Answer from: Tomas Frgala, PhD
We are discussing elsewhere who is at risk of ovarian hyperstimulation and what it actually represents. Also in that part we’re talking about how rare the ovarian hyperstimulation is currently because we have various modern and alternative approaches which allow us to avoid this problem altogether. Still, if there should be a risk of ovarian hyperstimulation, a patient with a very quick reaction of the ovaries then, these might be some of the first symptoms that she experiences: belly aches, stomach aches, constipation or diarrhea, eventually breathing problems during physical activity. In such a case we need to perform an ultrasound, check blood tests and medications are applied and eventually adjustments in the regime are made to help the patient get rid of the problems as soon as possible. In such a case also, we don’t perform the embryo transfer because the early pregnancy might worsen the problem. The embryos are all cryopreserved and the transfer is saved for a little later in a month or two usually. But again, as we have mentioned elsewhere, these problems are currently very rare and we shouldn’t be really experiencing heavy or a difficult hyperstimulation syndrome anymore.
Answer from: Scott Nelson, Professor
The symptoms ,generally, can be range of symptoms in terms of how people may present. The commonest thing is people just feel some discomfort in their tummy and they feel their tummy is bloated – that’s commonest something that people will often complain about. Then from that, they can also have nausea and vomiting and it’s feeling a diarrhea and from that further on even more distension in their tummy, kind of you’re feeling as if they’re 20 weeks pregnant and they may then develop fluid in their chest where they’re getting breathing problems as well. They may also notice that having difficulty passing urine and very rarely people may get rare complications like deep vein thrombosis where they start to notice differences in the size of their legs: one leg might be larger than the other side. These are some of the rare complications of OHSS in terms of the breathing difficulties but say that tends to be a progression and the first thing that people will notice is that they’ve got their tummy is uncomfortable and they’re just feeling bloated.
