Hi ladies, Thanks for your advice yesterday about the pharmacies. I have made various calls this morning and so far the Lister is the cheapest which is fairly depressing. I just find it so strange that I paid under £600 in Jan and now it's over £1400. I could weep! What was interesting was that one company wanted to know the name of the clinic we were having treatment with as they have different prices for different clinics.. sounds like a bit of a racket to me but to give the Lister credit, they are the cheapest so far.
Anyway I've had a look at the thread and wanted to respond to those of you looking for opinions. You have already been given some great advice but just wanted to chip in as I know what an agonising decision it can be.
- What are the pros and cons of the clinic?
Very professional. Good lab, some very strong consultants who have been with the clinic a number of years. Sonographers are VERY experienced. Some clinics talk about nurses doing scans which made me nervous but Alison and Liz are radiologists I believe who have been doing this for years. Hospital facilities are nice but in the grand scheme of things, I'm not sure this is really a priority! There are also satellite clinics where you can see consultants and have monitoring scans closer to where you live/work, then have EC/ET at the clinic. That said, I recommend basing your decision on the location of your preferred consultant not the clinic. Downsides - I know some people like to get in and out quickly before work and I don't think they do very early appointments For older women in particular, I think post positive result monitoring could be a little better but if you specifically ask for it they will do additional tests. It's just not part of their standard approach I don't think whereas at ARGC for example, you're in almost as frequently afterwards as pre-transfer from what I've seen. I think that's the opposite end of the spectrum though and we decided it wasn't for us.
- Would you recommend it based on your own experience? Yes
- Which doctor(s) you recommend? I'm on my third round with the Lister. I was under the care of a consultant at one of their satellite clinics the first time but went with the clinic directly for 2nd and now 3rd. Two reasons: 1. To use Access Fertility (more later) you had to use the main clinic. 2. We decided to have future treatment under the care of Dr Taylor who is really wonderful IMO. She was highly recommended by a fertility acupuncturist. I have also had EC with Mr Faris and Dr Thum and transfers with Mr Nicopoulos and Dr Parikh and they have all been great. I'm almost 42 with good hormone levels and seemingly above ave. number of eggs collected, fertilised, etc. but a family has eluded us so far most likely due to chromosomal abs and my age :-(. What I like about Dr Taylor is she's very pragmatic. She has recommended various extra tests just to rule things out without going crazy and she's been very methodical. She never makes you feel rushed, takes the time to explain her rationale for her recommendations and instils confidence with a really lovely manner. I like her a lot!
- How much the overall costs are? The first round I think we worked out we paid about £7,800 all in incl. drugs, blood/semen analysis, etc. Next cycle we decided to use Access Fertility. This is def worth a look for both financial reasons and I think it takes some pressure off when you've already got a back up plan lined up and don't need to have the 'what next' discussion if you don't get the result you hope for. For people under 40 I think they offer a refund scheme (less refund the older you are) but over 40 you can have two cycles incl. all cycle (not screening) blood tests and scans, blastocyst culture, embryo freezing and thawing for a fixed fee. I think we paid £10,800 for 2 cycles a year ago. Drugs are on top and depending on the drugs you're taking I suspect you need to factor in between £1000-1500 / cycle now that HAH isn't an option. Happy to answer more questions about access fertility if you have any but it's been great for us and very easy to sign up.
- How flexible / open to tailoring the protocol and responding to failures you felt they were? Dr Taylor has been great. My first cycle with a different consultant we had good numbers but we had quite a bit of embryo fragmentation at blastocyst stage. Dr Taylor thought I responded well to long protocol so didn't want to change that but decided to use different drugs. Next time we had very little if any fragmentation. I also asked her opinion about ICSI as my OH had a comet test and one of the 3 parameters was very borderline and she was a little on the fence as it was so borderline she was trying to give us the best advice about whether it was worth spending money unnecessarily (which was actually reassuring) but we went for it and that time around I did get pregnant but sadly the baby's heart stopped beating at 8w. In summary I would say yes, certainly Dr Taylor will consider tweaks. I think they try not to make too many drastic changes at a time as it's good to learn from each cycle and just make tweaks here and there. I can only speak of my experience with Dr T though. I have to say I was a bit disappointed our consultant at the satellite clinic didn't suggest any changes for our second cycle with the exception of steroids in case it was an immune issue but that is part of the reason why we moved.
- How would you rate your communication with them? Did they keep you informed and updated about your treatment? Very good. One of the adv of the Lister is you can email short questions to the consultant directly and I've usually had a response within 24 hours. While you do see different nurses each time, I've never had anything less than a positive experience. I would refer to the Lister as a finely oiled machine! You will see a fair few people each visit but they're all specialists in what they do and it moves quite quickly. e.g. for scans you'll see the sonographer, then see a phlebotomist for blood tests, then a nurse to discuss where you are in your treatment plan and what happens next. They will all tell you what you need to know at the right time.
- What was their approach to scans / uterine abnormalities? Mine were all fairly straight forward so can't really comment too much. My lining has always been good (I've had acupuncture religiously for this) but the Lister sonographer pointed out what she believes are patches of endometriosis on one of my ovaries. This can't be confirmed without a laparoscopy but once I started reading the side effects so many things made sense. I've now made changes to my diet and feel a million times better and have much less painful periods, etc. This was never mentioned by the original consultant who performed all my scans for my first cycle whereas she spotted it and called it out straight away.
- What did you think about the monitoring? Honestly I thought post positive result it could have been a bit better. If i get a positive result this time they said they will monitor my progesterone levels more closely.
- What's their approach to low ovarian reserve / low AMH? Can't comment personally
- Anything else you think would be good to know? TBH I think they're a great clinic but it's worth finding the consultant you will feel most comfortable with. As soon as I met Dr Taylor I just felt comfortable and as I said before she really instilled confidence. They see so many women but I really did feel like she cared about our success and took her time to give us what she believed to be the best possible advice.
- What's their approach towards embryo batching for e.g. 6 cycles, then starting with transfers? Can't comment on this either. sorry
Well sorry this is a monster but I hope it's useful. Have a good day!
