Make IVF treatment stress-free by following these steps.
Many IVF doctors love making a song and dance about how complex IVF treatment is because this allows them to charge patients more money! They unnecessarily overcomplicate it, and this just ends up making the patient’s life a lot more difficult. Part of the reason they do this is because they need to justify why they are charging patients so much money, and the best way to do this is to cloak the treatment with a lot of jargon so that it appears to be very complicated - and obviously, everything which is very complicated is also very expensive!
Doing this helps subtly to keep patients in their place, and this is one of the reasons why a lot of IVF doctors love throwing a lot of jargon around, because they know that patients are not going to be able to understand anything they say – and for a doctor, a patient’s ignorance is bliss. It’s easier to intimidate clueless patients, who are reluctant to ask questions because they are reluctant to look dumb! This is great for doctors, who don’t need to waste their time answering questions from pesky patients! This is an extremely clever ploy, and a lot of very busy brand-name super-specialists use this strategy to ensure the patients know who is the boss!
They start by ordering a lot of tests before starting the IVF cycle - and the more expensive the clinic, the more tests are ordered. This is mindless checkbox medicine, and many of these are unproven, expensive, and esoteric, and actually don’t provide any useful clinical information. A great example is the panel of genetic and immune tests; and tests for TORCH and TB! However, many clinics do these because they are great sources of profit, and most patients are not assertive enough to question the doctors as to why these tests are being done! They naively assume that the doctor knows what they are doing and that as a patient it's not their place to question their doctor’s advice! These tests may be great for research, or for experimental protocols, but it’s not fair to charge the patient for being a guinea pig!
The problems don’t stop with the testing, and continue with the treatment cycle. Most clinics insist that patients come every day to the clinic for a daily blood test; a daily scan; and daily injections. Now this is a complete waste because we all know that follicles grow slowly, and there is no point in doing tests every day, because the results aren’t going to change on a daily basis.
All these testing just wastes the poor patient’s time, and they end up spending the entire day waiting for the test; for the test result; and then waiting to see the doctor for their opinion!
I think having a clinic full of patients waiting for them gives these doctors a huge ego kick , which is why they do this, and it surprises me that patients don't realise that having an overfull clinic is not a sign of a successful clinic, but rather the sign of a doctor who has poor time management skills, and doesn't value the patient’s time, and is happy to make them wait unnecessarily.
All this waiting obviously means that patients get even more stressed out, because they can't go to work, and they end up losing income. What’s even worse is there a complete lack of transparency as to what the tests are; what the results are; and why they are being done.
Patients effectively live from day to day as the IVF cycle proceeds, because they don't know what's going to happen next. This helps the doctor to remain in control because the information asymmetry and opacity ensure that patients will just follow orders without asking any questions.
Another way doctors add to stress levels unnecessarily is by hiding information from patients, and refusing to get the details of their test results, the treatment, or photographs of their embryos – something which is standard practice all over the world!
This means patients remain in the dark and have no idea what's happening. This is why they are forced to rely blindly on the doctor, which is never a happy situation to be in, especially when your doctor happens to be focused on optimizing his profits, rather than your well-being.
Finally, a lot of doctors are extremely unkind, and they add to the patient’s stress levels by giving them painful IM injections of progesterone, as well as painful subcutaneous injections of heparin. The poor patient’s butt gets so sore that they can't even sit down properly, and they have multiple bruises as a result of these shots. This is extremely unkind and unnecessarily stressful because intramuscular progesterone can easily be replaced by vaginal progesterone, which is actually far more effective! And there is absolutely no need to give subcutaneous heparin injections routinely to all patients, but many doctors just follow a checkbook exercise, and prescribe everything to all their patients, whether or not they need it. Patients don’t have the ability to be able to push back and are forced to be passive participants.
This means that when their cycle fails because the IVF cycle was so stressful, they just go to pieces and refuse to do another cycle! And many times husbands put their foot down because they can’t bear to see their wives suffering!
The good news is that good clinics like ours actually make IVF stress-free and fuss-free by being transparent and open, and sharing a treatment plan well before we start the cycle, so patients are in control, and know what to expect. We only call them to the clinic 4-5 times during the IVF cycle, and do only 2 -3 blood tests. We share information during the treatment cycle by providing photographs of everything we do, and we encourage patients to be well informed by sharing our free IVF comic book, which educates patients, so they know everything about IVF. This helps to reduce their stress levels, and the anxiety caused as a result of the fear of the unknown because they our open approach ensures that they are much more in control of their treatment!