What medications are used for intrauterine insemination?

What medications are used for intrauterine insemination?

Richard Paulson (Chief, Division of Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility, USC) gives expert video advice on: What treatments are available for male infertility?; What treatments are available for female infertility?; Are there specific fertility treatments for women over the age of 35? and more...

The intrauterine insemination or IUI procedure is very commonly combined with fertility medications given to the women. The reason for this is that first of all, it makes sense that you would want to stimulate the ovaries to help the eggs come out in an fertility setting. Also, it has been shown in study after study that the IUI procedure is more successful if the woman also takes a fertility medication. So, IUI procedures are most commonly combined with clomiphene citrate, in what we call a clomid IUI cycle. The woman takes clomiphene for five days and then when she ovulates she goes to the doctor's office, and the sperm is washed, concentrated and put inside the uterus. Of course, the IUI is just one way of delivering sperm into the system, so it could really be combined with any of the fertility medications; whether it be bromocriptene or whether it be an injectable form of FSH, such as can be found in HMG, or even any of the other oral medications. It's just a different way of combining the concept of stimulating the ovaries along with increasing the number of sperm that are reaching the site of fertilisation at the same time.