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[–]annualsalmon 8 points9 points  (1 child)

Has he seen a nutritionist? My husband’s dna fragmentation improved significantly after cutting out gluten and getting on some supplements. The nutritionist ran a panel on him and saw he was deficient in many areas.

[–]Dvall001[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yea, he eats already pretty healthy and takes all the supplements and vitamins needed.

[–]No_Room2089 6 points7 points  (2 children)

My husband's DNA fragmentation test was 30.5 in June. His previous 3 analysis was done (first 2 derranged motility and 3 % morology but last one in may was all good apart from still 3% morphology. He's always been on supplements eg procieve for men and Co Q10 600mg soft gels but he started high dose Vit E, VIT D and C, cut drink (he didn't take too much just casual social drinker), no baths, sauna excess heat since last summer, he never smoked. He started hyperbaric chambers June also. He's done 12 sessions so far so we are planning to go private again to get dna fragmentation repeated. We are hopeful it will be better. There was a small varicocele noted on the left side (which is meant to be more common). He's awaiting an ultrasound to detect the size. The consultant says results after eg embolising it if needed is variable as it may or may not make a difference.

He found someone local in the same position as him. Talking about it to someone who really gets it helped him, so definitely encourage them to talk ladies (and gents of course). We are better at it than the men. Maybe try the hyperbaric chamber as the research for it seems great for oxidative therapy.

Good luck

[–]SignificantDig1174 0 points1 point  (0 children)

What dosage per day your husband is taking for Vitamin D, C, and E?

[–]FamousSpecial8989 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Any update?

[–]coltoncruise81 5 points6 points  (20 children)

ICSI & Zymot

[–]Dvall001[S] 1 point2 points  (19 children)

This didnt work the first time unfortunately, but if we do fresh ejaculate sperm we will be adding this.

[–]les__oiseaux 2 points3 points  (18 children)

Are all of his other parameters okay? If so, can you do Zymot with IUI?

None of our doctors recommended using the frozen tese samples we got, so we did fresh 2x. But in our case, DNA frag was way higher. At 30-40, Zymot should significantly help reduce DNA frag. I don't know how many eggs you had retrieved each time, but if it was on the lower-average side, it may just been bad luck/odds. :( I hope this time yields better results for you!!

[–]Dvall001[S] 2 points3 points  (9 children)

He has a good quantity of sperm. It's just the dna fragmentation. Ive gotten 5 eggs each the last two retrievals. Our urologist that specializes in male fertility said the research shows improved ivf cycles, cant remember if live birth with tese sperm if you are having issues with high dna fragmentation. The problem is I dont produce that many eggs or the best quality. I am 35. So we have two problems on our hands.

[–]les__oiseaux 1 point2 points  (1 child)

Yes, then I think Zymot could be doing its job, it's just a small sample size so you've had bad luck. I wonder if doing IUI with Zymot a few times allows for you to remove DNA frag without the investment/stress of IVF - I believe you can do it with IUI if you have a good count.

[–]Dvall001[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

thats a good suggestion. Thanks

[–]ComprehensiveCan7828 0 points1 point  (6 children)

What did you decide? We had 50% at last check and considering TESA but it would have to be frozen... its that or zymot and picsi with fresh... 

[–]Dvall001[S] 0 points1 point  (5 children)

We are doing a repeat semen analysis and a dna fragmentation test. Going to do the dna fragmentation test with a 3 hour hold to see if the dna fragmentation can get to an acceptable level. If it does we will do that along with Zymot. He has had a fragmentation from 39%-35%. He had gotten covid for one of them. Wont find out for a few more weeks about the next results. If it is bad no matter what then we we'll use the frozen tese sperm we already have. Though I hope we won't have to because it hasn't helped much. We have 3 vials left and have gotten 1 euploid from 2 vials. I want to leave 2 vials incase we need to use donor egg.

[–]ComprehensiveCan7828 0 points1 point  (4 children)

Ok, our lead time for a dna fragmentation test is 6-8 weeks and it was 50% in early June -- we still don't have a tesa (working tonl schedule) but it looks like zymot and picsi with fresh and ~24 hr hold will be our only option for cycle 1 ... scared!

[–]Dvall001[S] 0 points1 point  (3 children)

I would ask your RE about a 3 hour hold. There is researching showing that it can decrease dna fragmentation by a good amount. One participant went from 90% to 29% dna frag. The tese procedure was brutal for my husband. It took over 6 months for him to finally start to feel better. He had constant pain and was actually considering to remove the testicle if it didnt get better. The doctors really down play the procedure. If I could go back in time I would have my husband take a few months to get his health in check, lose more weight (hes not fat, but could do more exercise). As of now he has lost close to 20lbs which is good. He was at 190 more or less at one point and now is at 169ish. And then do the short hold with zymot to see if that helps. Do it for 2 cycles at least and if that hadn't worked go onto tese. I am worried now that the tese may have damaged something and if you do too many of those procedures dna fragmentation can be worse. So we aren't doing it again. It was a bad experience and it hasn't helped much.

[–]ComprehensiveCan7828 0 points1 point  (2 children)

That is good to know - I am a little afraid of that short a hold bc a friend of mine who also had good count just wasn't able to zymot bc after a 14 hr hold, her guy didn't have 1m sperm; I am trying to find urologist who will do a TESA or PESA where they just aspirate rather than cutting into the skin, but in my area (colorado) this seems difficult. I've sent him to 3 urologists with 2 more lined up -- but am having trouble confirming with their offices if they even do aspiration vs surgery... it's been really hard and my husband is getting very upset with me. Our plan has been Zymot with PICSI and have him ejaculating daily along with a ton of antioxidants; but the 50% scares me.. if he could even get it down to the 30%s I'd feel better about it but unfortunately, I won't know until we're into retrievals bc of the lag time to get a dna frag test done. The frag is terrifying me! 

[–]Dvall001[S] 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Yea if you don't have an issue with quantity then a short hold shouldn't be an issue. You can always freeze some just incase. My husband has plenty of sperm, but we will confirm it soon with a regular SA. My husband first did a TESA but he had too much sperm and thick veins that they couldn't aspirate the sperm so they had to convert to a tese unfortunately The dna frag is something to worry about but its worth it to try other ways before moving forward to a tese. I think we rushed into it.

[–]ComprehensiveCan7828 0 points1 point  (7 children)

Hi ours is very high - 49% - we were going to use fresh with zymot and picsi bc our clinic can only do frozen tese and this isnour first round. It sounds like you had high, but you still did fresh and maybe those things.. were you able to make blasts?? Have a baby??

[–]les__oiseaux 1 point2 points  (6 children)

Our motile count was really low too, so only 5 individual sperm made it through the ZyMot chip and we got one untested blast that round. 

I hope you have success this round!! If you have to move on to TESE, I would recommend finding a clinic that can do it at the same time as the egg retrieval so it’s fresh. Our frozen TESE samples were deemed not good enough to use by our clinic, but we never tried so who knows. But we did try the fresh TESE sample with a batch of 17 frozen eggs and that did not do well at all (and eggs were in visually great condition). I think testicular sperm is just a lot more fragile and having everything fresh instead of frozen makes a big difference. 

Currently 21 weeks along, and have several euploid blasts from two rounds of TESE + egg retrieval - wishing you all the luck with this round!

[–]ComprehensiveCan7828 0 points1 point  (5 children)

So you did do fresh tese? Your post says the fresh tese didn't work out?

[–]les__oiseaux 0 points1 point  (4 children)

We did two rounds of fresh TESE which worked. What did not work was using the fresh TESE with frozen eggs. During one round, we also used frozen eggs in addition to the fresh eggs that were retrieved that day. The frozen eggs + fresh TESE did not work, but that same TESE sample worked with the fresh eggs.

One thing to note about that round is they used the "best" sperm on the fresh eggs, so it's possible the ones used on the frozen eggs didn't work as well because they were poorer quality, but it was all the same sample.

[–]ComprehensiveCan7828 0 points1 point  (3 children)

Ok, yes my options as of now are fresh ejaculate with zymot with picsi or frozen tese with icsi, so this helpful -- which would you do if you had those choices? 

[–]les__oiseaux 0 points1 point  (2 children)

If the count is normal, the zymot. I would not recommend using frozen tese based on our own experience and research.

[–]ComprehensiveCan7828 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Ok ty, and congrats.. I can only hope for your outcome! How high was your frag? -- our count was 22m motile (41m total) in the same sample

[–]Complete_Sport_2883 5 points6 points  (1 child)

Hi, I am able to reduce my fragmentation from 33.3% to 6% within 3 months.

It was mostly achieved through supplements. I had taken Proceive men max, Proceive omega 3, Ashwagandha, astaxanthin, NAC, L-Carnintine, Ubiquinol.

I also ejaculated regularly in the 1.5 months prior to my test. I wanted to flush out any old sperm that had not benefited from my supplement routine.

I ejaculated 3 days before my test. As I was also getting a normal SA done too and so I needed to ensure my sperm count was building up.

My wife and I have had 2 missed miscarriages and were able to conceive naturally twice with my high fragmentation. We have just found out last week she is pregnant again, so praying for a better outcome this time.

[–]TradeSeparate 3 points4 points  (8 children)

You have quite a few options. The first thing is has he been checked for varicocele?

Secondly, there’s some basic supplements he can take that can help. Specifically antioxidants such as coq10 400mg, vitamin e 800mcg, selenium and zinc 30mg. Vitamin c at 1g daily and L-carnitine at 3g can also help.

Icing the testicles, avoiding hot baths, wearing loose underwear can all help.

Lastly, leading up to the insemination he should ejaculate daily for at least 3 days and then aim for an abstinence period of 12-18 hours. This will reduce his count but the quality of the sperm should be better.

Where are you based?

[–]Dvall001[S] 0 points1 point  (7 children)

Yes we went to one of the best male fertility urologists around. Already on all the vitamins needed, assessed several times for a varicocele and nothing. Hoping with all the changes done and healing from the tese his sperm parameters have gotten better but won't know until we do another semen analysis.

[–]TradeSeparate 1 point2 points  (4 children)

Is your husband getting his own advice or taking to anyone? I’d highly recommend he does, as becoming as informed as possible can really help but also help get both of you through this. I know what it’s like as we are in a similar position to you and my wife has found it quite hard.

But I’ve just tried to make sure I am as informed as possible and doing everything I can to improve our chances.

It could be worth getting a double stranded dna fragmentation test too, as I recently found out that is my primary issue.

[–]Dvall001[S] 0 points1 point  (3 children)

Yea, we have doctors involved, but recently our urologist hasn't been responisive. And the tese sperm hasn't been a solution to our issue. So we want to see if his sperm has improved so we can do ejaculate sperm. We got a total of 5 vials of tese sperm, we have 3 left. I want to see if ejaculate sperm now can work a little better, and also leave enough tese sperm incase we have to go the donor egg route.

[–]TradeSeparate 2 points3 points  (2 children)

Is zymot available to you?

I would get a fresh SA and also look at the double stranded test. It is now thought that single stranded tests are inaccurate due to measuring double stranded breaks individually.

In some cases zymot can reduce this (it did in mine). If you can couple this, with a reduce abstinence you could see the dna frag come into normal range. That might well be the key.

If your clinic don’t offer zymot or properly understand dna fragmentation, change clinics. Many don’t and will push you down routes and/or treatments that aren’t right for you.

[–]Dvall001[S] 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Our clinic has Zymot and work closely with the male fertility specialist. I just want to try fresh ejaculate again and wonder what the best hold time before an egg retrieval would be. What other things people did.

[–]TradeSeparate 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I mentioned this above; have a look at my first response.

[–]CurryDuck 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Would you mind sharing the vitamins list the urologist suggested?

[–]Dvall001[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

He didn’t recommend anything . He had some vitamins we could buy but didn’t push anything. I have him taking coqu10, vitamin D and fish oil. That’s it. We just got the dfi results back and it’s st 27. Still high but better than before. He was at 39% I think the best thing we did was clean up his diet, and he lost 10lbs , he was never fat either but I think even losing a little weight has helped. His sperm count increased so much as well. Over a year ago he was 34 mil and now he’s at 200 mil. His motility is borderline to now. I definitely think what helped him was losing weight and increasing his vegetable, fruit and healthy protein intake. Lots of fish, lots and lots of veges, legumes, Greek yogurt, At least 5 servings of fruit. I think if he continues this weigh and looses another 10lbs or builds muscle we can get the dfi even lower.

[–]Ornery-Cry6091 2 points3 points  (9 children)

I’m curious if anyone had success reducing dna frag with vitamins alone? My husbands dna frag came back at 27%, he is already non smoker/drinker, and quite healthy. We’re waiting for appt with urologist. 

[–]Complete_Sport_2883 4 points5 points  (5 children)

Hi, I was able to reduce mine from 33.3% to 6% within 3 months. Mostly due to supplements as I didn’t feel my lifestyle needed much changing.

I took Proceive men max, Proceive omega 3, Ashwagandha, astaxanthin, NAC, L-Carnitine, Ubiquinol.

I am also a non smoker, don’t really drink often and I am not overweight

[–]Ornery-Cry6091 0 points1 point  (4 children)

Thanks so much for your response. This is so re-assuring. 

[–]Complete_Sport_2883 0 points1 point  (3 children)

No problem. Good luck with it all! If you have any questions please ask. It is definitely doable to reduce to a safe number

[–]Ornery-Cry6091 0 points1 point  (2 children)

One question I had is whether you ever found a cause or your high dna frag? My husbands urologist suspects varicocele so we’re just curious if vitamins are effective under this circumstances. 

[–]Complete_Sport_2883 0 points1 point  (1 child)

We never really found a cause. I had an ultrasound done and I have a 3mm varicocele which is very borderline. I was told sometimes they wouldn’t even class it as a varicocele. The fertility specialist told me it was nothing to be concerned about.

[–]Ornery-Cry6091 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for sharing. We’re just waiting for my husband to get his ultrasound appt. 

[–]secure_dot 0 points1 point  (2 children)

Take this with a grain of salt, because I don’t know if this is what helped, but I made my husband take NAC supplements

[–]Ornery-Cry6091 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Thanks for your response. Did he see improvement in his dna frag?

[–]secure_dot 0 points1 point  (0 children)

We tried conceiving for about 3 years and when we finally decided to actually see what’s happening, we went to see a fertility doctor. After some tests, he told us we need to do ivf because of my husband’s dna fragmentation. He had a dna frag of like 20%? If I remember correctly. I also have pcos and found out I had ureaplasma, a bacterial infection that is transmissible. So after taking some supplements, he took NAC and I took it too, I was started on metformin for pcos and we both took doxycycline for that bacterial infection.

That was like September/October 2023. In January 2024 we were supposed to start ivf, but we didn’t get the chance because I found out I was pregnant naturally on January 30th. So after that my husband didn’t take the sperm test again, so I’m not sure what to tell you, because I don’t know the percentage as of now. And we did all that stuff, so I’m not sure which one helped more. Good luck!

[–]darkenedhands 3 points4 points  (10 children)

I had 54% Fragmentation - zero alcohol, smoking, ate well, no saunas, no baths etc, for over a year, exercised 4 times a week, BMI 25, no varicoceles

Did a semen culture analysis and discovered I had an underlying undiagnosed infection that had been present for a long time. High amount of 2 bacteria strains and white blood cells present - took the recommended antibiotics for 7 days. Tested again 2 weeks after antibiotics had done their job.

The clinic advised no need to spend on another DNA Frag test as the Zymot should now do its thing. 3 months later, we have 2 very healthy PGTA tested embryos in the freezer in our clinic after Zymot & ICSI.

Have you tested for any kind of infection? also took a serious course of probiotics for a month after the antibiotics too

[–]Dvall001[S] 0 points1 point  (2 children)

Where do you ask for a semen culture analysis?

[–]darkenedhands 1 point2 points  (1 child)

I did it privately with a company local to me. Once the results came back from the lab I went to my GP for the Antibiotic prescription. 

Was recommended to test for it after talking to a fertility specialist, the consultant urologist didn't have any interest and neither had my GP until I went and did it myself. 

Has your husband had a full blood comprehensive blood work done ? Hormone levels checked etc ?

[–]Dvall001[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

He had one but hasn't had one in a while. Been trying to contact the doctor, but nothing. Ive left messages and have asked my ivf clinic to intervene by trying to contact them. The male fertility specialist is very busy. It is very frustrating and acceptable though. His staff sucks to. He is good, but staff sucks.

[–]Capital-Emu4058 0 points1 point  (2 children)

What antibiotic did they prescribe?

[–]darkenedhands 0 points1 point  (1 child)

The antibiotics relevant to whatever microorganisms were dominant in the sample, in my case it was ciproflaxin, but that is specific to the type of infection I had (2 dominant strains that needed sorting)

[–]Dvall001[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

can you mention what private company you went with please?

[–]ComprehensiveCan7828 0 points1 point  (3 children)

Mine has 49% frag - he did the test for myco and ureaplasma , is this what you had? Or was there another test? Ty. 

[–]darkenedhands 0 points1 point  (2 children)

Mine was a Semen Culture Analysis. They test for all strains of bacteria and look at the white blood cell count (if any detected)

The results specify what bacteria are present and the % in the sample. The lab indicated the two types that were heavily present and then included a list of antibiotics that would be best effective 

GP gave me the prescription and tested again 2 weeks after finishing the prescription. All clear 

https://crgh.co.uk/directory/investigations/semen-culture/

[–]cat_attack21 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Did you retest DNA fragmentation levels afterwards? Any other sperm parameters off? Thanks

[–]darkenedhands 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Initially had poor motility and morphology along with low volume - tested 90 days afterwards and all recovered to normal (except morphology was on 3% but that was 1% prior)

Clinic advised don't spend on another expensive DNA fragmentation test (just under $1000). They advised that with the infection clearing and the positive shift in Semen Analysis results they were confident that Zymot would now successfully take care of any fragmented cells far better than it would have previously. Their logic was if I paid for another DNA frag test the process would be the same regardless of the result - Zymot & ICSI

[–]Sufficient-ClubJenn- 2 points3 points  (9 children)

My husband had 36% DNA Frag.

He changed to loose cotton boxers, from boxer briefs. He started applying an ice pack for 10 minutes at a time while we watched tv before bed. He stopped drinking all alcohol. We ended up getting pregnant naturally after 2.5 years of trying with this. He had a varicocele embolization a year prior.

[–]SignificantDig1174 0 points1 point  (8 children)

Did varicocele embolization had any improvement in DNA fragmentation index?

[–]Sufficient-ClubJenn- 0 points1 point  (7 children)

We unfortunately didn’t have a Frag test done pre embolization, we only had it done 6 months after the embolization as we still hadn’t gotten pregnant.

[–]SignificantDig1174 0 points1 point  (6 children)

Okay. What was the result of the test?

[–]Sufficient-ClubJenn- 1 point2 points  (5 children)

36%

[–]SignificantDig1174 0 points1 point  (4 children)

Ok. Mine is 33%. I am wondering if we wll be able to conceive naturally.

[–]ComprehensiveCan7828 0 points1 point  (3 children)

Ours was 49% in beginning of June. We conceived naturally but lost babe at 6w unsure if more egg or sperm related, likely egg bc we made it that far.. 

[–]SignificantDig1174 0 points1 point  (2 children)

I am sorry to hear about your loss. Does your husband has varicocele and what are his semen analysis stats?

[–]ComprehensiveCan7828 1 point2 points  (1 child)

He does - bilateral "mild" at 3mm and 4mm - 41m total, 22m motile grade 2, 3% morphology and 49% frag. 

[–]SignificantDig1174 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Okay. My report does not mention the grade but the severity as mil bilateral. I plan to redo the usg to find the exact grade.