fallopian tube

So the doctor recommended that I have both tubes removed before moving on to IVF." Okay, so a couple of things that are happening here.

This was actually a big reason why IVF was created in the first place, to address the problem of blocked fallopian tubes.

Now, our technology has advanced a lot since then, and so just like this person on Reddit was articulating, doctors now a- have the surgical ability to go in and unblock fallopian tubes and also drain a lot of the fluid that can build up because of it.

Now, as they noted on this Reddit post, in some cases, because blood work doesn't catch it and it can go missed for a long time in the search for understanding infertility, there are cases where your tubes can be so deformed or hurt after that many years that it can still be very difficult or impossible to conceive.

But I think that's one of the central points.

If your doctor is just doing blood work or a hormone panel or a semen analysis before telling you to move on to IVF, they're actually completely failing to look at things like blocked fallopian tubes, which is one of the leading causes of infertility in women.

Okay, so there's another Reddit comment I want to go to now because it's dealing with the topic of male factor infertility, and particularly sperm health.

This person says, "We have been trying for almost two years now, and started fertility treatment after one and a half years.

So this is really big.

ACOG, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, now advises that to help prevent ovarian cancer, clinicians should recommend removing the fallopian tubes during certain other scheduled surgeries in women who do not plan on becoming pregnant.

This is called opportunistic salpingectomy.

And like you said, this is for women with average risk, meaning those who don't have a family history of ovarian cancer or one of the gene variants that increase the risk.

So Jen, why the fallopian tubes?

Right.

So it turns out that ovarian cancer is somewhat of a misnomer.

Most cases actually start in the fallopian tubes, and this has been known for some time now.