You've Got Question(s), I've got Answer(s)

Lori asked, Why would you both need to take Doxycycline in the last year? That is just strange. No one ever cared if my husband took an antibiotic during our infertility journey.

Well, Lori, you got me. Now, I understand the reason to take Doxycycline during a cycle in general, but why on earth taking an antibiotic any old time at all in the last year matters is beyond me.

Per the Arizona Reproductive Medicine Specialists, Doxycycline, an antibiotic administered in pill form, is given to the male partner during the wife’s stimulation cycle to further reduce the low levels of bacteria that may be found in the semen and which may compromise the performance of the sperm during an IVF cycle.

Now, personally, I think it's a bunch of crap. I think there's a lot of voodoo in IVF cycles that's done just for the sake of "Well it helps a teeney weeney tiny percentage of patients, and it doesn't hurt any of the other patients, so we may as well make ALL of our patients do it." Like Progesterone in Oil injections, for example. Crap, absolute, complete crap for most patients. My perinatologist told me the literature absolutely does not support the routine use of PIO injections for IVF patients - and yet, virtually all IVF patients in the US are routinely tortured with these thick, awful, painful injections for weeks at a time. For what? For a theory that it can't hurt, and it might help.

Which brings me back to Doxycycline. Sure, there may be a VERY small percentage of patients whose male partners have low levels of bacteria in their semen which are causing issues with sperm performance or with implantation. And yes, it could be that taking Doxycycline during the stim cycle of a woman's IVF cycle helps reduce those low levels of bacteria. However, for most patients, those low levels of bacteria are completely normal and are causing absolutely no issues whatsoever. In this case, of course, what's the harm in taking five days of an antibiotic, just for kicks? Not much, unless you start getting into all the arguments of why one shouldn't needlessly take antibiotics willy-nilly.

So no harm, no foul, but I'm not all broken up about the fact that my nurse isn't making my husband take those darned pills.