February 11, 2013 – Positive Change

We have made it to Day 21 on Femara.  For the most part it is a much easier drug to take than Clomid.  I had a few side effects, most notably joint pain which made me feel like I could barely use my hands.  This was very upsetting considering I use my hands all the time!  I couldn’t sew or clean because my hands hurt terribly to grip things for extended periods.  I would end up sitting with my hands very still to be pain free.  Even then I would get the occasional pain in my hands/wrists.  It was like aging 40 years over night.  Thankfully that side effect didn’t last the whole month like many of the Clomid side effects did.  Femara has a much shorter half-life, so there is relief from the side effects towards the end of each month.  With Clomid it just continued to build up in my system and then became ineffective. 

Clomid had also lengthened my cycles to 34 days.  That is a long time when you are used to 29 days.  On Femara I am back to my normal schedule.  That is really nice. 

Finally, we have to compare effectiveness.  Towards the end of my time on Clomid my progesterone levels were in the single digits.  I was getting maybe 1 egg each month, so it wasn’t really increasing my chances of having a good egg available for fertilization each month.  This is my first month on Femara and my progesterone was 23 today, so obviously Femara is working better for me than Clomid was.  Now we just have to keep our fingers crossed that our timing was good and a healthy sperm met a healthy egg and we are currently making a healthy baby.  We should know in about 9 days.