About Fertility Medications

Fertility medications used for ovulation induction or ovarian stimulation are concentrated preparations of FSH and LH that can only be injected.

They cannot be taken orally (by mouth) because the acidity in the stomach will break them down before they can act.

Fertility medications used to be obtained by concentrating FSH and LH from the urine of menopausal women, who produce high levels of these hormones.

• Pergonal and Metrodin belong to this first generation of commercial gonadotropin preparations.

Today, recombinant forms, like Gonal-F and Bravelle (obtained by replicating the biochemical components of FSH and LH), and highly purified concentrates, like Follistim, Humegon and Repronex, are used.

• Gonal-F, Bravelle and Follistim are pure FSH preparations.
• Humegon and Repronex contain both FSH and LH.

In our current protocol for ovarian stimulation

• Pure FSH (Bravelle or Gonal-F) is used for the first 4-5 days of stimulation
• Repronex is added in the last few days.

Your daily dosages will depend on your response to the medications, as
determined by

• Rising level of estrogen (E2)
• Number of developing follicles
• Rate of increase in both E2 and in follicle sizes

The fertility medications for stimulation are injected the same way as Lupron.

• Gonal-F and Follistim are available in pre-loaded ready-to-inject syringes good for    multiple doses, but they also come in single doses of 75 IU strength, like all the    other brands.
• Each dose comes as a powder in a vial, which has a companion vial containing the    liquid to dilute the powder.
• Dr. Brandeis or one of the coordinators will instruct you how to dilute the powder    for your daily injection dose.

The object of these medications is to stimulate as many follicles as possible to produce a mature egg during this one cycle, in the hope that at least 8 mature eggs will eventually be retrieved from your ovaries.