With male factor fertility, you'll be paying a lot of money for sperm analytics.
During the IVF treatment when my sperm team died in the starting gate, the lab tech showed my my lousy swimmers under a microscope. It didn't look that much different than the ones we used in high school (back in the 80's).
Now me being from a farming background and an engineer- I'm the frugalist and most innovative son of a gun on the face of the planet (to my wife's joy and horror depending on the circumstances) - I figured I could go out and buy one and save a bunch of money and guess work on what the swim team was up to. If you check youtube, there are a couple of good videos of healthy swim teams at different magnifications.
While it would be completely creepy to do this w/out my condition, I have to say this was money well spent. I got a new AMSCOPE for about 200 bucks. Since each SA has been running me about ~100 bucks, this thing has paid for itself 3 times over.
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can you please send me the link to the exact microscope your using?. I have spent money on a few toy microscopes in the past which was very frustrating ( could not make out any sperm). I just want to make sure the next one I buy I can see the swimmers. thank you.
ReplyDeletehttp://store.amscope.com/b100-ms.html
ReplyDeleteWith the 20X eyepeice and the lowest setting you can see whether you have swimmers or not and make out the shape. At the mid setting you can actually see whether the morphology is good.
Set the light to be at the lowest level- it just appears as a white blur if you have too much light.
be sure to buy slides and coverslips as that makes it easier to get an even field. Check Amazon for better deals on cover slips.
You can also search youtube for some video of what a healthy sample should look like (strange that people not suffering from infertility would do that- but useful for our situations)