Tracking Ovulation

Hi girls - I'm sure this has been asked before. I know you can temp and do an OPK but I wanted to ask what has been the easiest dumb-proof way of doing this. I've been having a lot of trouble with my periods recently and had a cyst burst. My doctor doesn't seemed concerned at all but I am. I've never had a problem with my periods and now I'm concerned I'm not ovulating. So he suggested I track it to make sure I am. He said just get an OPK...but are those things like a one time use? How does it work? I'm sure I sound so stupid now but I'm not really sure how to start this since I haven't gotten my period in about 50 days.

Re: Tracking Ovulation

Well, since your periods are irregular I wouldn't waste my money on OPKs. I would start by temping. Take your temperature at the same time each morning (even on weekends) and make sure you do it first thing in the morning...beforeyou pee, before you get out of bed. Fertilityfriend.com has a free charting service and will help you figure out when you ovulate. You should see a shift in your temperature from the first half of your cycle to the second half of your cycle. When women ovulate, there is USUALLY a drop in temperature of .4-.8 degrees. The following day, your temperature should shoot up. If your temperature stays high for at least 3 days, then you know you have ovulated. If it is up and down and up and down all month, you probably have an anovulatory cycle, meaning you don't ovulate. Once you have charted for a few months and have seen a regular pattern of what day you ovulate, then I would suggest using OPKs.
I attached a picture of my chart for this month, just so you could see what it looks like when you ovulate. The red line is when I ovulated (drop in temp) and you can see the next day it shot up. HTH!!!

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Re: Tracking Ovulation

I forgot to mention...the reason you probably shouldn't use OPKs now is b/c you would waste a lot of test strips since your cycles are longer than usual. If your cycles are 50 days in length, you could ovulate as early as CD10 or as late as CD40. That would be 30 test strips you would have to use.

Message edited 8/13/2010 11:25:09 AM.

Re: Tracking Ovulation

Posted by babydancer10

I forgot to mention...the reason you probably shouldn't use OPKs now is b/c you would waste a lot of test strips since your cycles are longer than usual. If your cycles are 50 days in length, you could ovulate as early as CD10 or as late as CD40. That would be 30 test strips you would have to use.