Your estrogen is high for baseline, which invalidates your FSH. FSH and estradiol work in contrast to each other — estradiol is secreted by a maturing follicle, which tells the brain to stop secreting so much FSH (follicle stimulating hormone). My RE wanted my baseline estradiol to be below 80 IIRC in order to correctly interpret my FSH.
Oh, wow, that’s really high estrogen for day 3! That’s more like a cycle where you have more than one mature follicle. Are you in the US? Maybe your doc uses different measurements?
The only way to lower estrogen is to suppress the maturation of a follicle in the ovaries, which would also invalidate FSH cause then you’d be manipulating the cycle in a different way, if that makes sense.
Oh that was actually my day 47 value. I had a super long cycle and we were trying to figure out what was happening.
My day 3 labs were:
AFC - 3
FSH - 10.66
LH - 4.25
Estradiol - 162.69
Progesterone - .33
This was back in August. I was diagnosed with DOR when I met with the RE after those results. My husband and I weren't trying to start a family yet so we chose to start trying asap to see if we could get pregnant spontaneously. It's been 8 cycles and I have only ovulated 3 of them. The past two cycles I've been on letrozole (one cycle at 2.5 mg - unsuccessful and the last one at 5 mg waiting for CD 21 to test progesterone). I need to quit my full time job at the end of the school year to get off my insurance which doesn't cover IVF and get on my husband's insurance. June can't come soon enough.
Thank you for the information!
Wow, that’s a lot — quitting your job to get insurance! I’m sure your doc told you, but your age is absolutely on your side. You are going to need more cycles to get as many embryos as the average 28yo, but your eggs are likely good quality. Hang in there!!!
It's so unfortunate. I live in a state where it's mandated to have coverage but of course my district's health insurance is a self funded policy so it is exempt from the mandate. His open enrollment is in November and we're not willing to wait until then to start IVF, especially since I have not been ovulating even with medication.
I'm thankful for figuring this out when we did. We weren't going to start trying until our 30s so I feel like the extra 2.5 years of time is super beneficial for our situation.
Interesting! And looking at this I definitely thought my estradiol was somewhat on the lower side compared to the Reference range. Appreciate the info. Thank you!
Oh! I just realized I didn't put that my Estradiol is in pmol/l. I did read some people had their results in pg/ml. Not sure if it makes a difference but if I were to do the conversion it works out to 44.13 pg/ml.
Ooooohhhhh in that case your estrogen is normal and your FSH is valid!
The reference range is confusing because almost any estrogen is normal depending on where you are in your cycle. Estrogen is produced by follicles in the ovary and as one gets bigger and bigger it produces more and more estrogen until it ovulated. At the beginning of your cycle, it’s typical for estrogen to be at your level — for reference, when you’re doing a baseline for IVF, my clinic likes to see estrogen below 50 on day 2-3 of my cycle.
I don’t know if your FSH units are the same as the ones we use in the US. If it is indeed the same, your FSH is on the higher end of normal but honestly I wouldn’t worry about it (and I say this as someone with DOR).
Ah I so very appreciate the detailed explanation! Thank you sooooo much! I have been using this fertility journey as a very in depth learning experience about my body and womb and have found so much joy in learning more about it.
FSH is measured in IU/L. So thank you for clarifying that. Because I did see that 9 was "high" but normal, then I saw things that said for my age I should be in the 7s etc. Just too much conflicting info online😅
So again, thank you so much. I really appreciate it❤️
Hi! Not sure if helpful but my FSH is high too at 12iu (I’m 32). However, my doctor wasn’t concerned as she said that my AMH was normal and my antral follicle count was good. I conceived 1 child without medical intervention only a year before that result was received so it must have been high then too. Basically, the bottom line the doctor gave me was your age, AFC and AMH are more helpful in assessing your fertility and you can conceive with higher FSH :)
I do have regular cycles usually between 27-32 days. I do have somewhat enlarged ovaries measuring at 11cc and 14cc but my Testosterone is not high and my cycles are not longer than 35 days so I do not qualify for the pcos diagnosis.
Yes my partner has had a semend analysis done and blood work already. His Dr says everything looks good.
Again, I'm just hoping someone can help me interpret the results I stated in my original post as I've found lots of conflicting info and I am not familiar with FSH. I was pretty educated by my naturopath regarding Estrogen, progesterone and Testosterone when we went over my DUTCH test results, but not FSH
I use LH strips to catch my surge/peak and I use tempdrop to track my temp. I keep track of all the data in fertility friend and have been able to confirm ovulation is happening.
Your estrogen is high for baseline, which invalidates your FSH. FSH and estradiol work in contrast to each other — estradiol is secreted by a maturing follicle, which tells the brain to stop secreting so much FSH (follicle stimulating hormone). My RE wanted my baseline estradiol to be below 80 IIRC in order to correctly interpret my FSH.
This is really helpful, thank you!
Is there a way to lower estradiol to get a true value of FSH? My estradiol was 367.5 with an FSH of 8.
Oh, wow, that’s really high estrogen for day 3! That’s more like a cycle where you have more than one mature follicle. Are you in the US? Maybe your doc uses different measurements? The only way to lower estrogen is to suppress the maturation of a follicle in the ovaries, which would also invalidate FSH cause then you’d be manipulating the cycle in a different way, if that makes sense.
Oh that was actually my day 47 value. I had a super long cycle and we were trying to figure out what was happening. My day 3 labs were: AFC - 3 FSH - 10.66 LH - 4.25 Estradiol - 162.69 Progesterone - .33 This was back in August. I was diagnosed with DOR when I met with the RE after those results. My husband and I weren't trying to start a family yet so we chose to start trying asap to see if we could get pregnant spontaneously. It's been 8 cycles and I have only ovulated 3 of them. The past two cycles I've been on letrozole (one cycle at 2.5 mg - unsuccessful and the last one at 5 mg waiting for CD 21 to test progesterone). I need to quit my full time job at the end of the school year to get off my insurance which doesn't cover IVF and get on my husband's insurance. June can't come soon enough. Thank you for the information!
Wow, that’s a lot — quitting your job to get insurance! I’m sure your doc told you, but your age is absolutely on your side. You are going to need more cycles to get as many embryos as the average 28yo, but your eggs are likely good quality. Hang in there!!!
It's so unfortunate. I live in a state where it's mandated to have coverage but of course my district's health insurance is a self funded policy so it is exempt from the mandate. His open enrollment is in November and we're not willing to wait until then to start IVF, especially since I have not been ovulating even with medication. I'm thankful for figuring this out when we did. We weren't going to start trying until our 30s so I feel like the extra 2.5 years of time is super beneficial for our situation.
I’m sorry you have to make such tough decisions and also glad you have the information you need to make them
Interesting! And looking at this I definitely thought my estradiol was somewhat on the lower side compared to the Reference range. Appreciate the info. Thank you! Oh! I just realized I didn't put that my Estradiol is in pmol/l. I did read some people had their results in pg/ml. Not sure if it makes a difference but if I were to do the conversion it works out to 44.13 pg/ml.
Ooooohhhhh in that case your estrogen is normal and your FSH is valid! The reference range is confusing because almost any estrogen is normal depending on where you are in your cycle. Estrogen is produced by follicles in the ovary and as one gets bigger and bigger it produces more and more estrogen until it ovulated. At the beginning of your cycle, it’s typical for estrogen to be at your level — for reference, when you’re doing a baseline for IVF, my clinic likes to see estrogen below 50 on day 2-3 of my cycle. I don’t know if your FSH units are the same as the ones we use in the US. If it is indeed the same, your FSH is on the higher end of normal but honestly I wouldn’t worry about it (and I say this as someone with DOR).
Ah I so very appreciate the detailed explanation! Thank you sooooo much! I have been using this fertility journey as a very in depth learning experience about my body and womb and have found so much joy in learning more about it. FSH is measured in IU/L. So thank you for clarifying that. Because I did see that 9 was "high" but normal, then I saw things that said for my age I should be in the 7s etc. Just too much conflicting info online😅 So again, thank you so much. I really appreciate it❤️
Hi! Not sure if helpful but my FSH is high too at 12iu (I’m 32). However, my doctor wasn’t concerned as she said that my AMH was normal and my antral follicle count was good. I conceived 1 child without medical intervention only a year before that result was received so it must have been high then too. Basically, the bottom line the doctor gave me was your age, AFC and AMH are more helpful in assessing your fertility and you can conceive with higher FSH :)
Appreciate that! Thank you
Hi. I think it is hard to say with this. Did you do LH? Progesterone? Why did they ask a blood work? What was the rationale?
The results I shared are the only results I've received. I'm doing blood work to look into my fertility as we are TTC with no luck so far.
Do you have regular cycles? Do you suspect PCOS?
I do have regular cycles usually between 27-32 days. I do have somewhat enlarged ovaries measuring at 11cc and 14cc but my Testosterone is not high and my cycles are not longer than 35 days so I do not qualify for the pcos diagnosis.
I see! I think maybe they will check a HSG and your partners SA as a next step.
Yes my partner has had a semend analysis done and blood work already. His Dr says everything looks good. Again, I'm just hoping someone can help me interpret the results I stated in my original post as I've found lots of conflicting info and I am not familiar with FSH. I was pretty educated by my naturopath regarding Estrogen, progesterone and Testosterone when we went over my DUTCH test results, but not FSH
Also, how long were you TTC? How did you track ovulation?
I use LH strips to catch my surge/peak and I use tempdrop to track my temp. I keep track of all the data in fertility friend and have been able to confirm ovulation is happening.
Yeah, I think next steps are HSG and SA.