Wael Salem

Dr. Salem is a compassionate, knowledgeable and highly trained professional who provides excellent patient care. Under his care my health was utmost importance. Before moving on with any treatment Dr. Salem ordered multiple tests to ensure nothing was abnormal. He took note of my blood pressure each time I was in the office and noticed how consistently high it remained. He eventually diagnosed me with high blood pressure and prescribed a medication safe for pregnant women and women trying to conceive.

The one advice I would give a prospective patient of ask Dr. Salem would be to have access of knowledge of all your previous medical records as well as your partner/spouse. Dr. Salem is very thorough and this will aid in your future treatment under his care.

The protocol Dr. Salem chose for me was specific for me. I followed FET protocol, but prior to the transfer (2-3 months before) I took an injection of Lupron to help reduce the symptoms of endometriosis. Once I started the protocol I used multiple hormones, vaginal pills, transdermal patches and injections. I became pregnant after each cycle, but miscarried in the first trimester.

The costs were explained thoroughly by the billing staff. If we had any questions we just called to verify any amounts due.

Dr. Salem strongly recommends only transferring a single embryo base off scientific data, which I completely agree with. Transferring more than one embryo may result in multiple embryo’s competing for space which may result in an unsuccessful pregnancy.

Dr. Salem has a breadth of knowledge about all things fertility and assisted reproductive technology, from more traditional approaches and opinions, to new research that's coming out. CCRM has a list of vitamins they recommend for female patients, and after giving that to me, Dr. Salem told me about a study that's being conducted at CCRM in Colorado where they've found improved success rates in IVF cycles for patients who took acai berry. He said their proprietary blend wasn't for sale, but that if I could get my hands on some acai berry to give it a try. I really appreciated the personalized recommendation. Dr. Salem has also customized our IVF protocol based on my issues (low AMH) and he's been good about explaining why he recommends this or that. With my former RE, I was always second-guessing things and feeling like I needed to do my own research. With Dr. Salem, it feels so good knowing we can trust him and that we are in good hands.

Ask all the questions! He's so good giving his opinion and backing it up with scientific evidence, but he will explain everything in a way you can understand. I honestly would recommend Dr. Salem to anyone, 10/10.

Because I have low AMH, we are doing estrogen priming instead of birth control. I am taking 2mg of Estrace (oral), twice a day for about 2 weeks. With my next cycle day 3, we will do baseline ultrasound and blood work, and everything looks good we will start stims. I will be doing 2 vials of Menopur (injection) in the morning, and at night I will do 300 units of Follistim (injection), plus 100 mg of Clomid (oral), and Dexamethasone (oral). Again, since I don't have a lot of eggs, we are pretty much doing max stims to try to recruit as many as possible. At some point I will start Cetrocide/Ganirelix (injection) - not sure what dose, I think this is to prevent me from ovulating before the retrieval. Because we hope to have 2-3 children, we are doing CCRM's family building program, which was recommended to us by Dr. Salem. This means we will do 3 freeze-all retrievals and after the last retrieval all of the embryos will get genetic testing (this saves $ because you're only paying for genetic testing once rather than 3 times). Then we will do a single FET, and any remaining healthy embies will stay on ice for future use.

Costs are comparable with our former clinic. Because we are doing the family building program which is discounted, plus we get a military discount, the cost of 3 retrievals and 1 FET will be about $40k I think.

Dr. Salem definitely seems to lean towards eSET, at least in our case. He said he would only recommend transferring 2 embryos if I had two miscarriages with a singleton (though I think he probablyyyy would be open to transferring 2 after only one miscarriage).

Dr. Salem is phenomenal and has exceeded our expectations with his deep expertise in fertility treatments and quality of care. Dr. Salem and his team went above and beyond in explaining every step of the IVF process in detail, presented us with a well thought out set of options for our course of treatment and provided us with solid advice every step of the way. We were extremely impressed by Dr. Salem's depth of knowledge, his deep involvement in our case and his astounding ability to be one step ahead of us in anticipating and assuaging our concerns before we expressed them. He was extremely empathetic to our situation and constantly advocated for a well rounded healthy diet and lifestyle to boost the chances of a successful IVF procedure. He never prescribed unnecessary supplements or medications throughout the IVF process and kept a close watch for possible side effects caused by hormonal injections. Thanks to his flawless plan and technique, we had a successful embryo transfer resulting in our pregnancy. While multiple rounds of egg retrieval and embryo transfers can be long and daunting, we always felt like we were in safe and capable hands with Dr Salem and we are very grateful to him for his guidance, advice, and most importantly, hope, when we needed it the most.

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We have only completed our initial work up and are starting down the path of IVF with the genetic testing, after finding out we are both carriers of CF. This came as a shock to both my husband and I, but Dr Salem discussed the risks and options we had and let us choose which path we wanted to take. He was sympathetic and kind during this stage, especially as I found this out on the anniversary of a dear friend passing of CF. He reassured us that we can work around this risk factor but also explained the challenges.

Trust him. I am so thankful we found Dr Salem and CCRM

We are just starting with creating the probe for our genetic mutation so we have not begun our IVF cycle yet. We have to wait until the probe is ready.

We have not reached this stage of our plan yet

Dr. Salem has been very compassionate and great at communicating. He is the only doctor on staff right now while the other is out on maternity leave but he still took the time to call with updates and give us next steps. Everyone at the clinic has been wonderful and caring and patient with all the questions we’ve had throughout the process.

Ask as many questions as you want. He’s extreme patient and kind and really makes you feel like he wants to help, you’re not just a number.

Due to my husbands abnormal sperm sample and the fact that we had tried other approaches prior to going to CCRM, Dr. Salem thought our most efficient and best option would be IVF since my tests showed normal results. We are currently in the transfer prepping phase of the cycle.

So far the costs have been surprisingly minimal through our insurance. I do wish we could have gotten a better estimate up front on what the cost of the entire cycle was going to be including medications.

My doctor does the single embryo approach. When I asked about doing multiples to possibly have a better shot, he explained the benefits for the mother and child if only one is transferred and that made me feel better about the approach and care for myself after getting pregnant.

Dr Salem takes the time to be prepared for our appointments and spent time to understand our goals before we developed a treatment plan. While we have not had a complete cycle due to setbacks, he has adjusted our plan to ensure that we are setting ourselves up for the best results.

Bring all of the questions that you can to understand the process, He was able to break down our plan using our results. It was helpful for me to have my questions written down so that I was sure I got all of the answers that I needed to feel good moving forward with our plan.

I have PCOS and my husband has a normal sperm count/motility so we are good candidates for IUI. With the success rate of IUI (about 20%) the plan is to do 3 rounds of IUI and if not successful moving on to IVF. We were ready to start an IUI procedure using letrozole to trigger ovulation, sadly the lab found that one of my ovaries had an active cyst which would interfere with the treatment plan. So we did a 3 week cycle of birth control pills to quiet it down. We are currently waiting to see if that did the trick to move to doing a full cycle.

$383 was the cost for a sperm analysis and cryopreservation $253 is about what a monitoring appointment costs (day 2/3 appointment)

The first time I met Dr. Salem, he provided us with clear timelines and what things would look like. He was very thorough and has a personality that helps to make people feel comfortable. I have twins that were done previously through IVF at a clinic that is no longer open and he was diligent in getting all of that information to help inform him on my care.

Don't be afraid to ask questions. He is very open and honest about what to expect and outcomes.

The first thing that I did at CCRM was to get a full workup. They took blood and did ultrasounds to be sure that I was in good health. It was at this time that he prescribed me with thyroid medication to be sure that I had optimal levels. Then I went on birth control for 3 weeks before beginning my stimulation meds. I am on the last day of my stimulation meds now. I take 2 vials of menopur in the morning with my thyroid medication. At night I take Follistim and Dex. On day 5 I also began taking Gonirelix in the morning with the Menopur. I have had daily ultra sounds and blood work for the last 5 days. I will likely trigger tonight.

Cost of medication was about $7,000 Cost of everything else was about $20,000 We did IVF with CCS testing. They also had sperm thaw.

Dr. Salem prefers single embryo transfer as he believes that with added testing the results are likely going to be positive.

Dr. Salem primary did phone consists with me as we were far from the clinic. He always explained things in a way I could understand and made me feel confident our cycle would be successful. He explained his experience and how it compared with our expected treatment plan and I never doubted his expertise. He was caring during painful procedures and his knowledge of infertility blew me away. When answering questions I had, he did so in a way that didn’t belittle my lack of knowledge and explained everything so wonderfully.

If you’re unable to get the answers you need from his nursing staff, ask to speak directly with him. He’s more than happy to set aside time to speak with you.

For our Egg Retreival process, I was on 150units of Gonal F for 10 days starting day 16 of my cycle. I also did 1 vial of menopur for those 10 days and 5 days of cetrotide starting day 21 of my cycle. For my trigger prior to retreival I did leuprolide and novarel. I was also placed on a medication to lower my estrogen levels 2 days prior to retreival.

Ivf Egg retreival with Genetic testing and 1 frozen transfer is approximately $25000

Dr. Salem stated he prefers single embryo transfers

I met with Dr. Salem after having a bad experience at another fertility clinic. He is incredibly kind and compassionate. He is also incredibly smart and up to date on the latest information about fertility treatments. He worked really hard to get me the maximum number of eggs for freezing and tailored my treatment plan specifically to my issues (I ended up getting nearly double the number of eggs that I got at the previous clinic!) I sent my sister to him also because I was so impressed with his services.

Go see him! He is a great doctor! If you are a woman who its hesitant to go see a male ob/gyn, don't let that stop you - get the best treatment possible from the best doctor.

My treatment protocol was "Luteal Oral-Clomid Protocol 5 - freeze all only." I did a round of egg freezing at a prior clinic and got 7 mature eggs. Dr. Salem's goal was to get me at least a few more the second round. To do that, he advised me to wait 3 months after stopping birth control pills to see if my AMH would increase (it did! went from .5 to 1.78). Based on that, Dr. Salem concluded that birth control pills had a very suppressive effect on my ovaries, so rather than start my cycle with down-regulation by taking birth control pills, I waited for my natural LH surge and then started priming my ovaries by taking estrogen (estrace 2 mg tab twice a day). On day 3 of my next cycle I stopped taking estrace and started taking the stim meds (2 vials of menopur in the morning, 300 units follistim in the evening + 2 tabs of clomid for 5 days + dexamethosone). On day 7 of the stim meds I added in ganirelix in the morning. Triggered after 11 days of stims with HCG and Lupron. I got 13 mature eggs this round - almost double what I got at the previous clinic. I feel that Dr. Salem is directly responsible for the improvement - he really looked into which treatment plan would work best for my circumstances. The other clinic planned to do their exact same protocol a second time (birth control pills for 2 weeks to down-regulate, then start with 1 vial of menopur in the morning + 225 units of follistim in the evening, add ganirelix and then trigger with just HCG). It didn't work well the first time and they had to increase the medication half way though - I believe that if I had done that protocol again, I wouldn't have gotten as many eggs. In addition, they made it seem as though that was the best they could do for me - that because of my low AMH I should just be happy with the number I got. It was very frustrating. Dr. Salem's approach was much more tailored to me and really addressed the concerns I had at the first clinic. He is optimistic and tries to do the best for all of his patients.

$8,754 for an egg freezing cycle + $475 for anesthesia. The clinic also offers to reduce the fee for a second cycle by 20% and 15% for each cycle after that.

Dr. Salem was kind, real, and thoughtful. He communicated effectively and we never felt talked down to nor did we feel like he was looking as us as numbers or a bank account. He asked us questions and clearly had looked over our information prior to the appointment.

Ask questions. He is very open and approachable.

We had a consult with Dr. Salem in January. We chose to keep trying naturally for a few more months. We will now be going back to begin IUI.

Our consult was around $200. They only work with one insurance company. but they do send you the detailed bill to send into your insurance for reimbursement if your insurance covers it (ours doesn't).

Dr. Salem was very intelligent. He was compassionate and showed empathy for the experiences we had endured. He also discussed considerations that had not previously been discussed with us by our other doctors, such as cytotoxic c-section scars. He is fairly new to the Twin Cities, but does not lack experience or knowledge.

Even though he's male and new to the Twin Cities, he is knowledgeable and very compassionate.

It was about $200 for the initial appointment. I think the cost for using donor eggs from their egg bank was approximately $20,000.

Dr. Wael Salem is an incredible doctor! He is patient, knowledgeable, and talented. His nurse Margaret is also a gem and so wonderful! Dr. Salem has a better bedside manner than any doctor I’ve ever met - so kind and reassuring. He takes a very scientific approach, using the best and most current methods. He also takes the time to explain everything in detail. Like many going through the fertility journey, ours was a long painful and complicated process. I wouldn’t have wanted any other doctor by our side.  I highly recommend Dr. Salem to anyone! He is the best and there is a reason CCRM is the gold standard in the Bay Area.

He is great chose him

Our insurance covered almost everything, because we have very good insurance.

He was thorough with explaining what the plan was and why he was choosing that corse of action. I felt that I could bring up studies I read about regarding fertility and he took the time to discuss what his thoughts were and explain why it was a good or bad idea for my particular treatment. I think Dr. Salem stays up to date on current fertility treatments and studies.

If you are unsure about something don’t hesitate to ask questions. He will gladly answerer or explain anything you don’t understand.

I am starting my first IVF cycle next month. We have one more regroup before we start since we just redid my labs. We were set to take Lupron, Cetrotide, Gonal F, HCG, and some other medications that I can not recall. We are doing ICSI due to my husband having low mobility and 22% DNA fragmentation.

We were quoted around 29,000 for one cycle with meds and PGS testing and 42,000 for a three cycle package.

Dr. Salem only does eSet.

Going through this I expected to be able to talk with him if questions arose. I had to pay for another visit if I wanted that. I got charged for phone calls as well. I felt that all they wanted was my money and that I was just another number to them.

Find someone else. Anyone else.

He told me I didn’t have much time and that if I wanted to try on my own I had to do it fast. He did not tell me why he chose the regimen that he picked for me but I knew I couldn’t have a fresh transfer because I needed a surgery to be able to accept a pregnancy.

Times were not convenient with my work times.

I had to pay up front and when things failed it took a long time to get my money back.

I had to embryos to transfer.

I am very comfortable as his patient. He seemed to believe in eventual success even when other doctors were suggesting egg donors and this trust eventually led to a few embryos. He is warm and genuine in his approach. I did feel the need to be my own advocate. He was not comfortable straying beyond the initial protocol he set for me. I needed to do my research and ask about a lot of different options and paths which was not presented to me.

Be your own advocate. Don't be afraid to research and propose or ask about possibly taking alternative paths

Cycle 1 antagonist - no embryos Cycle 2 antagonist - no embryos Cycle 3 microflare lupron - a few embryos

Dr. Salem is among the very best of the best. I come to him with an incredibly complex history in attempts of creating a family of my own for nearly 8 years. I am beyond grateful for his expertise and have a new found hope of having a healthy baby in the very near future. I highly recommend Dr. Salem as most importantly, he is an incredible listener, who will go above and beyond to find solutions. I have not found a solutions oriented specialist in years and I work in healthcare! If you are wanting a solutions oriented REI who truly delivers personalized care, look no further! Thank you, Dr.Salem!

You’re truly in great hands!

As a new patient, I saw Wael and thought I would prefer to have a female doctor through my experience for more compassion. But he took the time to get to know me and my partner on a personal level as well as being blunt about some situations which i appreciated in the end. He always greeted us and learned our names quickly to build that trust. His way of speaking would have us focused on our goal but also distract us from now stressing too much as we get there.

One advice is ASK QUESTIONS. He is open to many questions so don't be shy

205 consultation fees, not sure what else.

We are not that far in