However, young women who have had an accelerated decline in the quality of their eggs can also have high FSH levels. In order to determine a woman's FSH levels for the purpose of predicting fertility, the blood should be drawn on the third day of the menstrual cycle. Women with levels between 7 and 12 are considered elevated but have been able to achieve pregnancies with us. Women with levels consistently over 12 have an extremely poor chance for pregnancy. In other words, a high FSH level one month doesn't necessarily mean it will be elevated every month.
Many physicians use fertility medications to try to increase the chance of pregnancy.
The idea behind using such medications is to increase the number of eggs that develop in a given month, thus enhancing the chance that at least one of them might be able to be fertilized and develop into a viable pregnancy. This seems to offer some improvement in results, but the pregnancy rates are not as good as in younger women. Also, many women don't respond well to fertility medications as they get older. Unfortunately, the pregnancy rates with IVF in women over the age 40 are very low. Currently, the only consistently successful method to improve pregnancy rates in women with age-related infertility is egg donation.