Could Clomid Be Right For You
You may have heard friends rave over Clomid as the magic treatment that helped them to conceive. You're anxious to give this stuff a try, too. You've heard that Clomid is effective, inexpensive, and easy to take. Could Clomid be just the thing to help you conceive?
Complicated Process
It's important to consider that each fertility medication works on a particular aspect of conception and conception is a very complicated process. In assessing whether Clomid might help you, it's necessary to identify the cause of your infertility. Clomid serves to induce ovulation. So, let's say your husband's sperm aren't such quick swimmers (poor sperm motility). If this is the case, Clomid won't help you a bit. That's just one example of a contraindication for Clomid. There are many cases of infertility where Clomid can do nothing to help.
Clomid has an impact on the body tissues containing estrogen receptors. These are found in your hypothalamus, ovaries, pituitary glands, lining of the uterus, cervix, and vagina. Clomid fools the body into thinking that estrogen levels have dipped. This causes the body to secrete gonadotropin releasing hormone. When this happens, the body steps up the production of follicle stimulating and luteinizing hormones and this triggers the body to release an egg (ovulation).
Ovulatory Problems
As you can see, Clomid is all about causing the body to ovulate. So this drug is indicated for women who have ovulatory problems or have issues with the luteal phase of their menstrual cycles. Clomid is also helpful for women suffering from polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS).
Besides assessing whether Clomid is appropriate for you, you might want to remember that just because you get the help you need to make you ovulate; it doesn't follow that you will necessarily conceive. There are no guarantees.
If you look at the statistics, you'll find that 40%-80% of women who take Clomid will manage to ovulate. Of those who do ovulate with the drug, only 50% of them will conceive within 6 cycles or 6 months of treatment. Other drugs may have better conception rates, but they tend to be pricier and come with a great many side effects. Also, the difference in the rates of conception is not huge.
Because Clomid is inexpensive, easy to use, has few side effects, and has similar conception success rates to other medications, many physicians will give Clomid a whirl with their patients as a first line fertility treatment for ovulation disorders or for idiopathic infertility (infertility of no known cause). But if Clomid fails to do the trick, there are still a great many other treatments left to try.
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