Remember the fact that any signs you felt through the pre-procedure injection section might stick round for a bit. In line with Dr. Yoder, most individuals really feel fairly bloated, swollen, and fatigued for a number of days post-op. “Your hormone ranges are nonetheless excessive, your ovaries are nonetheless greater than regular, and also you haven’t actually gotten rid of that further fluid but,” she says. That’s additionally why your physician might recommend you maintain off on intense train for an additional week or so.
Every of the locations from which an egg was retrieved additionally turns into “a bit of progesterone manufacturing unit,” Dr. Jackson-Bey says. The following spike in that hormone may cause you to retain extra fluid (main you to really feel puffier throughout) and set off quite a lot of blegh signs, like temper disturbances, fatigue, breast tenderness, and bloating. As a result of progesterone can gradual the actions of your intestine, it’s additionally doable to have some constipation, Dr. Yoder provides. Usually talking, the extra eggs you simply had eliminated, the extra of those signs you may count on to really feel, Dr. Ahmad says.
By round day three or 4 after the retrieval, “individuals often flip a nook and begin to really feel extra like their regular selves,” Dr. Yoder says. As your ovaries return down in dimension, bloating sometimes subsides, and chances are you’ll discover you need to pee extra typically as your physique flushes out extra liquid.
Although it’s very uncommon (and more and more much less widespread than it was), it’s doable to develop a situation referred to as ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome (OHSS) as a complication of the egg retrieval course of, by which your ovaries have an exaggerated response to the hormone meds and get very swollen, doubtlessly leaking fluid into your stomach or chest cavity; it impacts an estimated 5 in 1,000 IVF cycles. It sometimes happens a few week after the process, Dr. Ahmad says, and also you’ll wish to be looking out for the signs: decreased urination, darkish or tea-colored pee, shortness of breath, bloating that solely will get worse or simply gained’t stop, nausea, vomiting, and swelling. Attain out to your physician STAT when you discover any of the above, as OHSS can put you in danger for blood clots, ovarian torsion, and even kidney failure if it progresses.
When your subsequent interval rolls round, Dr. Jackson-Bey says it could possibly be a bit of heavier or crampier than regular. The inflow in estrogen from the expansion of these further eggs additionally stimulates the thickening of your uterine lining, which means extra tissue then has to return out. By the point it’s over, although, any egg-retrieval-related signs may have sometimes let up.
Although there aren’t any clearly outlined long-term well being dangers related to egg retrieval, the American Society of Reproductive Drugs suggests doing not more than six egg donor cycles (and the ob-gyns SELF spoke with cited the identical cap for egg retrievals for any purpose) as a result of every retrieval course of nonetheless provides to your general potential threat of unwanted side effects and unusual problems equivalent to OHSS. There’s additionally analysis to recommend that ovulating extra, over the course of your lifetime, places you at elevated threat for ovarian most cancers, Dr. Ahmad says, and with egg retrieval, you’re basically replicating the ovulation course of with a number of eggs.
However once more, with anyone retrieval, it’s necessary to do not forget that signs are short-term—two to 3 weeks out of your life, Dr. Jackson-Bey says. And to your ovaries, it’s often little greater than a blip as properly. Even the common ovulation course of is fairly “violent,” she says, requiring an egg to “burst out,” so “the ovaries are very able to mending themselves” comparatively shortly when it’s throughout. After which, Dr. Jackson-Bey says, they’re again to their recurrently scheduled programming for subsequent month.
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