Friday, December 9, 2011

CD3 Reference Ranges

I know I have a legal right to all of my medical records, but it gets a bit tiresome to formally request them every time I have a new test or procedure. This is why I was so stoked when the receptionist at my RE's office just handed me a copy of my most recent lab results to take home, explaining that she had accidentally printed out two copies and did I want one?

Yes! Of course, I love numbers. I wish my RE would share a bunch of de-identified data so that I could start parsing it by age, cause of infertility, drug protocol, stage of embryos at transfer... yeah, keep dreaming. If it isn't required by the CDC, most REs are very reluctant to put their statistics out into the world, and that's a conversation to have another time.

But at least I can look up my CD3 numbers and compare them to others to see if they're normal, or so I thought. Dr. Google was significantly less than helpful in finding standard reference ranges for a healthy, pre-IVF CD3 blood panel - I guess every lab, and every RE practice, does it differently?* In case it's helpful to others, here's what my discussion with my RE nurse revealed:

LH (Luteinizing Hormone) 1.9-12.5 mIU/mL
In a perfect world this would be somewhere between 7 and 12, but the nurse said that it's really only checked against the FSH value. If they're reasonably similar, that's good; if it's twice as much as the FSH, you might have PCOS.
My value: 6.8

FSH (Follicle-Stimulating Hormone) 2.5-10.3 mIU/mL
FSH is a good way to measure that all-important ovarian reserve, so under 6 is said to be good. Other clinics won't work with women who are over 10, but my clinic accepts patients up to 15, so I have room to grow!
My value: 5.7

E2 (Estradiol) 11-212 pg/mL
Ideally, this is less than 75 - if it's high, that suggests not-so-great ovarian reserve. But note that the reference range goes up to 212 without being flagged as problematic. It's a good reminder that you can be a normally-functioning person and just not be very fertile.
My value: 33

AMH (Anti-Müllerian Hormone) 0.65-16.40 ng/mL
Word on the street is that 4.0-6.8 is considered optimal fertility. Higher is better for a successful IVF cycle, although I actually forgot to bring this up during my conversation with the nurse so that's about all I've got.
My value: 5.20

Not gonna lie, I'm feeling pretty good about this, and really lucky. My ovaries appear to have survived the assault from the endometriomas and the surgery with their function basically intact. As I write this, they're sitting around quietly, probably getting ready to pop out an egg or two in the next few days, blissfully unaware that that egg will almost certainly be denied entrance to my Fallopian tube and will instead be forced to wander my abdominal cavity on a brief (but glorious?) adventure before inevitably disintegrating. Hang in there, guys! Your moment to impress us all is coming up soon!

*Edited to add: this page has much, much more information. Thanks for the link, Stirrup Queen!

3 comments:

  1. Another awesome post, I'm loving your blog! Where did you find the 16.8 cutoff for AMH? I haven't been able to find any norm ranges that go into double digits!

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  2. Amazing AMH level, congrats! Somehow I never had mine tested until I failed IVF1.0, then it came back at .6 and my stupid nurse told me I had 40 year old ovaries (I'm 27). On the positive side, even with stage 3 endo and decrepit ovaries I still passed IVF1.5 with flying colors.

    So after that long ramble, my point is way to go Charlotte's ovaries!

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  3. Thanks very much for the compliments! Your comments got me thinking, and I'll be posting some more on AMH soon.

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