Saturday, April 30, 2005

Talking to patients

I enjoy talking to patients - and often learn a lot by doing so. I am an IVF specialist, and it's often quite a challenge to explain some of the treatments to some patients. Often, clever patients will come up with colourful terms and analogies, which I can then use when talking to other patients.
For example, I was talking to a patient who had already used clomid to grow more eggs , but still hadn't conceived. I told her the next step would be to use more powerful use injections for superovulation to help her grow more eggs, and that these were gonadotropin injections. She couldn't pronounce the word, so she said - "Oh, these are super-clomid injections." What a colourful term - and one which every infertile patient can relate to easily !
With another patint, I was discussing the fact that when we superovulate her for IVF, not all the eggs we grow are of good quality, and we need to be prepared for this, she said, " It's like playing oocyte roulette !" - and I added another word to my personal medical dictionary !

1 comment:

  1. Anonymous5:43 PM

    My name is Helen Page and i would like to show you my personal experience with Clomid.

    I am 30 years old. I have taken for 3 months. My progesterone level after my first dose of Clomid was 65 so I knew that I had ovulated. Couldn't try the second cycle on it because my husband went out-of-town while I was O'ing, go figure. Hoping it worked this month!!

    I have experienced some of these side effects-
    Mood swings, increased appetite, hot flashes, increased pain during ovulation, abdominal pain, mild but infrequent headaches. Also, I used to be on a consistent 28 day cycle, but I think Clomid might have lengthened it as I'm now on a 31-32 day cycle.

    I hope this information will be useful to others,
    Helen Page

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