Here is what I found out from someone 40+ that goes to Kato and found success. They routinely recommend certain blend of supplements that are targeted to improve mitochondrion, so these supplements are actually proven mitochondrial nutrients. The label of the product says that it is evidenced to improve egg quality (I haven't found the research paper on this, hopefully it is published in English)

That particular lab-quality blend is only sold within Japan, but here are the ingredients

CoQ10 (Kaneka QH) 50mg - I think you can get this in the US, my Healthy Origins uses Kaneka
L'Carnitine - 200mg
alpha lipoic acid 50mg
Resveratrol 5mg

The mg stated above is the weight of the purified ingredients themselves, as opposed to the packaging mg.

Here is the website for this product, it is called IVF supplement, all ingredients made in Japan or USA
http://www.nature-g.com/shohin/naturesgift/07.html#

Thanks for sharing this!

I already take the Q10 and resveratrol. I didn't realize resveratrol helped egg quality, but that's a bonus! I'll probably add L'Carnitine & alpha lipoic acid as well. I'm already a major a pill popper! Another couple antioxidants couldn't hurt

for age 40-44, blast formation rate per retrieved embryo is 49.5% for natural fertilization and 40% for ICSI! Then, the frozen blast transfer has a live birth rate of 17.7%!

Which means, for every embryo retrieved, the live birth rate is 8.8%. Now if you do this for 12 cycles straight, your cumulative live birth rate is 67% (1-(1-0.088)^12).

I am all for 67% live birth rate over 12 cycles. In fact, from what I read, for all the women even in the mid-40s cycling there, as long as they keep cycling for 12-24 months, almost all of them walk away with a baby, which I think is evidenced by Alexis Stewart's experience.

Btw, the above data is for high FSH/DOR poor responders like myself, because only people like us would go for mini-IVF instead of one grand round of CCRM conventional IVF.

This is a game about patience and repeated cycling at a top lab that can grow blasts.

I know 3 data points including myself:

Me age 42.5 38% over 4 cycles
Patient B age 42 75% over 2 cycles
Patient C age 44 50% over 8 cycles (she can't retrieve eggs each cycle)

You need normal embryos. A precious commodity in our age group I made 12 blasts over 3 cycles at the age of 44 and no take home babies. The ones that stuck were abnormal. I think I've mentioned this before but I used to follow a huge thread with CCRM patients. In our age group, making blasts does not seem to equate into very many normal embryos in our age group. It's just the reality of our situation. It does happen for some, but not most. It's also misleading to group these stats together. The fertility of a 42 year old is quite different than that of the fertility of a 40 or 44 year old. I don't think this is something that you can just throw money at and come out on top. As for Alexis Stewart, you know I think she used DE's. I don't even want to get into the wisdom of doing 24 cycles unless they are completely natural. I also don't think that you can assume only high FSH'ers or DOR patients do mini-IVF. Many do it for the low cost and low or no drugs. My bottom line is this- ability to make blasts or not, ability to produce a large number of follies or not, age will always be the greatest determining factor in whether or not one will get a take home baby.

Not trying to be a downer, but this is just how I see it.

Agreed!! My take is it is plain luck on whether the cycle you choose to do IVF has a golden egg. Even if you hit a good egg, it may not implant! Not being a downer either but it still is nice to hear some positive stats for 4O+ crowd!! I still believe you can do the supps, like ubiquitol, and vitamins and push luck in your favor!

You are right in saying that a blast doesn't equal a normal embryo, but a blast is better than no blast. It is a step closer to success than further away. The abnormal ratio of blast is lower than that of embryo, as proven by research papers. Yes, you still get abnormal embryos among blasts but you've already weeded out the weakest. Those embryos that don't make blasts have no chance at a competent lab.

However, you and I differ in the way that I do believe this is a numbers game. If I had all the money in the world, I would choose to cycle every month till I hit menopause, and I think that will almost guarantee me at least one live birth.

MIR, are there risks at all with cycling continuously for years? Do we need to be worried about any risks or are the worries just in our heads? Does the Kato clinic talk about any of risks?

That is why its protocol is trying to limit the total intake of Clomid in a cycle, such as 50mg daily for less than X days each cycle, I think x=15. I misplaced the paper on my PC so I need to dig it out.

It addresses the concern of cancer risk from long-term usage by limiting the total exposure each cycle, and the guideline is seemingly set by historical data of Clomid use not in IVF but in general. Since the Teramoto protocol uses very little injectables only for booster purposes, there is no discussion of the inherent risk.

Also, most older women (44+) do a combination of natural and mini instead of just mini. Kato has a pricing scheme of 2/3 money-back guarantee for no pregnancy (defined as 9 weeks gestation and onwards) for under 44, and a steep discount of 50% off for 2nd cycles onwards, it seems to me that their sub-44 patients may not even go through that many cycles, or else they would have gone broke given the way the price their IVF.

Please do a simple google search. There has been a link shown between Clomid use and ovarian cancer. I believe the link was shown in women that used Clomid for 12 months. This is why most Drs only recommend 6 months of use and then possibly another 6 months when broken up. This is why IMHO you can't just play this "numbers game" without potential consequence. There are no longer term studies on Clomid use or if lowering the dosage causes harm or not that I know of. I would not want to be a guinea pig. In any case, do your own research so that you can make an infirmed decision. I have not heard of a similar link with injectibles, but who knows.

I actually asked a couple of oncologists about the study you talked about, and none of them said it was conclusive. On top of this, I have very close monitoring of my ovaries, and when I achieve a live birth, I will electively take out my ovaries (bringing on menopause early).

In life, there are risk and rewards. For my OE child, I am willing to go to whatever length it takes to get there.

Without a doubt...you have done your research and have made a decision for yourself based upon the same. I was speaking to the poster that asked the question. People should be made aware of as much as possible before making these types of decisions. While some oncologists you may have spoken to feel this study was not conclusive, there are many more that feel otherwise as borne out by a simple search on the internet. The poster should know this so that she can make an intelligent decision and not one with half of the information. More importantly, there are no longer term studies beyond 12 months on the use of Clomid-whatever the dosage.

What you may be willing to risk to have an OE child, the next person may not.

I asked Dr. Ch,eck about injectibles and he felt that pure FSH meds are similar to the FSH produced in your own system. So when a woman is in menopause, they continuously put out FSH of over 50,(probably more on the order of over 100 every month). He felt that injectibles are just increasing the amount of FSH in your system. When you take low dose, your FSH may go up to about 30 or so, which is less than a woman in menopause. Therefore, he felt comfortable that low dose stim meds do not increase your risk since your FSH is on the order of a perimenopausal woman. And his point was that the women in menopause, who will have FSH in the 100's forever are not taking out their ovaries.

He felt the biggest risk was the increase in estrogen. But for those of us with high fsh, we don't make that many follicles, so your estrogen only goes up to about 600 or so ( you are usually only producing one or two follicles). He felt this estrogen level was not a risk. Also, this level is only for a week or so and then goes down after retrieval or ovulation.

After he explained it to me, it seemed to make sense, and I felt more comfortable with taking injectibles. What do you ladies think?

To me, it's the estrogen risk, which is only a problem if you have lots of follicles. Mini or natural IVF is not going to cause this problem.

It helps to bounce off what we hear from RE's with the ladies on this board. The explanation from Dr. Che,ck seemed to make sense to me.

This makes sense to me and seems to be in line with the studies showing no increased cancer risk with injectibles.

Hope things are going well for you. Looking forward to hearing of your success very soon!!!

so it is really dependent on the overall estrogen level. But I don't think the duration is as important as the E2 level, because even if you are only exposed to E2 of, say, 10,000, for a week, it is enough stimulus to cause mutation. I would watch out for the overall E2 level first.

Most on low stim or mini are producing E2 well below 1000, so I won't consider that a big risk.

Thanks for sharing the info! Resveratrol is in red wine so maybe we should be drinking up!

Love the knowledge you bring to the board! Anecdotally, on the cycle that I got the two normal blasts I was taking all of the mentioned supplements. This sort of stuff is such a no-brainer; can't hurt, could help!

this is not how statistics work. You do not have a 67 percent chance over 12 cycles. We've been through this before, I'm not going to rehash it. It is not cumulative.

What part of her math do you not agree with? I tutor math part-time, and teach probability. I completely agree with her calculation; it's how I would teach my students to figure this out.

BTW, please post your name, not anon.

I posted under Anon because I knew YOU would respond this way. It's incorrect, and insulting. That means 100 percent would succeed after 17 cycles. It is NOT cumulative. I will not respond again to any posts here.

Sounds like you have some personal issue with me. Do tell. I think that I've been nothing but kind and supportive to those here, and I'm interested to hear how I have offended you.

You clearly have a lot of bitterness and I'm sad that you feel compelled to attack me. It's pretty cowardly of you to post as anon; woman up and post with your name.

Also, you clearly don't understand MIR's calculation if you come up with 100%. That would absolutely NOT be the result using her calculation.

I am pretty sure that I know who you are. I'm sorry that you haven't found success, but there is no justification to lash out at those who have. I went through HELL getting to where I am. I'm truly sorry for you that you are so bitter and angry, when everyone here (including me) has been supportive of you.

with that response? don't be a troll. if you don't agree you don't have to respond in that manner.

Your support is appreciated!

Hello all. It wasnt me who posted as anon, and while the tome is quite hostile, the message is valid. With probability (which is a statistic that describes chance), you cannot cumulate. There is a 50% chance of tossing a coin result heads. You toss once and get tails. If you toss a second time, you still have a 50% chance of getting heads. Each toss is independent of previous or subsequent tosses. They are independent, and have no "consideration" for previous outcome.

HTH

It was not meant to be hostile, it's just extremely tiresome to see misinformation spread that is so completely wrong and hugely misleading. It's been done so many times on the board over the years, this fuzzy math, and it's beyond incorrect and potentially damaging to someone who may say - oh, my chance is 67 percent over 12 cycles, sign me up for 75,000 now! Also by that logic, 100 percent would succeed, and that is simply NOT true. BTW - there has been ONE IVF success on THIS board - only OVER 40, not 39, in YEARS - ONE. Let's not mislead people. Most of the successes are natural.

Because it did come across that way when you made it personal. Again, if you have a problem with me, just post with your name and I will gladly apologize if I have done anything to offend you.

If you look at the over 40 timeline there have been lots of IVF successes. Also, there are exciting new developments in IVF technology including:

--supplements that improve egg quality
--CGH and ways to test the chromosomal integrity
--low, mini, and natural IVF and blast banking
--improved freezing methods (vitrification)
--ICSI ensuring fertilization
--general lab improvement
--more REs knowing and specializing in how to help this population

I think that this is really exciting and is the wave of the future for the 40+ crowd. It won't help everyone, of course, but it could help a fair number.

If someone wants to spend the money and try, I hate to see her talked out of doing so. Sure, she should know that the odds aren't great in one cycle, but over twelve cycles they should be considerably better. It took me FIVE attempts at IVF and I had to consult at four different REs. Some of this IS a matter of persistence (for some, not all, of course). Had people here not encouraged and helped me (including the woman from this board who helped me find me last RE) I don't know what would have happened. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know that I was 39 and that isn't 45, but 39 is not so different from 40 or even 41. I am going to stay on here encouraging people to go for it if that is what is in their hearts. If they choose another path I fully support that too. I just want happiness and peace for everyone here.

Also, please look at my post up above explaining MIR's calculation and how she got it. If you still disagree with her math please share.

Hi Darrius,
I did not for a second think that it was you. MIR's calculation is valid, though, IMO. Here's why:

The sum of all probabilities of a particular outcome is 1. For example, if there is 50% chance of rain that is .5 and a 50% chance of no rain that is .5. Together they total 1.

When you want to see what the chances are that something will happen over multiple opportunities, you take all the chances that it won't happen and multiply them together. You subtract that figure from 1. That is the chance that something will happen at least once during a given time frame.

For example, let's say that we flip a coin three times and we want at least one head. One head, two heads, or three heads would all be okay (in any order). So they only thing that we DON'T want is all tails. The probability of a tail flip is 1/2, so the probability of all tails is 1/2*1/2*1/2 or (1/2) to the third power, which is 1/8. Thus, the chance of at least one head is 1 - 1/8 or 7/8. You can even write out the scenarios and see that there are eight possible and seven include at least one head.

In this case, if you try for twelve months the only thing you DON"T want is to fail all twelve months. I believe MIR's number was something like 17% succeed monthly, or 83% fail (something like that). Thus, if you try mini IVF for twelve months, your chances of success are 1 - (.83)^12th power.

Admittedly, this is an imperfect calculation. You can't just cycle 1000 times; after about 44 your chances drop so much that you can't include those cycles. A 40 year-old will have a better chance than a 44 year-old. But this is the data MIR had for the 40-44 age group.

I hope that this helps clears up why I DO believe that this is a valid calculation. And I hope that everyone can see that some people will never succeed with this calculation . . . it will approach but never reach 1.

thanks for sharing all your research.............I have learned tons from you and all the wonderful ladies here!! May G-D bless us all with that 'golden' egg and come home with healthy babies!! Jainee