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So Many Decisions

Dr. Danzer

Dr. Danzer was of the general opinion that there’s not enough evidence that any of the immunology stuff really does anything. He was most concerned about the Humira and said he would not recommend it. He used to give his patients IVIg but doesn’t anymore, his biggest complaint about it is that it is expensive and unproven. He is also concerned about LIT because there’s a small chance that I could contract a crazy disease from my husband that we don’t know to test for yet. He agreed with the Lovenox, baby aspirin, Dexamethasone (although he would prefer prednisone) treatment, as well as the Folgad. He said he also recommends the IVF with PGD, says I’m the perfect candidate.

Dr. Stein

Dr. Stein said she actually brought Dr. Beer to Los Angeles and was one of his biggest champions. She has attended countless seminars, etc. on Dr. Beer’s protocol. She used to include NK’s and all the other tests in her recurrent miscarriage workup. However, she is no longer a believer. She said the results proved to be too random. It would appear to help some, but not others, for no apparent reason. She believes fully that chromosomes are where the problems lie. She thinks that with PGD testing a great number of miscarriages have been prevented. She has concerns about Dr. Beer’s treatment protocol…she is concerned that LIT may cause me to have serious problems later if I need an organ transplant (it would be more difficult for me to find a match). She believes that my problems are the MTHFR / Factor XIII, APA….blood clotting issues. She strongly advises to stick to the problems we have discovered that are known, and leave the immune stuff out of it. She also said that the immune tests always reveal a problem, they are never totally clean for anyone.

Recap

Summary of opinions from four reputable doctors–Dr. Stricker, Dr. Stein, Dr. Chung. and Dr. Danzer:

IVIg – 1 for, 2 against, 1 no strong opinion either way
Humira – 1 for, 3 against
LIT – 1 for, 2 against, 1 no strong opinion either way
Lovenox/dex/aspirin – 4 for, 0 against
Folgard – 4 for, 0 against
IVF with PGD – 3 for, 1 against

Ultimately this is all our decision, as all the doctors said they would support us whatever we decided to do. We think we’re going to first try the Lov/dex/aspirin starting CD6 and wait on the rest. We are also struggling with whether to do IVF…we don’t like the idea of having to decide that some embryos are good and some are bad. We shouldn’t be making that decision. It’s so hard because I’ll be 41 in November and the clock is ticking, it would be so easy to do IVF, look at everything and weed out the embroys that will not make it. But what if one of the embryos tests positive for downs? I don’t want to have to decide not to have that baby. Plus there’s the whole question of when the soul attaches…having this type of power over life makes me very uncomfortable.

Well, we don’t have to make a final decision today. We’re waiting on the lyme results which will come back next week so this cycle is out (if I have Lyme, I’ll have to have antibiotics which I couldn’t do if I was pregnant). So we have a couple weeks to decide the IVF thing.