Saturday, April 18, 2009

A Bitter Pill

One of the most unassuming yet unpleasant parts of this whole infertility business is the large amount of pills I must take on a daily basis. This might sound trivial and I know it pales in comparison to the other things I endure, but I’m just so sick of swallowing pills. I long for the day -- years from now when my pregnancy endeavors are behind me -- when I don’t have to take any sort of pill at all.

Unfortunately, that day will never actually arrive. This is because I’m on Folgard and baby aspirin for life due to my MTHFR mutation, and Calcium to prevent bone loss since I’m of “advanced age” and I suppose it’s always prudent to take a multi-vitamin. (And if my parents' vitamin baskets are any indication, I will eventually be adding a handful of cholesterol and blood pressure concoctions, and who knows what else, to the mix...but at least this won't be for a while.) Perhaps I’ll just say that I long for the day when I must take only six pills. Still much more manageable than my current routine. A sort of vacation for my esophagus.


Right now, my daily pill regimen looks like this:



This includes Estrace, DHEA, a prenatal, Folgard, DHA, L-Arginine, Caltrate, Vitamin C and a baby aspirin. I split these into two doses -- half in the morning and half in the evening. I try to assign my critical pills the morning rotation in case I get lazy and neglect to take all of my nighttimers, which I do from time to time.

I also take three daily eyedroppers-full of a Chinese herb that was highly recommended by my acupunturist. It’s an odd-tasting and pungent potion, and was almost repulsive to me when I first tried it. It's available in capsules as well, but I'll opt for the tincture any day. And I've actually come to find it quite tasty.

3 comments:

DAVs said...

I take a truckload of pills and supplements every day too! Sometimes it gets annoying, and our friends laugh when they see them all laid out (we keep them on the end table in our living room to remind us to take them at night, DH takes a ton too) but one day, hoping it will all be worth it!

Linda said...

Whoa, that's a lot of pills. And I thought my taking Folgard, Neevo (prescription prenatals), DHA, baby aspirin, and Dulcolax (yep, my intestines have slowed tremendously) was a lot. Hang in there. It'll be all worth it in the end! :)

Sue said...

I forgot to check your post yesterday and comment so I am a day late. My CGH results just came in on Monday - so mine were exactly 5w3d from the date the lab was supposed to receive them (5w4d from day 6), I'm not sure that info helps but it gives you an idea of where the results stand. I am also north of NYC (originally from LI/Queens) and we considered our second opinion to likely be in NYC but then I had the consult with CCRM and I was off...no one but the best!

Also - I too love cycling out of state. I hate the cost but it is so much nicer to separate from home and just be all about the IVF for a while. For some reason, it is so much less stressful.

That is one crazy amount of pills! hopefully they all do what they are supposed to!

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