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Fertility drug Clomid

The prescription Dr. Basic hands you (if you can decipher it) at the end of your first visit may say “Clomiphene citrate 50 mgm qd X 5 days, #10. Refills 3.” Or it may simply say “CC 50  mg qd d 3-7.”  What does this mean?
Clomlpliene citrate, more commonly called Clomid or Serophene (two brand names), is given to help you make an egg or to help you make a better egg: it may also help sustain a pregnancy by creating an egg whose corpus luteum  produces higher progesterone levels. Normally, you take Clomid for five days. Some doctors start you on it on day three of your cycle, and others start you on day four or five. The exact timing isn’t important; the point is to start it before your ovaries start to develop one dominant follicle.

Usually your doctor will give you one pill a day the first month or two and then move up to two or three tablets a day if you still don’t seem to be ovulating regularly. Clomid comes in 50 milligram tablets, so if your doctor starts you at a higher dose. 100 to 150 milligrams per day, you’ll need to lake more than one. After you stop taking the pills, you can check for ovulation by using your old friends, the basal thermometer and the ovulation predictor kits.
Clomid works by fooling the body Into thinking It’s not making enough estrogen. When your hypothalamus thinks that you’re low on estrogen, it releases GnKH (gonadotropin-releasing hormone), which stimulates the release of FSH (follicle-stimulating hormone) into your blood. The FSH stimulates the ovary to produce estrogen, so that a follicle will begin to grow.

Eighty percent or so of women taking Clomid ovulate In response to this stimulation. Clomid works best for those whose ovaries arc capable of functioning normally but need a little tune-up. If you’re already ovulating a mature follicle regularly, Clomid can help by increasing the stimulation to the ovary, or even by causing you to ovulate more than one egg. In the latter cases, the Clomid is generally combined with an IUI.
Your doctor may want you to have an ultrasound before starting Clomid each month to make sure you don’t have any ovarian cysts. Most pregnancies from Clomid occur in the first three to six months of therapy if the drug is taken for an ovulation.
Clomid has a few drawbacks, including the chance for multiple births. Between 5 and 10 percent of all Clomid pregnancies are twins, 1 in 400 is a triplet pregnancy, and 1 pregnancy in 800 results in quadruplets. Obviously, you may be delighted to have a twin pregnancy, hut triplets or quads may not be so thrilling. Higher-order multiples (triplets and above) have a very high rate of premature delivery and significantly higher than normal maternal and Infant complications. Multiples result from Clomid working too well and stimulating more than one follicle to grow.
Some doctors monitor you with ultrasounds while you’re on Clomid to be sure that you’re not making too many eggs. If you’re making a large number of eggs, you may develop ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome, which can cause a very high estradiol level, making hospitalization necessary. If you’re on Clomid and feel very ill, with a sudden weight gain, severe bloating in your abdomen, or abdominal pain, call your doctor immediately. This is a rare side effect of Clomid.

Clomid also has some less serious side effects, some annoying, some potentially detrimental to pregnancy. For example:
Because your body has been fooled Into thinking that it doesn’t have enough estrogen, you may have some of the same symptoms women have when they enter menopause and their estrogen drops: hot Hashes, headaches, nausea, or blurred vision. Some doctors may give you estrogen to decrease your symptoms.
Clomid can also interfere with your production of cervical mucus because it locks into all the estrogen receptors, including those in your cervix, so they don’t make mucus In response to rising estrogen levels like they normally do. Because estrogen also builds your uterine lining, some women on Clomid don’t make a thick lining. If you have either of these side effects, you may need to take estrogen after you start making a follicle. If your cervical mucus is decreased, an IUI may be in order to bypass the mucus altogether and deposit the sperm directly into the uterus .