CD7: Self Medicating

There's a lot of talk these days on the immunology board about infections and infertility. Dr. Toth's work in this area is amazing to say the least. Dr. Moustache likes to seem as though he's doing everything on the planet, and that he is immune friendly as well, but he falls short when it comes to "certain tests" such as serotonin, cytokines, thyroid function, LADs, etc. He also doesn't act with much proactiveness with respect to potential infections.

Dr. Moustache's office tested us both for mycoplasma and ureaplasma last December. We both tested negative, but these two microbes often evade detection by standard lab tests. Even the CDC says that current testing is "lacking". We took our doxycycline at that first cycle but that was about it. I recently found a couple of leftover scipts for doxy and went and filled them. I think I have a 15 day supply at this point.

I phoned the office at Dr. Moustache's yesterday and said that I realize they think I don't need to take doxy, but that I'd like to do a course of antibiotics anyways. They phoned back and said I could start them right before transfer. Dr. Toth's research shows that he often has patients do 3 weeks of doxy (100mg, twice a day) as part of a general course of action. So rather than wait to start my doxy, I think that I'll start today, 100mg, twice a day for 10 days. That will put me at CD17, which should be damned close to transfer. I can continue on with Dr. Moustache's doxy protocol at this time and continue on for another couple days.

This seems like the safest option to make sure that an infection is kept at bay. I realize that Dr. Toth uses many other antibiotics like Augmentin, but this is what I have got to work with for now.

I feel a bit nervous self-medicating, but a lot of us infertiles wind up doing this because we don't have as much confidence in our REs as we did in the beginning. Or, we do research on our own and find that there are methods or treatments that our REs are ignoring for one reason or another. I am pessimistic. I think many REs, maybe mine, are partly in this for the $$ and that when we fail an IVF cycle, we then become potential "repeat customers". The REs that say that they don't care about their stats and will treat anyone scare me the most. IMHO, they're more likely to fall victim to the "repeat customer" scenario.

Scarily, that's my RE. He'll treat anyone. He doesn't even bother to test for CD3 FSH. Even DB believed in that and so do many REs. And I think that is why I am self medicating. He's a great RE when it comes down to it, but I worry that because he doesn't have to give a hoot about his stats that he might not pull out all the stops for me.

It is irrational that I continue to see, but I do so because his stats are good despite his not caring about them.