Her Discussions by Dr Faye - Fertility Expert: The Hour Everyone Should Listen to Before Freezing Their Eggs

Episode Date: February 2, 2026

Dr Nagla is one of the UK’s leading fertility experts and last year’s most popular guest on Her Discussions Podcast.In this episode, we’ll explore the best time to freeze your eggs, what happens in the process, and the truth about fertility supplements.Note: In the discussion about egg vs. embryo freezing, embryos can also be frozen using donor sperm, even if you don’t have a partner.What you’ll learn:🧊 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 lateBut first, please don’t forget to subscribe and share, it really helps us to grow this podcast.Resources & links mentioned:@fertilitydrnaglaLinks to subscribe / follow:Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/her-discussions-by-dr-faye/id1835829612Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5viLYizHD4Zy6J42iqtPRoCan 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. I'll leave the link here: https://www.instagram.com/channel/AbY4liwxlLnewx4H/?igsh=MWhuaXFweGtucTB3cA==https://www.instagram.com/channel/AbY4liwxlLnewx4H/?igsh=MWhuaXFweGtucTB3cA==🛑 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).

We're understanding that as men get older, that sperm accumulates DNA damage and that increases the risk of... Today we're going to be exploring the best time to freeze your eggs, what actually happens in the process and the truth about facility supplements. When I posted a little bit about freeze my eggs, it got a little bit of controversy. People were saying in my comments, no, the biological clock is a lie for women, it's being debunked. Oh, no! If you have the information now, these are distrubes. now, these are decisions that you make proactively rather than decisions that are taken away from you down the line. When should you freeze your eggs? I'm going to be really honest and I don't think that people are going to love this answer.

Can I ask you a little bit of a personal question? But first, please don't forget to subscribe or leave a five-star review. It really helps us keep bringing you guests that give you the information to help you live a happier, healthier life. Thank you. Hi, I'm Dr. Nagler. Welcome to Her Discussions Podcast. Dr Nagler. I obviously recently froze my eggs and I really wanted to come on the podcast and open my big bloody mouth about all my opinions and my experience but I recognise that my experience is one person's and I thought who better to join me than one of our most well-loved guests from last year than yourself to also make sure that everything that is going out to the listeners is the best possible information for them and not just based on my experience.

So we've had so many community questions about freezing eggs. Before I explained some of my personal reasons for freeze my eggs that I haven't really done a good job of explaining previously, I'd love to hear from you who are the women that you see in clinic who are looking to freeze their eggs. What are there reasons? Yeah. So we see a lot of women. A lot of women are coming through young women who know that they want to have children in the future,

but for a variety of reasons, that is not something that they are doing at the moment. So women who are single, women who sometimes are in relationships, but for other reasons, like career reasons, maybe are delaying. We're seeing more people come in with company benefits that their companies, usually tech companies, are paying for them to have their eggs frozen. And sometimes we are seeing people in. relationships as well who are coming in for a kind of couple MOT they want to understand the layer of the land and maybe are thinking about freezing eggs or embryos for the future.

I think it's really interesting that you mentioned about the company benefits thing because as controversial as that is, that's a whole other conversation in itself should companies be offering egg freezing as benefit. It is a reality and I think when I posted a little bit about freeze my eggs. It got a little bit of controversy. But at the end of the day, I think it is a reality that people are considering. And that's why I think this episode is so important. And we'll come on later to the costs and, you know, whether it is the right decision for you. But before we come on to that, I wanted to explain a little bit about what my reasons were because I think a lot of comments that I got were why would you do it because you've got a partner, you've got a boyfriend. And like

everyone's situation is so, so, so personal. But my boyfriend's birth year sickens me to say this every single time I see his driver's license starts with a two. I know. I know. So that was one of like my big reasons. Like I would never, I'm 27, was 26 when I went through this process. And even for me, it wasn't something that I was, it wasn't at the forefront of my mind. but even less so for him. And so that, I think a lot of the time when people speak about freezing eggs, it's spoken about is,

oh, it's good if you haven't found the right partner yet. And a couple of the comments directed at me were maybe that I was being a little bit silly freezing or whatever. And then the other thing is you actually don't know what happened, not what could happen. I think being able to take the pressure off slightly, not seeing it as an insurance policy, but being able to put in certain protections in place

was like I felt it was beneficial for me. Yeah. Yeah. So a woman comes to this clinic, for whatever reason, it is something that she is considering. Very big question. Can you talk me through the process of egg freezing start to finish?

Yeah. So this is, okay, let's say you're a single woman coming into the clinic, talk about egg freezing. we're going to do a general history, just to find out a bit about, you know, your cycles, your general health, have you had any previous pregnancies, etc. We're going to do some blood tests, like which I'm sure we'll come on to, but the AMH to have a look at the,

which reflects your egg reserve or how many eggs you have left. And you have a scan as well. It's usually an internal scan, so a probe goes inside the vagina. We have a look at all of your pelvic anatomy, so your uterus, your ovaries, The other kind of half of the checking the egg reserve, the other side of doing the AMH is that we look at the number of follicles on the ovaries as well. The AMH and the number of follicles that you see on the ovaries are similar. So say your AMH is five.

If I saw five follicles, that would be perfectly expected. I wouldn't expect to see 20 if I saw an AMH of five. And if you saw 20, what would that may be? It's unlikely. I mean, if you had 20 follicles, you probably have a higher AMH and then we might be thinking about something like PCOS, for example. All that to say that the findings on the scan is the, in some respects, actually more important than the AMH because when we're looking at doing the stimulation, that is what's giving us the idea of how many eggs we're expecting to retrieve. So you have the consultation, the history, the ultrasound scan, and of course we're also looking for any other things on the scan. Like are we seeing, like I said, any signs of PCOS?

Sometimes you can see endometriosis. Like if there are endometriotic type cysts on the ovaries, for example. And there are other signs on a scan as well, or adenmosis, fibroids, etc. Then in terms of the actual process of egg freezing, it's essentially like the first part of doing IVF. So we're going to stimulate the ovaries. Now, in a normal month, what will happen is that your brain will be sending a signal to the ovaries. And of those follicles that we see, one will, become the dominant follicle. It'll get to a size about two centimeters, then middle of your cycle,

it will rupture and release an egg and you ovulate. Some people feel that actually, that mid-cycle pain. Now, obviously, we don't want to get one egg. That wouldn't be very efficient. So we're going to give you more of this hormone, same hormone that is signaling from your brain to your ovary, and we want to stimulate as many of these follicles as we can. So as I say, if you have five follicles, then we try and stimulate in a perfect world, all five. If you've got 20, in a perfect world, we'll stimulate 20. People have, on average, a couple of weeks of daily injections, and we will tell us about how you felt with the injections.

It's a small needle. That's the first thing to say. It's like if you've seen somebody giving themselves like insulin or something. It's usually fairly well tolerated, but of course some people don't do well with needles in general. So a couple of weeks of injections. And then when they get to a good size, but we know that there's a good chance that there will be,

a mature egg inside, then you have an injection to kind of the final step of maturing the egg. And then you have your egg collection. So you take the trigger injection and then usually about 36 hours later, you have your egg collection. The egg collection itself can be done. It's usually done under sedation. So you are asleep. You don't feel any pain. But it's not like a general anesthetic. So you're breathing for yourself. If some people don't have the, sedation for whatever reason and you can actually do it under local anaesthetic as well so if you for whatever reason don't want to have that that's a possibility in exactly the same way that you have the ultrasound scan the probe goes inside the vagina a very fine needle is attached to the probe

which basically goes through the wall of the vagina into the ovary this is all done under ultrasound guidance so you see where you're going and you're going into each one of these follicles you don't see the eggs on the scan because they're microscopic so you don't see them with an naked eye, but you go into the follicle and you basically suck all of the fluid out. The fluid goes straight into a tube. The tube goes straight into the lab where the embryologist is waiting with a microscope to see if that fluid contains an egg. One follicle can give you one egg.

In an ideal world, every follicle will contain an egg. That's not always the reality, but the majority of them should contain an egg. I mention about the AMH from the follicle count because sometimes it's easy to see you know, maybe somebody online got 20 eggs and you're thinking, well, I only got five, but as I say, one follicle can give you one egg and you can only stimulate the follicles that are there. And that depends on your egg reserve. Because somebody with a very high reserve on the scan might be the person with 20 follicles. Somebody with a lower reserve might be the person with the five follicles. So it's not about you having done badly or somebody having done really well.

It's just about what is normal or expected for you because we can't defy your biology. We can't take more eggs than there are follicles. Yeah. We're going to come on to as well how that might be different for someone who it has PCS, for example. Yeah. Like the different sort of situations based on your medical history.

But there were a couple of points I wanted to pull up on. It's interesting that you said about it's essentially doing the first part of IVF because when it garnered a little. bit of controversy that I was freeze my eggs. The way I saw it was if one in six couples experience infidelity, do we know how many of those couples go through fertility treatments? No. No, that's all right.

No, that's fine. But if one in six couples experience infidelity, there's quite a high chance that actually, well, there's a reasonable chance that you would be one of those couples. If you have the means to be able to do that first. part of IVF when the quality of your eggs is better, that seems like a reasonable thing to do. And I completely get the controversy around egg freezing does come from the cost. It's an interesting way of looking at it, especially when I think the conversation around egg freezing often feels very shaming on women, especially ambitious career women.

And I don't necessarily think that's fair a lot of the time. Yeah. Anyone maybe who is listening who does have this internal. negative feeling towards egg freezing, I would ask you to just step back and maybe assess where that comes from because that's how I felt when it was an extremely controversial thing for me to do.

It did feel like there was some prejudices that existed for people to have this negative stereotype of women who freeze their eggs. That was one point I was going to make. The other one was about the scan. So the reason I froze my eggs was because I set out to make a video comparing at-home fertility test

and an in-clinic version. So I only had the blood test. I didn't have the scan to try and make the test fair. And I think that's really important to point out if you do get an at-home test. A lot of them, you pay for the at-home test and then they do recommend you get a scan afterwards,

but then that scan comes at an extra cost. Whereas if you go into a clinic, I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, I don't think many clinics offer just the blood test. I think most clinics would recommend you get the blood test and the scan. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, it's just part of the workup, right? It's like you wouldn't just miss a big part of the workup. I think that's really important for people who are looking at getting any sort of facility workup to think about because the cost really does add up if you're getting an at-home test on top. Yeah. And then the scan. So, guys, I've got to be honest, I had a bit of a traumatic experience getting my coil put in a few years ago. And ever since then, I do not like any gynecological exam.

I think especially as, I don't know, as a doctor, I have, well, you know, we have seen so many naked people's intimate parts of their body and genuinely, I know you hear doctors say this and you might not believe it, but genuinely I would not, I do not remember anyone's, like anyone's private anatomical bits and pieces at all, but I still hate any sort of gynecological exam. Yeah. So when I walk in and I'm getting this scan and you just see, the stirrips and I, you know, it's just not, I can understand why it's not pleasant, but by the end of the egg freezing process, when I tell you, I was just getting up there wacking my legs up, not thinking twice. Having the probe, obviously, inside you is not pleasant initially, but you, it's not painful. Yeah, it shouldn't be painful. Yeah. There were parts, maybe when she was putting the probe in, in different angles, which were a little bit more uncomfortable, but otherwise it's not painful.

The worst part is generally feeling a little bit more undignified. Yeah, yeah, I get you. And I think it's worth saying, actually, if you're somebody who has a difficult time with smear tests or like a coil insertion, you know, the coil insertion number one is very different because we are putting an instrument on your cervix and the cervix is so sensitive and has so many nerve endings.

So lots of people find that to be a really unpleasant, I think unpleasant is an understatement, a really painful experience. Same thing with the speculum, you know, but we're not, you know, the speculum isn't touching your cervix, but the probe and it's small and it's, we use a lot of gel and, you know, usually during the scan, you have like either like a blanket or, you know, we have these skirts that you put on during the examination. So we're not, I'm not even looking down there. I'm looking initially just to put the probe in and then my eyes are on the screen. Obviously, I'm looking at your face to make sure that you,

don't look like you're in pain or you're uncomfortable. But apart from that, you know, I don't notice if you have waxed, if you have shaved, if you've had a pedicure, you know, these things. And also for us, we're in a professional setting, right? So it's not something that's even crossing our minds. I would just really strongly urge people not to worry about those things. Yeah. Yeah, I wanted to just make a point as well about the at-home blood test.

Now, so I don't want people to think that I'm against these blood tests. But I'm not. I think it's good to have more data points about your body. But it's really important that you highlight the fact that it's just one part of the workup. And so if you do end up needing, I don't think it's right to say if you end up needing. I think you should, if you're testing your AMH, I think you should be having a scan. So it's worth looking at the total cost of that. And, you know, again, it's not anything against any companies that do these tests because the issue is not the company's. The issue is that there has been a huge gap. in, you know, looking at fertility and there's a huge knowledge gap for women as well. And so these things are coming in, understandably. And it's not going to be perfect, but they are helping people to gather more information. But it's just worth like thinking about the bigger picture as well. I also think something really important with the at-home tests, a huge, huge benefit is where fertility is such a taboo topic.

For some people, it might seem like such a huge step to step into a fertility clinic. and to be able to take that first step in the comfort of your own home and making it more accessible as well. There's a huge, yeah, a huge, huge benefit for that. And just the point to what you said about, you know, people having quite strong opinions about egg freezing, I think it's also worth saying that egg freezing, I mean, the technology has been around for a long time,

as long as we've been doing IVF, right? But this idea of social egg freezing has only come into the mainstream in the last, you know, a couple of decades. So it was only stopped being labelled experiment. in 2012. That's a short time frame. People often say,

I think this is one of the issues where people have a little bit of information but not the whole picture. Oh, a really small amount of people actually come back to use their eggs. Oh, you know, it's these kind of like rebuttals that as though we are doing, we're doing egg freezing,

but there are these sort of shady things going on the background. Well, number one, it hasn't been around for that long. As I say, it's only stopped. Social egg freezing hasn't been around for that long. and yes, not everybody comes back to use their eggs because people will try first naturally, right? It's not the assumption that you will immediately come back

and just use your eggs to create embryos. Most people will have a period of trying before then if they need fertility treatment coming back and using their eggs. I think I'm so glad you touched a lot because that was a big comment that I got was most people don't end up using their eggs. Guys, I really hope I don't use my eggs.

I really, really hope I don't have to use my eggs. And you said in the last episode that we did together that you don't like it being referred to as an insurance policy, but in the same way, you don't want to have to use your car insurance. You don't want to have to use your home insurance. You don't hope that your house burns down, but you know that if something...

But again, it's not a guarantee because it's not like 100% it's going to pay out. But ultimately, if you, you know, come back in five years' time, like, all going well, hopefully you don't need to use them. Yeah. But if you do, then you have your 26-year-old... eggs in the bank that just statistically are going to create more normal embryos than our 35-year-old

eggs. And that's not about shaming women and saying, oh, you know, over this age, like, it's just about giving people the facts, okay? And, you know, I think we get sometimes accused of fearmongering or over-educating. And I get that because fertility is something which has been used to, like, beat women over their head with and pressure them into starting families when they don't want to, or they don't feel ready or whatever the reason is, or maybe it's doing it with the wrong person. But what's the alternative, like bearing your head in the sand? Because if you have the information now,

these are decisions that you make proactively, rather than decisions that are then are taken away from you down the line. Monster Energy. Everybody knows white monster, Zero Ultra. That's the OG. It kicked off this whole zero-sugar energy drink thing. But Ultra is a whole line up now. You've got strawberry dreams, blue Hawaiian, sunrise in vice guava, and they all bring the monster energy punch.

So if you've been living in the white can, branch out. Ultra's got a flavor for every vibe. And every single one is zero sugar. Tap the banner to learn more. You did a really, really incredible reel, which I'm so glad you made it because I saw this TikTok that was going viral. And I was like, oh, no. this and it had millions and millions of views and it was basically a woman saying the biological clock does not exist for women and when I posted something about the biological clock and people were saying in my comments no the biological clock is a lie for women it's being debunked it's for men it's for men it's for men and I was thinking oh my god this TikTok has already done so much damage and I completely understand why people saw this TikTok and they clung onto it because you're right women have had their fertility and their ability to bear children

used as a marker of how you know how successful they are as a woman you know for the last hundreds thousands of years so for someone to say to them actually we were lied to all along it was men they're the problem people are going to cling on to that and debunking that is so so so so difficult yeah maybe i should play that real and then if you wouldn't mind explaining it i think that would be so so yeah absolutely yeah they told women they're worth had an expiration date, but guess what? Your eggs are tougher, smarter, and more resilient than anyone gave you credit for. And if we're being honest, the real biological clock might belong to men, not women. And science backs that up. Thoughts. Okay. So the paper that this creator is talking about is, I think it was released in

January last year. And number one, it's looking at, so it's looking at eggs, but it's looking at the mitochondrial DNA. So as humans, we have 46 chromosomes, right? 23 from our mother, 23 from our father. The material from the chromosomes comes from the nucleus of the cell. There are other parts of the cell, like the mitochondria, if you think back to your, you know, DCSC biology, the powerhouse of the cell. That obviously contributes genetically, but not to like the number of chromosomes.

This paper was looking at mitochondrial DNA. And what it saw was that in female eggs that the mitochondrial DNA remains quite stable until you're, I think it was about 42. So that's promising. That's like, you know, that's promising information. But that doesn't change the fact that as we get older, the chance of us having a miscarriage, usually because the embryos that we are creating, they just have inbuilt error mechanisms. And as we get older, that increases. and then so there's a higher chance that the number of chromosomes will be incorrect. The most common ones that you think of is an extra chromosome of chromosome of chromosome 21,

like in the case of Down syndrome, but there are other ones that, you know, don't usually result in living children, which is maybe why we don't hear about them as often. So there's a higher chance of miscarriage and a higher chance of these genetic or chromosome or errors as we get older. So this paper, whilst promising, doesn't change that fact in terms of, what we know about the decline in fertility and the increase in the risk of miscarriage. That doesn't mean that that's not important information, but doesn't change that fact.

Taking this information and kind of spinning it to say, well, actually, the biological clock doesn't exist is just incorrect. And dangerous. It's dangerous. I mean, I actually had somebody message me to say, they'd done one title of egg freezing and they said, I'm not going to go ahead with the second round and sent me this video. Yeah.

So it's having real life impact. Yeah. I saw it in my comments. People were literally saying it has been debunked by science. And I was like, no. Again, this is the issue when, you know, I don't say this because I'm like,

oh, we should gatekeep information or research. I think it's amazing that people have access to information. But the problem is that if you don't have context or if you don't, if you're not yourself reading the paper and critically appraising it, you know, you're just taking like a 10 second sound bite. That's harmful. And the other side of the equation is that, you know, we're learning more about male fertility and the impact of sperm.

We're understanding that as men get older, that sperm accumulates DNA damage and that increases the risk of miscarriage for the female partner. it also increases the risk of other conditions. So it's almost like we took this one bit of information and this other bit and we're like, okay, no, it's not us anymore, it's you. But, you know, I think if you just think a little bit logically, it takes two people to make a baby. Like it makes sense that both of our biology, both of our, you know, our eggs and our sperm

are going to be contributing to the chance of pregnancy and to the health of the pregnancy and that child. So it doesn't need to be like an us versus them. but what happens is like for example I did this video explaining this and then I had all these kind of horrible men come into my comments being like see I told you like it's women that it's it's women you know your eggs are rotted like all these kind of disgusting stuff and I'm like no this is this is not the point of the video like we can share information in a balanced and nuanced way without making it into a gender war

you said something really really good in the last episode you said it shouldn't be about blame And that was mainly when you were speaking about couples navigating it. But I think it also applies to just all the conversations. Two things can be true at the same time. Women can, you know, have a biological clock and men can have a biological clock. That shouldn't be revolutionary. It shouldn't be us against them. Because every single time I have posted something about freeze my eggs or whatever,

I've had comments saying, why haven't you mentioned male infidelity? Because the majority of my audience is women. And I want to help women understand their. body is better. Male fertility is a factor, but you only have control over yourself. You can bring those conversations to your male partners. Just because male infatility is a factor,

it doesn't mean that women should think less about their fertility. We should be incorporating that information as well. Yeah. Social media, I think, is an amazing tool. It's not a great place for nuance. Yeah. You know, I will do a video about, like, you know, tips for women to get pregnant.

And then somebody will comment saying, I wish you'd aim this at men. And it's like, but if you actually just scroll down to the next video. I can't please everybody all the time. But yeah, it's, you know, these videos where like the one you just showed, unfortunately, that's what gets attention. And yes, I may have done a video kind of explaining it. And that will have a small fraction of the views that this other video has had.

And also I will talk kind of, okay, I've tried to condense this explanation into like, under two minutes and bet most people are not going to watch beyond the first 10 seconds. So, yeah, it's difficult. It's difficult. I'm going to come on to the injections specifically in the side effects or the symptoms that women might experience going through the egg freezing process. But first, the last time you were here, we hadn't started this section. So we thought we wanted to do a general fertility by or by by section. Okay, yeah.

So you either say that you would buy the product or, you know, you think it's good. 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. Gone. Bye-bye. No evidence. No. I don't think I'm going to leave it there. Seed cycling kits. I actually had to look this up. I'm going to say bye-bye. Number one, very, like there's no evidence really. I think if you want to, you know, crush some flax seeds and put them on your breakfast, then by all means. But. Do you need to buy a kit for that? Can you not just buy the fluxes?

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 there should be 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 buy nice 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 evidence in, like, the fertility, 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, you know, 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,

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 this belief that because we've paid more for something that it should work better, but it doesn't. It's just by the generic one.

Yeah, fertility, vitamin D is the exact same as any other vitamin D. Basal body temperature thermometers. So I would say buy, 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 outfreezing 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 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 you can use the beta version or the free version. I don't know how much more you can gain by paying 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, 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. I think it definitely may be, again,

if someone's quite an anxious person and obviously with men obtaining a semen sample in a clinic, there's other anxieties that are associated with that. But then, yeah, I think similar to the hormone tests, you may just be elongating the process and increasing the cost by trying to take a shorter route. Yeah. Let's talk about the injections because I'm not a needle phobe.

And my experience with the injections was initially it's not, you know, injecting yourself with a needle isn't pleasant, but I would say the needles I had were small, dainty, maybe a little bit sharp at times, but generally quite not too painful. However, by the end of the process when I was on like injection three of the day, my tummy is like completely bruised.

I'm looking for a space that is not bruised to inject into. the last three days I was thinking this this is getting quite tough right now yeah I'm going to do a second cycle of do embryo freezing so a couple of points number one do you have any recommendations for anyone who is needlephobic who's considering egg freezing and then number two for my next cycle do you have any tips for the bruising and finding space on my stomach so you know you can actually tailor the protocol as well if somebody is really needlephobic. And also in terms of egg freezing, one of the injections that you start, usually around day six, you start another injection, which is basically supposed to prevent you from ovulating too early. People usually complain

that that needle, I think, is a little bit thicker than the other ones. So there are other protocols now where you can take progesterone tablets, which kind of do that same job, preventing ovulation, also probably cheaper because the injections cost more money. So that way you can probably limit the number of injections that you do to one and then probably the trigger. That's one thing, I guess, to discuss with your clinic, the actual protocol. If you can, that that reduces a number of injections that you need. Definitely flagging that then because I think with a lot of women, we can be so guilty of just putting up and shutting up. Yeah.

So just making sure that if you are someone who even, you know, if that is a concern that you have, flag that. Yeah. Yeah. It's something that we're using more recently for egg freezing patients. So it's worth bringing up with your clinic. It's like you prime with progesterone rather than giving that injection. Lots of people, ice.

Did you use any ice when you? I didn't use any ice. You can ice. It's just tricky. Obviously rotating. I think you use the thighs as well. I did not actually. Yeah.

Yeah. The nurses are very good. They do the demonstrations and can give you good tips as well. You've done it for so you know that it's finite. So you can kind of steal yourself to, you know, that it's coming, coming to an end. There's a goal.

There's like the end of the tunnel. Yeah. We got so many community questions about age, but before we come on to the best age to freeze your eggs or when it's too late to freeze your eggs, let's talk about supplements because there's so many supplements on the market. Yeah. Are there any supplements that you do recommend?

And are there any you would tell patients to avoid? Yeah. I'm going to be really honest that I don't think that people are going to go. going to love this answer because I think a lot of the time we want something that's like, you know, you see those videos on TikTok and stuff where it's like, tell me the unhinged thing you did to get pregnant. Tell me like something that you took. Like we want like a hack or a secret.

Yeah. And we're not gatekeeping because, you know, I just don't think there is there is something like that that we would be withholding. Right. So for most women before when you're preparing for pregnancy, the things that you need to take some vitamin D and some folio. acid and that's actually it for most people. As we were saying, most people are deficient in vitamin D. And folic acid, again, folic acid is not really to help you get pregnant. It's,

it's for the baby's development. It's really important for the development of the spine and it prevents neurotube defects like spina bifida. There's also, there's a, there's a lot of conversation online about whether you should be taking folic acid or methylfolate. I get this question a lot. All I can speak to is that the trials that look at preventing neural tube defects are done with folic acid. So that's all I'm going to recommend. Yeah. You know, if people want to take methyl folate, that's fine, but just important to know that the evidence comes, the trials is done with folic acid. Most people just need a standard dose of 400 microgram. Some people need a high dose of five milligrams if you have conditions like diabetes, but that's prescribed. That's not

over the counter. So you have to check with your doctor if you need that higher dose. Then in terms of other supplements, and again, you can go online. I actually had a quick Google search today fertility supplements. And, you know, people are charging 40, 50, 60 pounds for supplements, like 30 days worth of supplements. And okay, it's got folic acid and vitamin D, which we all know we need to take. I mean, even pregnant care, like you don't need to buy like a 16 pound supplement. You can just go and buy the generic one. Because you're paying more money, it doesn't mean that it's doing more for you. So Fodic acid vitamin D. People often ask me about KQ10. So there are some studies that, and again, this is looking specifically at people

in the, like in the setting of an IVF clinic, not people who are trying to get pregnant in the general population. And there's some evidence that people with a low ovarian reserve may benefit, it may get slightly more eggs with K-K-10. But again, these are small studies. They're single clinics. They're not the kind of gold standard, like we were saying, these big double-blinded, randomised control trials. So, okay, KU-10, a little bit of evidence in specific situations.

Inocetol, that's another one that people ask me about. There is some evidence for Inocetal, but again, this is for people with PCOS. So if you don't have PCOS, then it's extremely unlikely to add anything. Omega-3, that's, again, something that people are. I mean, I think it's a pretty benign supplement. but again the evidence is pretty scanty. Yes, you can spend 50 or 60 pounds to have all of these supplements in one capsule

in an attractive bottle. Yeah. But it's just important. If you want to do that with the knowledge that there isn't robust evidence that is going to increase your chance of pregnancy, then you can do that. But I don't want people to think they need to buy these things

because they don't. Yeah, yeah. because then you've also got the opposite of, yeah, the placebo, but then if people think that they should be doing that and they're not, what impact can that have, you know? It's, it's first, like, yeah, it's just tricky because I see people, you know, sharing personal stories online. And once again, I think personal stories are really powerful and we often want to see

someone who's going through what we're going through. But if somebody says, you know, I took Kuk10 or I took Omega 3 and I got pregnant the next month. You know, this is an anecdote and number one, you don't have any sense that this is a cause and effect. You don't know that you because you took this omega three and it we actually know it probably wasn't that, that

you then got pregnant. Sometimes it's just that people get, it's just the tincture of time, you know, like they were trying over a certain amount of time and eventually things, you know, aligned and they got pregnant and there is an element of chance and of luck as well. So number one, you can't distill from somebody's personal

experience that the fact that they took this supplement was the reason there that it got pregnant. And also that's an anecdote. Anecdotal evidence is the lowest form of evidence. You know, I then will try to explain about these very high quality studies or population data. People will say, well, you know, my cousin took this and my aunt did that and got pregnant.

Yeah, that's fine. But that doesn't mean that we should extrapolate that for everybody. For everyone. And that is exactly the reason that I wanted you to be here today because my personal story, I don't want my personal story of egg freezing to be, you know, reflective of what everyone else's experience will be. And like, also, no one is coming on the internet saying, I took too cute. I took this supplement for a month and I did not get pregnant. Because how boring of a video would that be to say, I took this supplement for a month,

didn't work. Yeah. That would get, you know, no views. So there's, there's a, the bias in, in that. People are only going to tell you the things that they think worked. Yeah. That's, yeah. And we love this idea of like a secret or a hack, you know. And I think if there was a secret or a hack, I would, it wouldn't be a, number one, it wouldn't be a secret. And I would be here sharing it openly.

We have a lot of community questions, a lot about the ages for egg freezing. So when should you freeze your eggs? When is it too early and when is it too late? Another question was, is freezing my eggs a realistic option for someone. in their thirties. Another question, and I'll leave it there. I'm 23. I'm thinking I should do it sooner rather than later if I'm unlucky. How can I know if I should freeze them? Big, big questions. So I don't think you can freeze your eggs too early. I think if you can freeze your eggs in your 20s, why not? You know, because what we know is when we look at your age and so we don't have a

test for egg quality, right? But what we do know is that egg quality is very closely related to your age. So somebody who is 25, you know, if you take 100 of your eggs and you fertilize them with 100 sperm, the majority of those around 70% will create normally, genetically normal embryos. Somebody who is 45, if you create 100 embryos, about 90, 95% all of them will be abnormal. Really? Yeah. So that's why, you know, when you get to the age of 40, it's, when you get a positive pregnancy test, there's a 50% chance. that pregnancy is going to end in miscarriage. And again, this is not about fearmongering.

This is just the reality. So surely it just, it makes logical sense that you take, you know, the eggs of the highest quality to give you the highest chance of creating genetically normal embryos to give you the highest chance of having a pregnancy and a live birth. Because if the goal of the end of this is a live birth, then, you know, that's the most strategic thing to do. And if you're thinking about this as a strategy, that that that's what makes sense.

So yeah, I don't think you can be like necessarily too young. I think if you're in your 20s and it's an option and you're thinking about this now and you know, affordable. Why not?

Yeah. You know? Especially if your company is offering it to you. I also think I'm having to time when I'm doing my next cycle around like work commitments because it is a big commitment. Yeah, it is. And I think that if your work is offering,

if your work is paying for it and you've got a month, you know, it's maybe a winter month you haven't got as much going on that I would yeah exactly I would go for it you know because you don't know what's going to happen later on down the line when you're a bit busier and you can't find the time yeah and again you know again it's just it's not about like fearmongering because actually you could take this information and think yourself

well I know that for example this company has these certain benefits so although you know maybe you can't afford to pay out of pocket Would you think about maybe applying for a job at one of these places? You know, that, again, this is something you can only do. This is Andrew Huberman, host of the Huberman Lab podcast. I'm excited to share that the performance eyewear company, Roka and I, have teamed up to create a pair of red lens glasses. These are meant to be worn in the evening after the sun goes down.

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to save 20% off your first order. Again, that's ROKA.com and enter the code Huberman at checkout. If you have this information. In terms of being in your 30s, it's definitely not too late being in your 30s. I mean, not at all. You know, that's actually the age that we do most of, most egg freezing for. We don't, but I don't often see people in their 20s unless they've come, I think, with company benefits really and truly. So most people are in their 30s.

And I'd say it's usually because women maybe are in the early or mid 30s and they feel like they want to have a family, but they don't have a partner. So they're thinking that, okay, even if I meet somebody like tomorrow, there's still going to be a period of time in between that you start trying for a pregnancy so they're thinking of I'll freeze my eggs now I don't think there's such a thing really as it being too late

unless we're getting into like, you know, well into the 40s even early 40s I think it becomes more and more challenging I think even if you are thinking about it and you are in your 40s it's worth going to a clinic and exploring your options because you can have conversations about things like embryo freezing or donor sperm or things. And I know that's not for everyone, but these are still conversations to be had.

Correct me if I'm wrong. If someone was older and maybe having a genetic child of their own wasn't possible, I believe egg donors, if you go down the egg donor route, you can try and match to like someone who genetically looks like you, or is that allowed in the UK? Yeah, no, no, no. The donor, like, should have similar, you know, characteristics in terms of things like race and stuff like that. So even if you are like a single woman in your 40s, you may want to have a conversation about pursuing solar motherhood by choice. I know people who have who have done that and are really happy with that because again, you know, this is this is my personal opinion rather than my medical opinion. If my very deep desire was to be a mother, you know, I think for me

personally, I would rather pursue that alone than maybe try to do that with. the wrong person because I felt the pressure of time. Yeah. And that's a personal opinion because I know obviously some people want to have children in the context of a family and with a partner and, you know, fair enough. But there are actually lots of different ways to become a parent or to have a family, which is not just, you know, a man and a woman or because we see lots of people in clinic, you know, solar mothers by choice or same-sex couples or people who, you know, they have,

like friends, you can have known donors and there are different ways that a family can look. Yeah, absolutely. I also really need to talk about the embryo versus egg freezing because when I post about my egg freezing, a lot of the comments were also, you shouldn't be promoting egg freezing, you should be promoting embryo freezing. But we'll come on to that a little bit later on. First, what can someone expect when they go through the egg freezing process in terms of symptoms like from the injections. Yeah. So it's really variable for one. Some people feel some people don't have any symptoms from doing the injections. Some people feel good. Some people feel very emotionally up and down. So you know, angry or sad or kind of like you know the sort of premenstrual

symptoms because we it's mimicking that but it's just a very much higher doses. So yeah so feeling very emotionally labour. Obviously, you know, we're stimulating the ovaries so they're going to be bigger than what they would be normally so you may feel quite bloated can feel a bit nauseous, a bit like tired.

I think that comes more towards the kind of the end of the stimulation and it's like a two week period then you have your egg collection and within two weeks then you have a period or a withdrawal bleed usually heavier than your normal period

something to expect and then the hormones kind of wash out and then you should feel back to normal. So I think even if you are somebody who really feels rubbish with the injections, within a month, you should feel back to yourself. The doctor who I was under, she said to me, do you get PMS symptoms? And I said, well, yeah, my moods can be quite bad. And she said, what's your boyfriend's name? And I said, my boyfriend's name. And she goes, tell him to buy a helmet. I was like, oh God. So then I came

back and I told him, and to be fair on him, he is used to like my moods anyway. And he's an extremely calm, level-headed man, which works very well. And I was actually fine up until the night of the trigger injection. I don't know if it was the trigger injection or if it was the, probably the emotional build-up over time, whatever. The night of the trigger injection, we had an argument about something. I can't remember what it was, probably something extremely benign that was said that if at any other time I would have been fine. I stormed out the flat, drove myself to Morley's, ate a Morley's burger,

and it was like midnight as well, ate a Morley's burger, drove myself back, and I just walked in, I went, I'm really sorry, that was really unreasonable. And he was just like, getting sped,

and it was two in the morning at this point. And, but I think just, that was the worst, that was the only bad, bad moment I personally had. And then, I think giving him that little pre-warned of what to expect,

he was just, you know, kept his, kept his cool, the entire time. Yeah. But otherwise I was actually fine. A little bit of bloating and tiredness was a big one. I did feel quite run down.

Also probably because you are having bloods pretty regularly. Yeah. You're going into the clinic a couple times a week for a scan and your bloods. It is quite a full on process. It is. Yeah. And then afterwards, what can you expect? So yeah, so you come around from the anaesthetic,

you be told how many eggs that you have, like all the information that we have really in terms of egg freezing. I think we'll come onto that with embryo freezing as well. Because we don't know about the quality, for example, how many of them will fertilise. So that information would come when you then come back to use them. You know, usually people are back to their normal activities within the next day or so. Again, not respective of what everyone has experience will be, but I felt absolutely fine afterwards. And I was sedated.

Myself and my boyfriend, we went and we got food and just went for a little walk. And I was pretty fine. Girls who were getting their eggs frozen, what would your advice be for exercising like around that time? get this question a lot actually. So in terms of exercise, first of all, I would say what your normal exercise is you can generally continue during fertility treatment as a whole. So don't start something new. Yeah. And it also depend on you.

So like it's best to avoid high impact exercise, especially through the stimulation because, you know, as I say, your ovaries will be getting bigger. And so towards the end of the stimulation. you know, we worry about things like ovarian torsion, so when the ovary can twist on its axis, and that's, you know, an emergency. And there's no, there's no like, oh, do I have that? It's, you will know because it's like a sudden doubling over kind of pain. So for that reason, we avoid high impact exercise around the, you know, sometimes I say to people at the beginning you can do it and I'll just let you know when to stop doing that.

But you can also just stop throughout. Just continue with kind of low impact stuff. like walking, you know, yoga plus whatever, whatever you normally do, cycling on a stationary bike, not like kind of going over like, not like mountain biking, you know? Massive community question, can you conceive naturally after having your eggs frozen? Yeah, absolutely. So number one, egg freezing also does not like take away from your chances of getting pregnant in the future, doesn't like deplete your supply of eggs for the future. Because, you know, as we were saying earlier, we tried to stimulate as many of those follicles as we can.

Now, in a normal month, what would happen is one of the ones. of those would ovulate and the rest of them would have just kind of died off. So you're not taking away from what you could have used in the future. You're just saving what would have been lost in that cycle anyway. And then yes, most people don't use their frozen eggs as like the first port of call. They will have a period of trying. And again, if you're thinking about things strategically, it's like, well, let's try. It also depends on your individual circumstances. But, you know, as I say, if all is well, in five years time, you may try for, you know, six months, 12 months or whatever, if we don't need the eggs, great.

And if we do, then we know that we've got your, you know, 26-year-old eggs in the bank. So most people have a period of trying first and then we'll use their eggs. So again, this idea of like, well, most people don't use them. It's a good thing if you don't need to use them, right? 100%. Yeah, this idea that is funny, the idea that actually also if you're egg freezing, you're like taking eggs from the future, but it's good to dispel that. Yes.

Now coming on to egg freezing versus embryo freezing because this was a big, big point of contention when I spoke up my egg freezing. How would you personally decide whether to go down the route of embryo freezing or egg freezing? Yeah. Okay, so, I mean, you can start in a very basic way. Number one, do you have a partner?

No, egg freezing. Yes, egg freezing or embryo freezing. So if you don't have a partner, obviously we're going to freeze eggs. if you do have a partner, that's a very personal decision. You know, I think we said last time, eggs belong to you and embryos belong to both of you. Yeah. And this is like, you know, this is your genetic material. These are human gametes.

So you have to have express and written permission for what happens to those embryos. Should, you know, the relationship break down or, you know, one of you dies. Yeah. We had to sign. Yeah, these are real conversations that you have to have. So then if you have the option to egg freeze or embryo freeze, again, personal decision. But the main things to say is that when you're freezing an egg, you're freezing potential. So an egg is one singular cell.

The technology has changed in advance a lot. So when we freeze the eggs and we thaw them, not every egg will survive. It's about 85 to 90%. So you can see there's a little drop off there already. Then if you look at embryo, about 95% will survive. So it's a bit higher. Also, embryos are more robust.

So they're like three to 500 cells. Also, you have more information. So you've taken the eggs. You've now fertilized them with the sperm. Not every egg is going to fertilize. But if you're doing embryo freezing, we now know how many of them have fertilized. Then we've cultured them in the lab for about a week,

and we know how many of them are embryos. So when we have embryos, we can say, you know, with a bit more confidence, oh you've got you know you've got eight embryos you have a really high chance of having two maybe even three children you know depending on other factors we don't have as much information with the eggs we're just freezing the potential we're going to come back later down the line when you have decided you either you met somebody and you want to you know you want to fertilize the eggs or you may come back and you want to use donor sperm or etc there's different

ways we have less information you'll have to correct me if there's been legal advancements this case, but there was an awful, awful case that we learned about in my master's. And it was a woman who she had cancer. She was married to a man. Before her chemotherapy treatment, she froze embryos with her husband. Husband. Froes embryos with her husband. Went through treatment, survived the cancer.

Then her husband left her. Husband left her after going through the cancer. Lovely. Yeah. Wonderful. man and then but then not only that he refused to let her use those embryos afterwards and she didn't have eggs frozen it went to high court some some sort of high court and the embryos ended up being destroyed and i oh my god and we had a debate in this lecture about what whether we thought that was

right and i said you know from a legal standpoint it's two people from a personal standpoint yeah what an awful man yeah awful awful awful awful man but you have to remember you have no control over someone else's actions. You can marry someone you can think that they're a certain sort of person and then they can leave you and destroy your embryos. Yeah. Things can change. I don't think you're being pessimistic about, you know, your relationship by saying I'm going to freeze a portion of eggs and a portion of embryos because I see people who get all the time. And actually, look, we can't, we can't foresee the future. Things can change. People can change. Circumstances change. You know, 50% of marriages end in divorce. Nobody gets married thinking that

they're going to get divorced, but things change and having contingency plans is just good strategy, I am really happy with doing one embryo freezing round and one egg freezing round and then seeing what I have after that. It doesn't mean you're being cynical, you're just being pragmatic. 100%. Goalies with PCOS, how might their experience be a little bit different when it comes to egg freezing? Yeah. So, you know, one of the hallmarks of PCOS is.

that you have a very, you tend to have very high ovarian reserve. So on one hand, it's like, it's a bit of a blessing and a curse, right? Because we're expecting to get a lot of eggs. That signal from your brain telling your ovaries for one of those follicles to get bigger and release an egg doesn't always kind of get there. It gets maybe diluted amongst the vast number of follicles that you have. So again, this is why you find that maybe you have irregular periods. It's not the same for everyone, but that is obviously one of the,

the big features of PCOS. So again, when you're going through the egg freezing process, you're anticipating that you're going to get a higher number of eggs. But what we do know as well is because of like because of the association with the insulin resistance, that affects the environment that the eggs are in. And so what we often see in patients with PCOS, they get a higher number of eggs, but more immature eggs. So essentially if somebody has PCOS, I might be thinking if somebody doesn't have PCOS and they get

20 eggs and that's like a really good amount but you might be thinking that you need more in somebody with PCOS to give you that that sort of similar chance of having a decent number of eggs which is going to give you decent number of embryos because we know that maybe more of those eggs will be immature yeah i want to talk to you about AMH because my opinions on AMH have gone back and forth like a metronome i froze my eggs after finding out my AMH was quite low for my age it brought about a lot of really important conversations between me and my partner about what we see our future looking like, which was really beneficial and actually came to the conclusion. It is something that's important for both of us and being able to keep our options open was important. Hence, I froze my ex.

Then I was in uni and one of my lecturers, when I say uni, I sound like I'm 20, 22, but when doing my master's, one of my lecturers said, AMH is pointless because you go and you get your AMH tested. If it's high, they will tell you to freeze your eggs so that they can collect more eggs for you and you don't have to do as many cycles. If it's low, they will tell you to freeze your eggs because your reserves, your egg reserves are going down. So either way, the outcome is the same, so it's pointless, which really made me feel quite cynical about the whole process. then I actually did reflect, thought about the important conversations

that came from that test result. And in the grand scheme of things, I am glad I did that test because regardless of if it came back normal, if it came back low, I probably still would have froze my eggs because I'm an ambitious person. I'm not ready to have kids.

But I know that is something I do want in my future. So Dr. Nagler, AMH, do you think? I have a slightly different perspective because I'm often looking at it. The person's already in the IVF clinic, right? So we're looking at it in the context of, it's just part of our workup for fertility treatment. If you define fertility as your ability to get pregnant, then AMH is not really a fertility test, right? It's a test of your ovarian reserve. And that's important information. For example, say you found out your AMH was undetectable or you maybe had primary

ovarian insufficiency or you had a risk of going through an early menopause. This is information that you really want to know. Yeah. Unfortunately, I think a lot of the time we, as doctors, we have to have balance and nuance. And I know that's not always attractive or doesn't, you know, get clicks. Yeah. To be honest, I think that's the more honest version of saying,

well, it's not a perfect test. It gives us an indication of this. In your individual situation, it might help you in this sense. you know, a lot of the time we have to couch things with, this is all of the information we have, this is the best way that we can use it, we take into account your values and what's important to you and make that decision together. You know, it's not me going online and saying, oh, this is the secret or this is a scam or everybody needs to do this. That's, okay, yeah, that's what gets more clicks, but that's also just not the reality of most healthcare-related decisions. You know, I'm sorry if it sounds like a bit of a vague or a wishy-washy answer. I think AMH is useful in certain respects. It gives us an idea of your egg reserve. It's not a fertility test in a sense that if it's high or if it's normal,

that you can just relax and you don't need to worry about this for the foreseeable future, because that's not true. But if it's really low or if we find actually that you're at risk of something like an early menopause and that's actually really crucial information, at the end of day, it's another data point that you can take and make decisions about your person, life. Yeah. Yeah. That's a really good answer. Before you go, I'm going to ask you the question again that we've been asking all our guests. Dr. Nagler, what do you wish every woman knew by the time she was 25? I want to change my answer a little bit this time. I think there is a huge knowledge gap around your

reproductive health. So, you know, all we're basically ever taught is how to not get pregnant. And then we find ourselves often, you know, in our 30s or even later thinking, well, if I just remove the contraception, which is what I was told of how not to get pregnant, then naturally you think pregnancy will follow. And actually there's a huge gap there in terms of understanding about our reproductive health. There's a really big gap about understanding our cycles, ovulation, about all of these conditions that could be affecting our health. And I think, so for me, it's like closing that knowledge gap is what I would want young women. women to know. And I think we cover a lot of that, you know, in the previous episode and this episode.

So if that at least just helps to bridge a bit of that gap, then I think that's the good thing. Yeah, no, absolutely. Thank you so, so so so much for coming on again. I know that everyone will be very grateful that they get a second episode with Dr. Nagler. So thank you so, so, so, so much. Pleasure. Thank you. Thank you for having me.