In defense of Femara

I see that my blog has been hit a few times by women doing a search with the terms “fertility” and “Femara.” I don’t want anyone to get the wrong idea about Femara from my previous post Fertility Hogs and Why Femara Sucks, because as a whole it has been GREAT for me. Since I started seeing my new RE and we bumped the dose up to 12.5mg, I’ve had 3-4 follicles and my lining was great. I also have great cervical fluid and nearly no side effects to speak of, other than the one day of intense headache and a few days of sore shoulders.

I’ve never been on Clomid so I can’t provide an objective comparison, but Femara is rumored to have fewer side effects, and I’ll definitely take that. Many women seem to have issues with Clomid thinning their lining and drying up their cervical fluid, neither of which I’ve encountered on Femara.

And as for the study that seems to suggest that Femara is linked to higher rates of birth defects, I think that a number of the methods used for that study were flawed and therefore the study holds no weight for me. If you’re concerned about the reports of higher birth defect rates when using Femara (Letrozole) then I would encourage you to read this article. It certainly helped to calm my fears.

I will continue to use Femara until it is determined that Femara and IUI will not work for us at which point we will move on to injectibles or IVF. I’m willing to assume the risk (however large or small it may be) in order to gain the benefits (shorter half life, doesn’t thin the lining, doesn’t dry up CF) that Letrozole has over Clomid.