Question: I am a person who is fearful of pain. I gathered that going through IVF will required multiple injections, surgery and other procedures which are painful. Is it true?

Dr Helena’s answer:

IVF sounds daunting to many people. A lot of us have perceptions that it is extremely expensive. Some of us thinks that it would bring us a lot of inconvenience, such as having to go to hospital everyday, lay in bed for a few months, quit our job and etc

One of the greatest fear many had was the perception of pain associated with IVF procedures. The thought of having daily injections made most of us wanting to run away and hide from the doctors. Some people are scared thinking about the egg retrieval procedures. Some are dreading the embryo transfer procedure, thinking that it would bring great pain and discomfort. Some dread the injections which are taken after the procedure, which are the progestogen injections, aimed to support the lining of the uterus whilst the embryos are implanting.

However, with the new development and breakthroughs in the world of reproductive medicine, IVF procedures had become more and more comfortable and easy to management, with minimal disruption to daily life.

First and foremost, the durations of injections had been shortened significantly with the use of antagonist injections in IVF. This method of doing IVF is called the antagonist cycle or the short protocol. So, instead of having 3 weeks of injections in the agonist cycle or long protocol, the advent of antagonist injections had lead to a shortened period of 10-12 days of injections. This had greatly reduce the discomfort one needs to go through with injections.

The use of self-administered FSH injection pens with extremely fine needles, had significantly cut down the pain one experienced during injections. This self- administered injections pens are given to patients to take home, and the injections are administered by patients themselves, so patients do not need to come to the clinic or hospital to have their daily injections. The needles used are similar to the ones used in the insulin injection pens, which is extremely fine and almost painless.

There is also another long acting FSH injection which given at the beginning of an IVF cycle and can last for 7 days. After the initial injection, the patient need not take FSH injection for the next 7 days, which significantly cuts down the number of injections required.

The egg retrieval procedure which usually happened after 10-12 days of injections involved having a light sedation in an operating theatre. In the past, the use of certain sedations such as Valium, Dormicum or pethidine administered by the IVF doctors whilst performing the egg retrieval procedure had appeared to be increasingly unsafe. In many IVF units, a proper IVF operating theatre with a trained Anaesthetist giving sedation during the egg retrieval procedure is becoming a norm and deemed acceptable in terms of safety. One of the advantage of the involvement of an Anaesthetist is that egg retrieval procedure is becoming almost painless, and hence optimizing patient experience in IVF.

Embryo transfer procedure is usually carried out 3-5 days after the egg retrieval. During the procedure, the embryos which were created following fertilization of the retrieved eggs with sperms are replaced into the uterus. This procedure is performed without anaesthesia or sedation, is relatively pain free. The experience is almost the same as having a cervical smear. Therefore, women should not feel fearful about having an embryo transfer.

After the embryo transfer, to support the uterus lining and to ease implantation, a
Progestogen is prescribed. In the past, progestogen is administered by injections. These injections are usually painful and cause local irritations, which is uncomfortable and unacceptable to many. With the advent of effective oral and vaginal suppository preparations, studies had shown that these forms of progestogen are equally effective in delivering progestogen to uterus, injectable progestogen had slowly becoming a thing of the past in many IVF centres. This has also greatly cut down the pain experience in IVF

In conclusion, with rapid modernization in reproductive medicine & technology, IVF had become relatively painless. It is importantly to find out more information on IVF before you embark on this journey.