Diagnosis

Diagnosis means the cause of your infertility. Doctors use several tools to find the cause of a persons inferfility including physical exam, medical history, laboratory tests, surgical proceedures and other tests.

1. General Diagnosis
2. For Male factor infertility
3. For Female factors associated with infertility
4. What fertility doctor should I see (for workup and treatment)?

• General Diagnosis:

  After your doctor examines you (both partners) and obtains your medical history, they may understand the cause of your infertility. If the reason is not clear at this point, your doctor will probably begin the infertility workup process.

  
  

• For Male factor infertility

  The first step in the workup is to test the husbands sperm for problems. Among other issues, these problems can include:

  1. having too few sperm
  2. having abnormally shaped sperm
  3. having sperm with poor movement

  
  This testing is called a semen analysis. If these tests results are normal, the female partner should have certain blood tests (and possibly surgical tests) performed.

• For Female factors associated with infertility:

  Your doctor may want to first make sure you are ovulating (releasing an egg that can be fertilized) every month. To accomplish this, they might ask you to take your basal body temperature (orally) every morning at the same time (just before you get out of bed) for one or more months. Your body temperature will increase by 1 or 2 degrees just before ovulating, and will stay elevated for the remainder of the month, until you have a menstrual period. This is an easy, inexpensive test and can actually be completed before you visit the infertility doctor.

  They might also perform a transvaginal ultrasound to inspect pelvis. The doctor may want to perform other surgical tests to diagnose the cause of your infertility. These can include a hysteroscopy, to inspect your uterus lining for fibroids, and a laparotomy or laparoscopy to look for endometriosis.

  There are multiple causes of infertility in women including age over 35, endometriosis, abnormal estrogen and testosterone levels, failure to ovulate, abnormal hormones (e.g.TSH), uterine fibroids and being overweight.

  If no problems are found, the doctor may perform a "couples" workup. This may include a post coital test, blood tests looking for anti sperm antibodies, and a sperm penetration assay among others.

  Understanding the cause of infertility will help your doctor develop a strategy to treat you.

  
  

• What fertility doctor should I see (for workup and treatment)?

  There are several factors you should think about before deciding on a fertility doctor. If your insurance covers the cost of treatment, you should first look at the doctors in your referral network. Before setting up an appointment, you should review all potential doctors records associated with infertility treatment. This information, available to the public and required by the government (Centers for Disease Control) of all infertility clinics is updated every 2 years. The Tinina Q. Cade Foundation, Inc. staff can assist you with this information.