Erica Hoke explains Factor V Leiden, a genetic blood-clotting mutation that can cause implantation failure and miscarriage. She shares her own experience as a carrier and urges people with recurrent pregnancy loss to ask their OB-GYN for testing, which insurance may cover.
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Hey, hey, thanks for joining me. I'm guessing if you're watching this that you're suffering from infertility or that you're worried that you could have infertility, and so you want to know what this Factor V thing is. It's called Factor V Leiden. I have it. It's, uh, it's one gene, so you can either have a gene that has one copy or two copies. I happen to have only one copy. Um, and what is Factor V, and what in the world does it have to do with infertility, and how can that help you? Okay, lots of questions. So Factor V is a blood clotting disorder. Now before you shut me down and turn me off, let me just tell you, you can have a blood clotting disorder and not even know it, not have had blood clots, not have had any family that have had blood clots. As a matter of fact, after my first son was born, uh, we went to see a geneticist for some genetic counseling to find out how this would affect him later in life and that sort of thing. And she told us that up to 80% of the population is actually a carrier of one gene, one copy of that Factor V Leiden mutation. So it affects a lot of people. And just because, just having to do with your other genetic makeup and profile, you may never know. Or you might have infertility, and that is, uh, the Factor V is causing you not to be able to get pregnant. So, um, I said it's a blood clotting disorder. It's very common, up to 80% of, uh, women and men are carriers. So what does it have to do with infertility? So the thing that happens with Factor V Leiden is that, um, a couple different things. There's a couple different stages. So for myself, I was an early clotter. What that meant in the world of fertility, it meant that when the baby went to implant, um, it went to implant, the threads of the implantation, the little roots that were trying to attach to my uterus wall lining, would clot off and then I would have a miscarriage. So that actually happens before any HCG HCG levels can give you a positive pregnancy test. So there were many, many times that were— I just was convinced, as maybe you have been too, that I was pregnant. I was having some other pregnancy symptoms. Maybe I was feeling a little bit of extra soreness in my breast, or I was, um, 1 or 2 days late, um, but never got a positive pregnancy test, which was true for me. I never got a positive pregnancy test. Until I actually got a positive pregnancy and carried my son, um, to full term. And so what was happening with that is that that was clotting off. So secondarily, um, and equally, you know, traumatic in a different way, is a lot of women will find out too late that they have Factor V, um, because they have a late-term miscarriage. So, um, oftentimes, uh, what happens if you have Factor V is that you have a hard time getting pregnant, you get pregnant, and then it's just horrifying to think about because it's preventable, but you have a late second trimester miscarriage, or even later, a third trimester miscarriage. So what happens in that case is the placenta clots, depriving the baby of nutrients, or umbilical cord develops a clot. And a lot of times these are not diagnosed as Factor V Leiden. It's so crazy, and it's why I'm here talking to you tonight, because so many doctors just don't even know about it or don't test of it— don't test, um, for it. Sorry, I can't even talk about it. It's so upsetting to me. So, um, women suffer these traumatic, um, losses, late-term losses. Nothing is ever tested, uh, it's not determined what was causing, you know, the miscarriage. And then, um, they're either too traumatized to try again, you're either too traumatized to try again, or they go on to find out later and after the fact that they had Factor V Leiden. So you guys, this is just like a nutshell of Factor V Leiden, what it is, um, what the possibility, um, for getting pregnant, for carrying a pregnancy full term. So this is what you can do, uh, next time that you see your doctor, if you've even had one miscarriage, if you even had one miscarriage or one suspected miscarriage, I urge you to ask your OB-GYN to test you for Factor V Leiden. Most insurances, if you've had a miscarriage, will, um, you know, I'm not an insurance expert and I'm not a doctor, just so you know, but most insurance companies will seemingly pay for the test if you've had a miscarriage, you know, codes and all that. I'm not going to get into that. Um, secondarily, start asking some of your older family members, or if you know that you've had family members that have had, um, a blood clot either in their leg or after a surgery, then that's also a pretty good indication that you could also have Factor V Leiden. So that's just the getting started part for Factor V. Um, if you have some questions, drop them in the chat. Also look for my blog that I wrote about this with some more detail in it. And let me know, um, how I can help you. I'm gonna do a part 2 on this. And if you're watching and you like the content, go ahead and hit subscribe and hit the bell button so that you can get updates the next time that I go live. All right, health and blessings. Bye-bye.
