but managed to conceive naturally the following month. With egg-sharing at my clinic it reduced the cost of a full cycle to less than £500. You have all the injections and see many eggs you produce, if you produce more than 4 you have to give half of your eggs to an anonymous recipient. You will not be told if they are successful in their treatment. You will need counselling to convince them you know what you are getting into (ie you might not be successful in having a birth child but could have a biological child out there). It's not easy and needs to be fully thought through, I think you have to be very giving and really want to help another person out as well as wanting to reduce your costs.
Finally I'd really recommened a pre-conception programme such as described at www.marilynglenville.com it recommends the best foods to eat and basically how to have your body at it's best ready to accept an embryo. I wsa doing this when I conceived naturally after many years of trying.
Lots and lots of luck, it's a horrible thing to go through but most people do get there in the end I really hope you are one of them.

heavenly_2

LondonDiva wrote:

OP, it sounds as though there are some issues which need clearing up. The wait should be if you were having trouble conceiving naturally without any medical reasons for infertility.

In the first instance you need to make an appointment with your GP to work out what your options are. Questions to get clear are:

Who told you had to wait till you were 36?
Does your GP agree that IVF is your only option?
If IVF is your only option, what is the local policy to accessing it?
If you fall outside the criteria, what is the appeal process and will your GP support you during it?

I have been on clomid for 6 months with no ovulation, my highest reading was last cycle which was 19.6 (they say over 30 for ovulation).
I have PCOS, causing irregular cycles which I take provera for.
And I have only one working tube, which was blocked.

I have now been put on the waiting list for ovarian drilling and have been given different medication to take alongside my clomid.

Basically at my consultation I was told that "we can try all these things but IVF is probably the only thing that will work"

the_devil_made_me_do_it

Aww heavenly, I empathise with you. I really hope you get this sorted out.

Good luck

Spendless

rovers wrote:

if you produce more than 4 you have to give half of your eggs to an anonymous recipient. You will not be told if they are successful in their treatment. You will need counselling to convince them you know what you are getting into (ie you might not be successful in having a birth child but could have a biological child out there). It's not easy and needs to be fully thought through, I think you have to be very giving and really want to help another person out as well as wanting to reduce your costs.

That is correct you won't BUT there has been a change in the law that children born from egg/sperm donation are allowed the details of who their donor was once they reach eighteen. You need to consider if you have failed IVF and remain childless how you would feel about your donated egg producing a child, who looks you up later in life. I'm not saying don't do it, but think everything thru carefully. I have a friend who can now only have children via egg donation (she has 1 child already) and she has had 2 failed attempts so it's a wonderful thing to do, just think it thru carefully.

If you don't qualify for nhs IVF, what about looking on the different boards for ideas on how to save the £3,000 needed. Good Luck :beer:

milkydrink

Do you watch A CHILD AGAINST ALL ODDS on BBC 1?
They featured a couple getting free IVF for egg sharing, the week before last - I have sky+ & watched it today.
It made me cry at the end, I always cry at the end of it, with happiness or sadness, I looked at my husband & he was crying too & hes a big tough looking guy, but soft as butter underneath, LOL.

Not sure if it's finished now, was a great series.

Carmina_Piranha_3

i think it was the final episode this week. we just got ntl on-demand and the final 2 programmes are on there. i watched the one about egg sharing and it was really interesting.

i'm no expert because i got pregnant naturally after 3 years, the doc finally agreed to talk about clomid at the next appointment, i was having a lap and dye before then and got pregnant immediately afterwards. that's no help for pcos, it was endometriosis that it helped, probably.

but anyway, i used to be in a pcos email group and different treatment were discussed all the time. also, the consultant who did the lap told me that ovarian drilling can often restore fertility because it reduces the hormone imbalance. she was going to put me down for that next but i didn't need it.

there's a chance that if you have the drilling things might improve to the point where clomid might work better, but don't take my word for it. also, have you tried metformin? it might be worth asking about. it helped my acne and hair loss and i started to ovulate more frequently (i can tell when i ovulate, it's worse than PMS lol!). metformin use in pcos is becoming more widespread and even if not prescribed for fertility you might get it prescribed for acne. my consultant didn't really know much about it but he read that it reduced acne so that's why he gave it to me.

good luck with everything! (and yes, IVF rules vary. my sister's neighbour in her 20s is on the waiting list for it despite already having 2 children, one of which lives with her).