I am starting the process of freezing my eggs and am wondering about side effects of the procedure. I’ve read about the possible risks of bleeding or infection, but are there other longer-term effects I should look out for? I have a hard time believing that all of the hormones I’m injecting won’t have any impact on me.
—Nervous about egg freezing
Egg freezing does involve the manipulation of the hormones that drive your menstrual cycle to increase the number of eggs that reach maturity during that cycle. There is very little data in the literature about the short-term risks of egg freezing. The medical literature is largely focused on outcomes such as how many eggs need to be frozen to provide a woman with a reasonable chance of becoming pregnant in the future.
In my clinical experience, many women experience bloating and water retention during the egg retrieval cycle. Typically this persists until she resumes having regular periods. Most women will have a period 7 to 14 days after an egg retrieval, but the period after that may be irregular. This is because the hormones given to stimulate the eggs to mature suppress the body’s own ability to drive ovulation. It can take some time for the body to recover from that suppression and work normally on its own.
When it comes to longer-term effects of hormones given during egg retrieval cycles, most of what we know comes from women who underwent IVF for infertility. This group of women may differ in important ways from women who are electively freezing their eggs to preserve their fertility for the future.
The data that we do have suggests that uterine and breast cancer rates are not increased among women using assisted reproductive technology (ART). With regard to ovarian cancer, there are several studies that have found that, while there is an increased risk of ovarian cancer in women with unexplained infertility, there is no further increased risk with ART.
The takeaway: The hormones used in egg freezing can have some short-term side effects such as bloating and water retention, and irregular periods for the menstrual cycle or two after the egg retrieval. There is no data to suggest that there are long-term risks associated with egg freezing.
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I went through 3 cycles of ovarian stimulation and I gained considerable weight from it. It was then quite hard to get back to my weight.
Of course, this is not a huge risk, more of an inconvenience. I am fairly active person and was running an average of 30-35 miles a week during the process (except for the time in cycle that would risk ovarian torsion). I appreciate that my sample size is n=1 and that everybody reacts to the hormones differently.
what I find interesting is the lack of research in long term effects.
This is only sort of related, but I have a fantastic 2-year-old from egg freezing. One thing I will note is that there are additional medications that you have to use and do to actually get your uterus ready to then. Inseminate the newly created embryos based on the egg freezing, so it’s kind of a whole second round of medications in addition to the egg freezing. Also, just because I think it’s not actually that common to wind up having a child from egg freezing. Should anyone be reading this, The eggs were about 5 or 5 and 1/2 years old and she’s a healthy delightful child. I wound up using the eggs after two miscarriages at age 41 from non-IVF/FET pregnancies and decided the 36 year old eggs were a better bet.