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I finished my fourth round of femera this month. I know i'm oing but we haven't had any luck yet. Good luck to you. I'd be glad to anwser any other questions or give support.

thanks. sounds like we're oing at the same time. have you noticed any mood swings, changes since you've been on it? Also, can you suggest any threads?

one more thing...GOOD LUCK!

Have either of you read about the study out of Canada?? I have been trying to find more info about it but cannot seem to. The study seems to show more birth defects with femara. Which makes no sense to me: 1)from what I understand it is out of your system quite fast? 2) the study kept talking about pg women who took it showed more birth defects. If any one has read or heard of this please let me know, or if you have asked your Drs about it please let me know. I am hoping to start femara this next cycle.

I have some mood swings ( mainly i just get irritated easily) and some hot flashes. jcr i've read all of the research from canada but my re says not to worry about it b/c it does leave your system quick and it's really only dangerous if you take it while pregnant.

Thanks eb, I have also heard the same thing. Were you ovulating on your own and did you try clomid before? Are you taking metformin also? What days did you take it? Is there less chance of a cyst with femara? and... what was your dosage? Sorry for the million and 1 questions. I hope it is your lucky month!

I only take femera, I don't have pcos so i don't need metformin. I was ovulating but my cycles weren't regulating they varied from 28 to 34 days. I take 2 2.5 femeras days 5-9 of my cycle. I haven't tried clomid. I see re again next month, so i don't know what will be next. Ask all the questions you have, i'll try my best to anwser them.

I also read about the studies in Can. I haven't asked dr. yet. she states i'll be ok bcuz only stays in the system for 2days after. i take 2, cds 3-7. my dh says i'm quite a moody woman. i'm waiting to O, but no luck yet. i don't know a lot abt metformin. to eb: my cycle was the same, 27-36 days and Oing, every other month.

I'm currently 31 weeks pregnant with a Femara baby and 2 level II ultrasounds, one at 17 weeks and one at 29 weeks (because I'm over 35), showed no indications of any problems. I did a lot of research when the news reports on Femara came out as they scared me, and based on my research I plan on taking Femara again when I try for a second child. My reasearch showed that most of the women who have reported birth defects turned out to have already been pregnant when taking the drug (the same thing can happen with Clomid). Also, I found a scientific analysis of the Canadian study that complained that the Canadian study could have been skewed because a high proportion of the women taking the Femara of the 150 people they followed were older (already a higher risk of birth defects), and it is also known that the incidence of birth defects is generally higher following infertility treatment, so because they only compared the percentage of defects with Femara to the percentage of defects with a group that had no fertility treatment whatsoever, you can't tell from the study whether the Femara would create any more risk of defect than any other fertility drug. That science group said that the Femara group should have been compared to groups undergoing other types of infertility treatment, not those who had no treatment . That scientific analysis also noted that the group of pregnant women studied that didn't take the drug (the control group) had an abormally low number of reported birth defects, so it might not be the best control group for comparison. According to the March of Dimes, 3-5% of babies in the United States are born with birth defects. The university of Iowa did a study which came out a few weeks ago that noted that 6.2 % of IVF babies have some sort of birth defect, 5% of IUI babies have some sort of birth defect and that the rate of birth defects in naturally conceived babies was 4.4%. In the Canadian study on Femara, the control group only had 1.8% with birth defects which is unusual, and the Femara group had about 4.7% which is not very far off of what would have been expected anyway, particularly as that group had a lot of older women. Plus the Femara group was not only made up of people who solely took Femara- some had taken other fertility drugs either before or with the Femara as well. The results of any research report can be misleading based on the data used behind the report. Hope this helps you guys. Based on my research, I think the news reports were a whole lot of hoopla over a study that basically means nothing.

Hi K, I think you answered me on another thread?! Where did you find that study? Thanks for all the info. I hope you are feeling well and your pg is going great. belly rubs

Jcr,
I think I did answer you before, but I don't remember if I had seen the paper that criticized the Canadian femara study at that time. Here is a link to the article on the Iowa study: http://www.uihealthcare.com/news/n
ews/2005/12/19birthdefects.html
I
read the study itself as well as this article, but I can't find where I did that. I got the average birth defect statistics directly from the March of Dimes website. I couldn't find the detailed scientific paper criticizing the Canadian study again, but here is a link to a summary of a medical conference that briefly summarizes the same type questions as to potential problems with the study: http://www.medscape.com/view
article/515837?src=hp16.conf
.
The section you want to look at is titled " Aromatase Inhibitor Use During Assisted Reproduction". It is not nearly as detailed or critical as the study I read, but you can see that at this conference, they had the same type questions about potential problems with the study. ( I've noticed that when I post a web address in these forums or try to look at one someone else has posted that sometimes hyphens get put the web address in the post that shouldn't be there so if you have trouble connecting to these sites, take out any hyphens and it should work). I really felt comfortable when I saw that the Iowa study showed the rate of birth defects in naturally conceived babies to be 4.4 percent and the Femara study even with a high amount of older women only showed a 4.7 percent rate, and that was less than the Iowa study showed with simple IUI. (I had both IUI and Femara. I had a second level II ultrasound (doppler and 4-d) a week and a half ago at 29 weeks and the baby still looks completely normal). Hope this helps. If I come across the detailed criticism of the Femara study again, I will post the link to that.

K...thank you so much. It sounds you have done great research on your own. I feel so much better. This month is the the 1st time that I've done anything past opk. I was already nervous about taking meds, but when my dr. encouraged femera over chlomid, I freaked bcuz I hadn't heard of it. She prescribed it a year ago, but I couldn't bring myself to take it. Now, a year later with and no pg, I'm back with a new attitude and out of denial about needing some extra assistance. tons & tons of blessings for you and your baby! Thanks, again!

K, I have been takinf femera four 4 cycles now. I have a couple of questions, How long did you have to take it? And did it help regulate your cycles? I am on cd22 and started my af today so now i'm on cd 1 (sorry if its confusing) last month i had a 28 day cycle and the month before it was 32 days. I spoke with re nurse this afternoon, they will call me back tomorrow and let me know what to do. Any imput would be appreciated...

eb...sorry abt af. i'm interested in knowing the re's suggestion. blessings!

To full of hope and eb. Good luck to both of you. I was on Clomid for 3 months and then switched to Femara, so I've tried both. I got pregnant on the 3rd Femara cycle. After being on both, I can tell you I definitely prefer the Femara. For the 3 months I took Femara, the only side effect I ever had was that ONE of the months I had a slight headache while I was on it. I was lucky enough to have a regular 26 or 27 day cycle without the drugs. They gave me the drugs to try to extend my cycle and get me to ovulate a little bit later to give my egg a little more time to mature, and also because sometimes the drug can cause two eggs to come down which increases your chances of getting pregnant. The Femara did slow my ovulation down and increase my cycle by 2 days each month. Hang in there girls! It took us a really long time, and I thought I would never get pregnant (we were at the crossroads of deciding to try IVF or giving up), but it happened!

K, thank you so much for giving us hope. I tried clomid also, side effects weren't that bad for me, but it just didn't work for me. I am hoping femara and metformin finally work for me. Thanks again for all your information and hope. Bellyrubs!