Day 10 Lab

Today's lab work was much less exciting, only 1 vial. A simple day 10 Follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) level was done. The point of doing a FSH test is to measure a women's "ovarian reserve". As you get older and reach menopause your body starts producing more FSH to encourage your ovaries to keep producing estrogen and eggs. A good value would be less than 10. Someone near menopause would be close to 40. In other words, an elevated FSH represents a reduced egg supply (in numbers of eggs remaining) and it might also reflect a compromise of egg quality. Another test they did on CD3 was estradiol. This goes with FSH as another measure of the quality and quantity of your eggs. What I hope to see is a low FSH level in conjunction with a low estradiol level. Another test in the ovarian reserve mystery is the Clomid Challenge. That is what I did and what most people do at the start of infertility treatments. You get labs on day 3 and 10 taking Clomid in between. The normal test would show a low FSH on day 3, a low estradiol on day 3 and also a low FSH on day 10. So next Tuesday when I met with my doctor and hopefully go over the lab work I will see that my eggs are in good shape.