At home male fertility test????

[Chris~n~Jen]

I'm wondering if anyone has any experience with these at home SA's? My doctor wants DH to take a SA but when I mentioned that he didn't currently have health insurance she said that she had heard of at home tests you can do. I found this one at Walgreens (http://www.walgreens.com/store/product.jsp?CATID=100702&navAction=jump&navCount=0&id=prod385425).
http://a1061.g.akamai.net/7/1061/5412/home/www.walgreens.com/dbimagecache/290514.jpg

Just wondering if it's something we should do or would it be better just to pay the out of pocket $$ to do the SA at the lab.

TIA!

[Lindsy23]

I was wondering the same thing. I saw the same test at Walgreens, and I was debating on buying it. Our insurance wont cover the test, and I the at home test was a lot cheaper! I hope we can find something out!

[jodylovesscotty]

I never used this, but I am skeptical. Unless you are a doctor you don't really know what you are looking for. I would save the money and put it toward a real SA. By the way a SA isn't that expensive, ours was $100.

[kazata]

Looks like it only tests count (or "concentration"). A sperm analysis at a lab will check count, motility (what percent of sperm are moving, whether they are moving forward, progressing rapidly/slowly etc.) and morphology (shape). Count alone won't tell you the whole picture. A high count could make up for low motility, and so on. In addition, there are some other things they check (PH, how many cc's, whether there are clumps, how fast it liquifies, etc., etc.) It also looks like the walgreens test might only give a yes/no response (above or below 20 million/ml), which also won't tell you total count. If you have any reason to believe that there might be a problem, I'd just go ahead and get an SA done at a lab. Ours was about $90 I believe, and that Walgreens test is already $30...

[Scooter]

What Kazata said. There's more to a SA than that OTC test can check for.

Also, some people on the old boards used it and quite a few felt that the results were pretty inconclusive. IIMO, why waste $30 when a good quality SA is around $100 or so, and gives you *so much* more info?

[Chris~n~Jen]

Thanks guys! I was thinking the same thing about it only testing concentration but not all the other stuff. I guess I hadn't realized the a SA would only cost us around $100-$150 out of pocket. I'd much rather do that and no that the results are accurate. I'll have to talk to DH about it.

Lindsy ~ Haven't seen you around the boards much lately. You should give me and update in your journal. :p

[BTB]

Definitely skip the at-home test.

The at-home SA is like a pregnancy test: it gives a yes/no answer. The question the assay is tuned to answer is, does the sample have an absolute sperm count above the pre-determined cutoff number?

As with any test, the most important factor is whether the result will change anything. Will management of the problem proceed differently based on the test result?

For at-home SA, the answer is a resounding "NO." Only an abnormal test result is useful, and that has to be followed up with an office SA anyway. A normal test result with at-home SA is useless, because number, as was mentioned, is but one of many important semen/sperm characteristics. A "normal" at-home SA doesn't give you any assurance at all that the man is actually fertile.

Save your dough for the office SA instead. :)