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I just talked to my Dr about this yesterday I'm having the same problem. She told me that she thinks some of my left over follicles that didn't produce an egg were cysts. So it is very possible that is what's going with your wife. Good luck..

Thanks, SashaP. But my wife's problem began before ovulation, and it sounds from your wording that yours is happening afterward -- right? In either case, did your doctor suggest a course of action for getting rid of the cysts or do you just wait? We saw our doctor today and she seems pretty sure that my wife doesn't have cysts -- rather, that the symptom is related unrelated inflamation and can be cleared up with medication. We'll see. Good luck to you too.

Mjay, first let me start by saying I have not taken injections yet, tomorrow is the beginning of that for me. However, I was taking a drug called Clomid that was causing cysts for me. I had to wait one cycle out in hopes that they would disappear (which they did), then I was given the go ahead to do the IUI. Last month I had cysts again that caused by the medication from the last cycle so I had to sit out. I found out today I am in the clear. What I am trying to say is it is very likely that her med's may be causing cysts which I did get alot of cramping in with in the beginning. Many times they will treat women for a few weeks/month with birth control pills which typically helps to eliminate the cysts, however, I went w/o anything and both times they disappeared. Now I must say that the Doctor called mine "hormonal cysts". His explanation was that the med I was taking gave me extra hormones which caused the follicles I had to fill with these hormones. Hope that made sense. Typically the follicles are what turn to cysts.... Let me try to explain.... Beginning the IUI I had 4 follicles, after ovulation there were three (the dominant one fell, hense ovulation). The other three filled w/ the extra hormone and turned to cysts. Do you know how many follies she had at the time of IUI? Check that number and compare it to the number of cysts they said she had.... my guess probably minus one. Good luck!

If this is the 2nd time she has had the injections then it can be from the month before. I know clomid can stay in your system for 60 days so it's possible that it's from the last time she had injections.

Thanks to you both. Let me ask you this, which might be a dumb question -- how do you know how many follicles produced an egg? Does your doc do a sonogram shortly after ovulation? The way ours does it is that my wife gets the hcg shot to induce ovulation when the follicles are of the appropriate size. Then 12 hours later we do an IUI and 24 hours after that, another one. We didn't do another sonogram until day 3 of the following cycle; at that point the three follicles we saw were very small, so the doctor said they weren't cysts. I think that makes sense, but I feel as though you might be getting more info about what's happening. At any rate, my wife began experiencing those symptoms before ovulation... and the doc said yesterday, after my first posting here, that at that point the follicles weren't large enough to be producing those symptoms, even if they were cysts. Seems to make sense. Just weird that we can't figure out what IS producing her symptoms.

I had a u/s after I had a m/c in September b/c I was having those same symptoms. It was about 6 weeks since my last dose of clomid. The u/s showed I had 9 follicles. They can't tell which one's have eggs as far as I know until one is released I may be wrong though. But with the pain and symptoms that I was having they knew it was a cyst. I was having the same thing this month also so they knew it was a cyst I actually think there was two b/c it happened twice. After I had them rupture the feelings of having to pee all the time went away along with the pain. I hope you get an answer soon.

Mjay, my RE said that there is really no way of knowing if the follicle contains an egg or not as Sasha mentioned. Basically I have the same procedure has your wife done HCG when follies are of right size, next morning IUI, and following moring the 2nd IUI. 3 days later I go in for an u/s and they can tell if I have ovulated by the follies collapsing and a certain amount of fluid sorrounding them. The way the tell if you have released an actual follicle is looking to see how many are now collapsed compared to the number when IUI was done. However, they do not know if the follie that dropped did indeed have an egg or good quality egg. It is the waiting game after that. See that is how the knew I had hormonal cysts. I had 4 follies at time of IUI and then later 3 showed collapsing but filled with lots of fluid (hense the cysts), and one was missing which I must have ovulated. This has happened 2x with me and both times the month I had to take off they disappeared on their own. However, many times they give women the birth control pill to help get rid of the cyst(s). I guess what I'm saying is I am told that when doing the pre-ultrasound to check for number of follies they can tell by shape and fluid if there is a cysts or if is just a follicle, but most of the time the cysts derive from a follicle. Hope this makes sense. Goood luck!