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Mr Efstathios Theodorou
Independent Doctor's Federation
What is the procedure for egg freezing?
Mr Efstathios Theodorou goes through the procedure for egg freezing, including a consultation to assess the medical history, basic investigations, assessing the ovarian reserve, and taking self-administered daily injections for approximately two to three weeks, depending on the product. At the end of this, the eggs are retrieved.
Transcript
A woman whom or would like to have egg freezing will need to have a consultation in order to assess the medical history, to do some basic investigations, particularly assess the ovarian reserve to make sure that a good number of eggs exist in the ovary. As soon as that is established and egg freezing is appropriate for the woman, the next step is to take medications, injections, self-administered daily injections for approximately two to three weeks, depending on the product. And then at the end of those injections there is a procedure that we call egg retrieval, which is a procedure under sedation. You go to sleep for approximately 15 minutes and during the time, through the vagina, the doctor will collect some eggs from the ovaries, from both the ovaries, and those eggs then will be passed on to the lab to the embryologist where the mature eggs are going to be vitrified and frozen for future use. After the egg retrieval, the process is finished. Recovery time is probably around 12 to 24 hours, and then the day or a day later after you may be able to go to work.