Signs of infertility
I don’t know about you but I get so confused with the difference between signs and symptoms – it’s so easy to get mixed up yourself when people use them interchangeably. Officially symptoms are what you experience – if you go to the doctor with your list of complaints and say that you feel dizzy and your knee is hurting, and your left shoulder gets cold quicker than the right, you are describing symptoms. If your doc checks your blood pressure and finds that it is quite low, or he pokes about around your knee and finds it swollen – these are signs.
Another way of saying it is that a sign is normally something that can be measured. So while you might experience the symptoms of infertility, your doctor will be also be looking for signs of infertility to find out exactly what is causing the symptoms and ultimately what is causing your infertility. Obviously, some symptoms will also be signs and vice versa.
Normally your doctor will find these clues by doings some tests or examinations – before you go cold with fear, most of the tests aren’t that bad, and you generally start with the easy ones first and move onto the others if you don’t find the problem.
Here are some of the tests for women:
• Basal Body Temperature – This one isn’t too invasive – you can do it at home. To find out when you’re ovulating, or whether you’re ovulating at all, the doc will ask you to keep a record of your temperature when you wake up every morning. You’ll use the same calendar to record when (if) you have your period and how long it lasts, and you should also make a mark on there when you have intercourse so you know if you’re doing it at the right time.
• LH (Luteinizing Hormone) Tests – You can check your urine for LH through the month because your LH levels go up when you ovulate.
• Ultrasound – This test can be used to check when you are ovulating by checking the size of the follicle that releases the egg. As you can imagine, this ovulating thing is pretty important in the whole ‘getting pregnant’ process.
• Hysterosalpingogram (HSG) – That even sounds uncomfortable! The doctor will insert some fluid into your cervix and then check the image on X-ray to see if the fluid flows through to the ovaries. This will help to show any blockages. Apparently this test sometimes cures the problem itself by washing away the blockage! If only more tests were like that!
• Laparoscopy – This is where the doctor puts a camera inside you, through your belly button, and takes a look inside to see if your tubes are blocked, or if there are any other visible problems.
• Blood tests – If you don’t like needles, now might be a good time to get used to them. If you do have infertility problems you will be seeing a lot of them. Blood tests will tell the doctor about your various hormone levels. For example, high levels of prolactin won’t help you because prolactin is the hormone that tells you to make milk for breastfeeding, and stops your body from making eggs; not helpful if you are trying to get pregnant! Blood tests can also give an idea of the number and quality of your eggs.
So obviously the first sign of infertility is the fact that you aren’t pregnant yet, but some of these other signs of infertility will help you and the doc to figure out what step to take next.
