Her Discussions by Dr Faye - Buy or Bye Bye with Fertility Expert | Mini Episode

Episode Date: March 26, 2026

A new mini-episode is dropping every Thursday... SURPRISE!Every Thursday, we’ll be sharing the Buy or Bye-Bye segment from one of your favourite Her Discussions episodes - a breakdown of what actually works for your health.This week, we're revisiting our episode with Dr Nagla. Dr Nagla is one of the UK’s leading fertility experts and last year’s most popular guest on Her Discussions Podcast.In this mini episode, we discuss the products that will actually help your fertility, and those you can say bye-bye to.Listen to the full podcast here:YouTube: https://youtu.be/BBC_RgBTJBA?si=2a5kuNffux6wJXuFSpotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/21NfUoGB1wdXh8Qe7NoM36?si=zh_OrXXITJulna_4_NkI6gIn the full episode, we discuss:🧊 the A–Z of the egg freezing process💰 a way to avoid paying for it💗 the real side effects of hormonal injections⭐ a cheaper alternative to £60 fertility supplements🍔 why you might find yourself eating a burger at 12 AM⏳the best age to freeze and when it might be too latePlease don’t forget to subscribe - it really helps us grow the podcast.Resources & links mentioned:@fertilitydrnaglaCan I ask you a BIG favour? 💙Please leave a review or rating. It helps us grow the podcast and bring you more amazing guests.Share with someone who needs this, it might help them live a happier, healthier life.Follow us on social media or join the broadcast channel to send us your questions for our guests:Podcast Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/herdiscussionspod/Broadcast channel: https://www.instagram.com/channel/AbY4liwxlLnewx4H/🛑 Disclaimers & legal:This podcast is for educational / informational purposes only and does not constitute medical, legal, or financial advice. All opinions are those of the speaker(s).

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So we honestly were general fertility, buy or buy-bye section. So you either say that you would buy the product or, you know, you think it's good. Okay. Or say bye-bye. First up, at-home hormone test kits. I'm going to say bye-bye. The reason being, I'm not against them. I think if you want to have a bit more information and you want to have the blood test to look at your egg reserve,

you probably will need to have a scan alongside that. So yeah, by all means, if you want to do the test at home and then follow it up with a scan or with a consultation, then buy. But if you're just going to do the blood test and panic and not do anything else, then it's going to be a bye-bye. Can I ask you a little bit of a personal question? Are you a good or a bad patient?

A bad patient. Yeah, I was going to say, I think even like, as a doctor, I am probably one of the worst patients. And when I was comparing the at home and the in clinic, I really, really appreciated having someone there to explain all the results to me in person because I'm a little,

I can be a bit anxious. I think when you know a little bit about your health, you, I can spiral quite quickly when it comes to my health. And having, I think that's something to consider, just thinking about who you are as a person. If you're someone who does, like, reassurance,

Yeah. Probably getting those results at home by yourself may not be the best option. That's a very good point actually, yeah. Fetility tease. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Straight up. God. Bye-bye. No evidence. No. I don't think I'm going to leave it there. At MedCan, we know that life's greatest moments are built on a foundation of good health, from the big milestones to the quiet wins.

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Yeah. For almost anything that's marketed as like a fertility supplement. Yeah. My question is, well, if anybody is like recommending something, I would very quickly have a look at are they selling something? Is there a financial gain for them? because to me I think I could probably put some seeds on my porridge and be done with it but I don't know that I need to buy a seed cycling kit that seems excessive. Yeah. Is there a word for, you know, there's the pink tax where stuff is pink and it gets an extra money.

Is there a word for, there should be one for like an egg tax? Yeah. Fertility things because some of the fertility supplements and they've got like vitamin D and, you know, just buy the vitamin D, you're paying more money just because it says it's a fertility supplement or you know whatever oh interestingly enough vitamin D supplements by nice yeah general for general health you know in this country we're going to be low on vitamin D and we know that for you know plenty of things vitamin D is beneficial the the evidence in like the fertility there are some there are some studies that show for example patients with endometriosis seem to

have lower levels of vitamin D whether that contribute it's not a cause and effect thing because a lot of these studies are not like a gold standard of study that we look at like randomized controlled trials or systematic reviews a lot of them are small studies observational studies but you know vitamin d is good in general so i would say buy but again to your point you don't need to buy expensive ones you just buy the generic ones they do the exact same thing i think we have we have this belief that because we've paid more for something that it should work better but it doesn't it's just just buy the generic one yeah fertility vitamin d is of the exact that same as any other V-M-D.

Basal body temperature thermometers. So I would say by, but depends on you as a person, kind of coming back to that same AMH thing. I think for people who are anxious, sometimes doing a lot of testing doesn't work well for them, like things like basal body temperature or ovulation predictor kits and things like that. So if you find that doing like a lot of tests

is going to increase your anxiety, then I probably wouldn't do it. But I think in general, it's a good thing because you can spot over time when you ovulate. And that's key for getting pregnant, if you want to get pregnant. That's, I've never thought of that. But yeah, if you're someone who, the tests, the testing element of the whole process, the out-freezing process was something I didn't anticipate to be so emotionally draining.

Like, you know, all the blood tests, like, going in, it was a full-time job going into the facility. clinic. It's an intensive process. It is. And you're you're right if you're someone who thinking about yourself as a person is really important for all these things. Cycle tracking apps. So I don't think you need to buy them. This is basically what I'm saying. I think there are, I think you can use the beta version or the free version. Yeah. I don't know how much more you can gain by paying. Yeah. Is what I want to say. So I say buy in the sense of use them to understand your cycle and to know when you're ovulating. I would, use like a combination of things.

Yeah. Because a lot of the apps are based on the kind of 28 day cycle, which is not the same for everyone. So you can use, you can use that app. You could use it in combination with like the basal body temperature or an ovulation predict kit or just having a look at your cervical mucas. You can use all of these data points to understand your fertile window to know when you're ovulating.

I don't think you need to pay for, you know, the expensive versions. Do you have any apps that you recommend to patients? Lots of patients use things like the Flow app or I can't really remember the names of them now, but, you know, and I think if you wear these wearable tech, then that will automatically be linked. But I'm sure you can, I don't want to promote a specific one because I don't really think they do anything different. Yeah. Just in terms of like inputting the data of when your period was. So yeah, but I would just use a free one.

Nice. At home semen analysis kits. Okay, so this is an interesting one. What I will say about these at home semen analysis kits, the main things that we look at in the clinic is we look at the volume, the motilities are how they're swimming, the morphology, so how many of them appear normal under the microscope, and the concentration.

The at home ones don't look at the morphology. Oh. So they look at three out of four of those. So I think, I think if all of those things are normal on two occasions, then it's probably fine. Yeah. But if anything is abnormal, you're going to end up needing the lab one because you will need to look at the morphology.

Yeah. And that's really important because if there is a sperm issue, like a significant sperm issue, then usually you have to actually move straight towards not just IVF, but to Ixie where they, an extra step in IVF where the embryologist chooses the sperm and injects it into the egg. So that's really crucial information. So yeah, if you want to do it at home and it's normal, then that's probably okay. if it's abnormal you're going to end up paying for the lab one anyway it's not that expensive I'd have to check the actual cost but yeah you could skip that step and go straight for the lab one

yeah I think it definitely it may be again if someone's quite an anxious person and obviously with men obtaining a semen sample in a clinic yeah there's other anxieties that are associated with that but then yeah I think similar to the hormone tests yeah you may just be elongating the process and increasing the cost by trying to take a shorter route. Yeah. Thank you for listening. If you would like to hear the full episode

with even more jam-packed knowledge, then just click the link in the description. Um...