I had a discussion with a colleague of Dr Goldmeier's in London today. As I have mentioned before, they are willing to do some tests with proper controls into aspects of POIS such as immune response to semen etc. However they need a minimum of around 30 POIS sufferers to do this. So far in the UK (plus one person in France!), they have seen around half this number of people. Hopefully all of them would be willing to participate in a study but even if so, its not enough people to get statistically rigorous results.
Today, I raised the subject of doing a collaborative study whereby they might use people in other countries working in conjunction with a doctor or doctors local to those sufferers, all using identical methods to pool results. Dr Goldmeier's colleague thought this could work. She also said that such a study could be relatively cheap to do initially. So I left believing this is a real possibility. I shall email Dr Goldmeier himself with the idea to get his reaction and to learn what we would need to do and where funds might come from. (don't stop giving to the NORD fund!!)
I suspect this might work best if there were several POIS sufferers overseas who were close to one medical centre where they could all go to make up the numbers, thus making the logistics easier (in a similar way that 15 people have already journeyed to London to see Dr Goldmeier). Of course, I don't want to exclude anyone who wants to get involved wherever they live but I am trying to think in practical terms. For starters, we have a map of POIS sufferers somewhere don't we? I don't know whether pooling results with Dr Waldinger would work. I suspect this would be better as an independent study to replicate, or not, his findings amongst other things. That is just my opinion.
For starters, does anyone know if there is a group of sufferers outside the UK that could potentially get to the same place for testing? I'm guessing we'll need at least a couple of other centres overseas to make up the numbers. Also, if there is anyone out there in the UK who hasn't yet been to see Dr Goldmeier, I would encourage you to do so if you can - for yourself and everyone here. Send me a message if you want details on how to arrange this.
Please post here if:
(i) you would like to be involved in a study such as the one I've outlined loosely above.
(ii) if you know of anyone in your area that might be able to work with Dr Goldmeier's team in a collaborative study
(iii) if you live in an area in which you know there are other POIS sufferers near enough that you could all travel to one place if a study were to be done in your area.
I hope that makes sense. Remember, I have only raised this possibility with Dr Goldmeier's colleague so far. If we can approach him and his team with the details of enough POIS sufferers willing to take part with an idea of where they are based and perhaps even suggest people he could collaborate with then we might get somewhere. Its up to us to start shaping this into something that could work. The easier we can make it for the research team, the more likely it is we can get a study off the ground. I think we can make it happen.
Please reply to this asap to voice your thoughts and your willingness to participate
