Anyone had success with a varicocele procedure?

My husband was diagnosed with this condition and was prescribed Clomiphene by his urologist to improve count. Within a few months his numbers improved on the medication enough to do ICSI IVF. We made 3 healthy embryos & do a transfer this coming Monday. You’re right to be questioning your care team. The low count was instantly a referral to a urologist for my husband. I wouldn’t like that I had to look into that myself either. We had to change doctors & I feel so much more relaxed in the care of our doctor now who has helped us explore all avenues. The number of mishaps and things we had to research ourselves with the first doctor makes me ill now looking back. Listen to your instincts ♥️

@Chelsea thank you so much for sharing. I'm so pleased to hear that your husband's count has improved and that you have 3 healthy embryos. That's absolutely wonderful. Sending positive vibes your way for Monday 🩷

@Chelsea interested to hear more about your point around improving numbers enough to do ICSI IVF? We are looking to possibly go private for ICSI IVF as my husbands numbers are severely low (0.7 million per ml concentration) with low motility too. It made reference on his semen analysis notes about ICSI so we’ve presumed since that we’d be able to do it once we discounted all other possibilities (including variocele), but is there a minimum numbers wise?!

My husband has a varicocele and the urologist said it wouldn't necessarily treat his low count, but that it could possibly help with motility and morphology. However research shows that plenty of men with varicoceles conceive anyway, so unless it's causing pain or other issues, it's not necessarily the answer to fertility problems He didn't have it treated and we went ahead with ICSI and ended up with 3 embryos, one of which has just been born and the other 2are in the freezer

@Katherine I know his numbers were so low ICSI IVF wasn’t an option but after the medication for a few months they were able to do ICSI. The way it was explained to us is they will really chose the few fast swimmers in millions and make sure those are the ones to make it to the egg. He has Variocele just so we’re clear that’s why they medicated him to see if it helped. There is a surgery option but our Urologist said that since he responded to the medication it wasn’t worth the risks of the surgery. We also decreased both of our stress by doing more walks in nature together, decrease facetime with stressful people, and made sure he was wearing very breathable but supportive underwear and pants to work since varicocele is a problem for fertility in part because of temperature regulation. I hear other people saying medication or surgery for varicocele could not impact counts and that’s certainly true but from what we understand it will very often.

@Charley aw congratulations! You’re so right, the severity of the low sperm quality and the variocele isn’t the same for everyone but if someone’s nearly shooting blanks a urologist should be brought in right away to make sure they can’t help. So glad they could help us get into ICSI range.