Donor Blog

The Scoop on OHSS: Post Day 8

I feel completely back to normal already! This morning, my lungs felt like I had gotten over a cold and tonight they feel great. I weighed myself at the peak of my OHSS and I had gained 8 lbs of weight. I've still got 3 more lbs to lose, but I figure that's vacation weight.

I decided to look up the plain facts on OHSS:

  • Ovarian Hyper Stimulation Syndrome can be classified as mild, moderate, or severe depending on the symptoms.

  • Symptoms will show up 2-5 days after the egg retrieval.

  • Many IVF patients report mild symptoms of OHSS, which includes bloating or abdominal swelling. Moderate cases include shortness of breath, difficulty urinating, and dehydration. Severe cases are a less than 1% chance of happening and requires hospitalization because of pain in your abdomen, severe dehydration, or needing help with a respirator because of fluid surrounding the lungs.

  • The cause is due to the ovaries' sensitivity to the hormones. The women more at risk to experience OHSS are those who yield a high number of eggs, younger women, underweight, and high estrogen hormone levels

  • The severe symptoms mainly develop with women under IVF treatment and get pregnant (egg donors don't have to worry so much to get severe symptoms since it goes away by your period - for pregnant women, since there is no period it gets worse and will not go away and will endanger the life of herself and the baby - sadly these are the cases where termination may be necessary).

  • Recovery only takes a couple of days if mild or moderate and completely disappears by your first period.

  • It is a short-term side effect only and will not affect you or return in the long-run.

  • It is caused by the empty follicle cavities where their next stage is to release a hormone to signal the uterus to thicken its lining and catch a potential embryo. Being hyper-stimulated, they just keep pumping out water from the bloodstream into the abdomen (hence dehydration). That's why those who have many eggs retrieved could be likely to experience the bloating issue - there's more empty follicles to pump fluid.

Also, here is a doctor's explanation in lehman's terms on what is happening to your body when OHSS occurs. I like his description and find it is an interesting read.

http://100infertilityquestions.blogspot.com/2007/06/ohss-woes.html

Oh! I almost forgot to mention that I received a flower delivery today from the IP thanking me (my case manager ordered it for them). It was so sweet of them, and I don't think every IP will do that. I feel so appreciated!