Not Ovulating, Low Carb?

I have not heard of this but I would say you can't stay on no carbs for 6 months!! Not healthy AT ALL!!!

I wasn't ovulating after my first child, and my doctor wanted to do fertility pills. Fortunately for me, my sister had a more thorough doctor, and had found she had high prolactin levels. I asked my doctor to test me, and found out I had low thyroid and high prolactin. He fixed those and my daughter came along 9 months later! So I recommend having thyroid and prolactin tests. Good Luck!

I haven't been in your situation and its been a LONG time since I had a baby, but I do have a girlfriend that was having the same type of issue. What her doctors did for her was go in and "clear the passageway" from her ovaries to her uterus with a minimally invasive procedure. There was simply some type of blockage that wasn't allowing the eggs to move through. I'm sorry I don't have more details or know the official name of the procedure but it may be something you can bring up to your doctor.

Best of luck!

I vote on taking a low does of Clomid - of my friends that had trouble getting pregnant and took Clomid - none had multiple births. Of my friends with twins - none took clomid. Restricting your diet while trying to get pregnent is risky, especially when cutting foods with Folic Acid. I might also suggest accupuncture for fertility. Dr. Ginger of Olive Street Road is the BEST!!!

Take the clomid to jump start and after a few months stop taking it and try again. Worked for me...three kids, all single births!

I am not familiar with using a low carb diet to promote ovulation. However, my husband and I had trouble conceiving. I was already ovulating, and my husband and I both checked out fine, so no one was ever able to pinpoint our exact infertility problem. We tried for years, and I was hesitant to use clomid as intervention. I was also very concerned with the idea of multiples. When I finally came to the point of considering it, I talked to my doctor about my concerns, and his answer was simply to use a very low dose and try it out. Sure enough, I was pregnant 3 months later. I know many people will point this out, but I firmly believe in my case this was true: stress played a major factor. We were so focused on getting pregnant, especially toward the end of trying, that it consumed us. I remember thinking that I would have to come to terms with the possibility of never having kids, and as soon as I started letting go, I think my body stepped up. It is easy to say, and extremely hard to do, but sometimes you have to let go of your plans and just let things happen. You might find that a low dose of Clomid can help trememdously. I wish you the best in your efforts!

I have heard that drinking regular tea, regularly helps in fertility. There is also a very effective herbal remedy called Damania at the health food store, and not it won't give you multiples. But, beware of the higher labido from that. HAHA! Men can take it too, but he probably doesn't need it if it is an ovulation issue. You can also get on Red Raspberry Leaf Tea, and that is even good during pregnancy. If you use the Damania, once you are PG, wean off of it slowly. I would say try the natural and herbal stuff first, of course. But, if you aren't ovulating at all, I wouldn't be too concerned about multiples, and if it is the choice between 0 or 2 at one time, what difference would it really make? Sorry you are going through this, I had secondary infertility as did my friend and my MIL, and my friend and I went on to have more children. My MIL was never blessed with good fertility to start with, so they adopted. HTH

I know it sounds strange but my friend did do the "low carb" and it worked within three months after 10 years of trying. She had already adopted one child and was in the process of adopting another when they discovered they were finally pregnant. They are now happy parents of two adopted and one birth child. I'm not sure how it works but she completely cut out all breads and so forth.

Good luck,
D.(birth and foster mom)

I had troubles ovulating and my doctor suggested that it was because I was borderline diabetic. Evidently, when your body doesn't use insulin correctly it doesn't produce enough progesterone which is necessary for ovulation. She put me on Metformin to regulate my insulin and I was pregnany in 4 months. Just something to look into.

I really have no idea if a low carb diet will jump start ovulation, but I do know that once you know you are pregnant, you need to eat carbs. A low carb diet can effect the baby. i was on Atkins, when I got pregnant with my first child, and my Dr told me to get off of it right when I found out I was pregnant.

Hi R.,
I honestly don't have a comment about the low carb diet, but it took me and my husband awhile to conceive our second child. Abby Deckard (NST St. Louis) does some non-invasive body work, and she worked on my husband and I right before I ovulated and we got pregnant that month. You may want to check out her website www.nststlouis.com and talk to her.
Good luck!
R.

Hi R.. I suffer from infertility. I have PCOS and do not ovulate on my own. Many women who suffer from PCOS have what is common in diabetic patients which is an insulin resistance (IR). A common way specialists treat this is to prescribe Metformin. This regulates the blood sugars. And due to the nature of the drug, you have to alter your diet. Which means low/no carbs and low/no sugar (desserts and lots of sweets and such).

A little background on me. I did clomid for about 3 yrs before seeing a specialist. With the specialist, I did clomid and intrauterine inseminationo (IUI). I got pregnant after 2 tries and now have my son (2003). When trying for #2, we did the lowest dosage of clomid and regular sex and it worked the first time (2006). This ended in miscarriage.

I do not suffer from IR however, my RE (reproductive endocrinologist) put me on 1500mg metformin just to level out my hormones. The first month of being on them, I got pregnant (2007). It ended in miscarriage. Then 2 mos ago, while on break from treatments and still taking my metformin, I was waiting on AF to arrive. Never did so after a while of frequent urination and sensitive boobs, I took a test and it was positive. I was only on metformin.

I think going low carb, can produce the same results as being on metformin, I just think it takes longer for the results to kick in. And FYI, many women on metformin usually lose weight. I am not overweight but since being on the met, I've lost 22lbs.

Hey R.. I've never heard of this method for getting stimulating ovulation. I will say, though, that my hubby and I tried a high protein diet once that limited carbs. After a few weeks I was having terrible back problems and I found out that the diet was very dehydrating, and I hadn't been watching my water intake closely enough. So my caution would be to really watch you H2O. I hope it works well for you. What a great/easy fix it would be!! God Bless.
T.:)

I had the same problem. I did decide to go on a low dose of clomid and it worked! I only took it for a couple of months and ended up with a beautiful baby boy. (Just one) I know there is a risk but my doctor said if you are on a low dose there is less risk so we tried it. I hope this helps. I don't know much about the low carb thing but I feel your pain. Hang in there!

I would assume your doctor is likely treating this as a suspected case of insulin resistance. Sometimes IR will make ovulation less predictable, skipping months, and so forth. Rather than medicating for IR, controlling your diet would be an easier, and ultimately cheaper, way of regulating it.

Hi R.. I remember when I got pregnant fairly quickly, my Mother-in-Law told me about an article she saw describing the best diet for fertility and told me I had basically been doing it already. The carb connection seems to be for "fast" carbs--meaning carbs that convert quickly to simple sugars like white sugar, white rice, potatoes, ect. or processes foods. The high-fiber carbs from whole-grains and veggies are still very good for you, so don't worry about limiting those. Here are a couple articles I found on it:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21756605/
http://www.newsweek.com/id/73354

Best of luck to you!

My name is Dr. Jennifer Murphy. I am a Chiropractor and do Acupuncture and Nutritional Recommendations also. I do work with a lot of women and fertility. I don't recommend carb restricted diets...we do,as a society eat too many carbs, but you need the right amount of the good carbs (fruits, veggies and whole grains) in your diet. There are serious effects to not getting enough carbs, including fertility problems.
You can go to these two websites to calculate how many actual carbs, fats and proteins you need.
http://walking.about.com/cs/calories/l/bldietcalc.htm, http://caloriecount.about.com/
I don't know what kind of Carb restricting diet you are on, I just ask that you NEVER cut out Fruits and Vegetables from your diet to restrict carbs. We don't get enough of the daily recommended to begin with and cutting them out would do much more harm to your body than good.
If you would like to talk to me about what I do for my other patients, there is no fee for a phone consultation.
You can call me at ###-###-#### or email me at ____@____.com, we have a lot of information on our website about infertility. Check it out. www.bcoh.org

Good luck to you and your husband,
Let me know if you have any other questions,
Dr. J.