Do Supplements REALLy work?

[tiffmw10]

I really need some facts here.....I don't want my DH taking a bunch of stuff that won't make any difference.

He takes a Multi, Folic Acid, B12 and V-C.

I just ordered some FB, but not sure if that's going to make a difference.

[hsmom24]

Yes, they really do. Not really related to TTC, but I use vitamins and herbs in place of traditional meds in our house, and they really do work for those things. My ILs came to our house for Christmas and brought us all a lovely little virus. The ILs all use traditional meds/drugs to try to heal themselves, and they were sick before they got here, and stayed that way until after the new year. My DH doesn't put much stalk into "my way", and he still hasn't gotten over the bug. However, the kids and I just upped our vitamins and garlic and we were only sick for 2-3 days. ETA: and for those 2-3 days that we were "sick", it was SOOO much more mild than what the rest of the family was going through.

So I 100% believe that they work to help a body out, from viruses to healing and improvements internally with things like TTC.

[tiffmw10]

So as far as TTC - what do you think really works or has some type of affect?

[kews]

I think from what I read FertilAid or Fertility Blend is one of the best to use. It has the most in it of everything.

[nancyls69]

I have my dh on so many things I am probably killing his sperm lol! On the other hand, he does feel better and doesn't get sick much.

[hsmom24]

Tiff, here's a list of supplements that are supposed to help with male fertility issues. My DH is on zinc, men's one a day, and flaxseed oil for now.

• Vitamin C (500-1500 mg/day) Vitamin C helps to combat the pollution we are surrounded with. Pollution, particularly agricultural chemicals have been shown to cause much lower sperm counts. Vitamin C has been shown to reduce DNA damage in sperm by 91%. It is also shown to reduce agglutination and abnormalities. Vitamin C (1000mg) per day raised sperm counts by 140% in the first week in one study and 200 mg increased sperm counts by 112% in the first week. After 60 days the 200 mg group had caught up with the 1000mg group. All of these men had impregnated their wives by the end of the study.
• Vitamin E (400-800 i.u. per day) Studies show that vitamin E can increase sperm potency by 2 ½ times. Two studies found that vitamin E supplementation lead to a 20% pregnancy rate in previously infertile men. That is higher than most assisted reproduction procedures! Take vitamin E in mixed tocopherol form. Take it with vitamin C but do not take it without consulting your doctor if you have anemia, poorly clotting blood, hyperthyroid, high blood pressure, or liver disease.
• Zinc (15-60 mg/day) Even a mild zinc deficiency can cause drastically lower sperm counts. Zinc may also improve sexual function. In one study, thirty-seven men with more than five years of infertility, and whose sperm counts were less than 25 million/ml took 60 mg of zinc daily for forty-five to fifty days. For the twenty-two patients with initially low testosterone levels showed an increase in testosterone and mean sperm count increased significantly, from 8 to 20 million/ml. Nine of the twenty- two wives became pregnant during the study. For the fifteen men with normal testosterone levels, sperm count increased slightly but there was no change in testosterone level and no pregnancies occurred. If you take zinc for longer than a few weeks you should add 1-3 mg of copper to prevent a copper deficiency.
• B-12 (10-100 mcg/day) and a B-Complex supplement can help balance testosterone and LH/FSH secretions. Lack of B-vitamins is very common in people who eat mostly refined and processed foods as well as those who smoke. Twenty-seven percent of men in one study with sperm counts under 20 million/ml took 1,000 mcg of vitamin B12 per day. As a result, their total sperm count increased in excess of 100 million/ml.
• Selenium (100-200 mcg/day) Selenium deficiency causes fragile sperm with easily broken tails. Semen is high in selenium so it must be replenished regularly. Selenium is toxic in large doses so don’t take more than 200 mcg day. One double-blind trial found that sperm counts doubled in previously infertile men after supplementation with selenium.
• Co-enzyme-Q10 (30-100 mg/day) increases sperm counts. Also an anti-oxidant.
• L-Carnitine (up to 3 grams per day) An Italian study found that 2 grams a day of carnitine for three months dramatically improved sperm counts and mobility.
• A good multi-vitamin including vitamin A. It is not a good idea to take vitamin A separately as it is very easy to overdose on this vitamin. A multi will not have enough of the other supplements, but it is a good starting place to make sure you are not missing anything. Vitamin A helps improve sperm production.
• Essential fatty acids (EFA) are even more important for men than for women. Eat lots of coldwater fish and ground flax seed or supplement with a combination of between 1-7 grams of fish oil and flax oil capsules. Fish oil and flax oil contain different EFA so you will need to add substantial amounts of both to your diet. EFA are important for lowering your risk of diabetes and heart disease, improving overall health, and improving sperm count. Be careful about taking too much if you are on blood thinners. Be sure to choose distilled fish oil because oils such as cod liver oil contain toxic levels of vitamin A.
• L-Arginine (2-4 g) Arginine has shown very promising results in numerous studies on both sperm counts and motility. It is best used when everything else has failed.

[kews]

Leslie- according to this list, you can actually double the dose on FB and still need to take EFA, and L-Arginine as these are not included in the FB. Thinking maybe I should up DH to 3 morning and night, but boy will that get expensive!

[hsmom24]

Kirsten, it definitely get very spendy. Another, cheaper, option is to actually buy the individual vitamins and take the necessary amount with separate pills. It's cheaper to do it that way (you generally pay more for "blends"), but then you'd end up taking a whole lot of pills. I'm not sure which would be better; taking fewer pills, or spending less money. lol

[kews]

lol that is true, but DH complains about the 4 pills I have him on now. He will flip when I suggest doing individual vitamins.

[hsmom24]

My DH is the same way. He was being good about taking his vitamins after his last SA, but that has phased out now and he's back to occasionally taking them. I can't imagine how much worse he would be if I had him on all the ones I'd like him to be taking. lol

[hardin82]

Tiff - you prob have heard me say this 20x's today on here, lol, but we started Fertiliaid for Men and I will say it has made a difference. Husband says he feels better too. Said it took a few days to get use to...had more energy, etc. I do think some can go over-board, but that's my opinion!

[shell2011]

Tiff - My DH took all those that Leslie recommended as individual pills, but just now switched to FB with Vit C, multivitamin, B complex and ginsing. I think I'm going to have him add back the L-arginine, though. He's been taking tons of pills for a year now so it won't hurt! BTW, DH has great counts! At the 11month SA (the only one we did), he had 185 million, 77% motility and normal morphology. We began the vitamin regimen at the time of VR and literally watched it worked as we scoped. We could see improvement over time just like J. hardin.

[tiffmw10]

Thanks girlies....now I don't feel so bad for giving him such an array of mixtures.

[tiffmw10]

Add FB to our supplements. DH just took his (3) for the day.

[kews]

Tiff we are gonna do 6 a day (according to the above list that is what it takes from fertility blend) and as soon as they come in the mail motility boost