OPK positive yesterday, negative today...HELP!

Ladies... This may be slightly off on a tangent... so please forgive the hijack, but... The majority of the time I have a 28 day cycle, and I chart my BBT... I was shocked to read that it is possible to have a temperature shift without releasing an egg How is this possible? And am I now to assume that my charts are useless, and that I might not even be ovulating? It's a worry!!

I was had a positive fours days in a row. Does this mean my body is having problems releasing the egg?

Hi Londonlottie

We shall have to agree to differ and that is fine by me.

You are correct to surmise that a "normal" cycle length is between 21 and 35 days or (this is important as well but sometimes forgotten) with less than 4 days of variation from month to month.

If a women is getting 2 LH surges a month this discounts the original theory which states that a LH surge is followed by ovulation. Women could question this, they may ask themselves if they are using the kit correctly.

Many gynaes do not like temp charts and the like primarily because they are so unreliable.

Hi Londonlottie,

Why is it misleading to state that opk's are not without their problems?. I would certainly mislead someone if they had for instance an irregular cycle and I said, "yeah go ahead and use these things". OPK's are certainly not a foolproof method of predicting ovulation as you correctly surmise. I would agree with your there and will take that into account in my future postings re this.

From my reading of these kits these do assume only one LH surge a month. A person though can easily get more than one LH surge a month. LH is not static and can and does change throughout the cycle. So does FSH and these kits do not measure that.

(Also you can have a temp rise in the second half of a cycle when an egg has not been shed but that's a different matter entirely!).

Only around 12% of all women have what is a "normal" 28 day cycle so for the majority OPK's are not ideal. Women can be mislead by such things. Also there is no real evidence to suggest that OPK's really do help women to conceive any quicker; these can also rely somewhat on a women's desperation to conceive. And that is why (apart from the cost of the things) I also dislike them.

Sorry, running up and downstairs with a toddler who thinks he is not sleepy.

Yes you're right. My test instructions say that, on average women ov 36 hours after a positive OPK. But the surge can last from a few hours to a couple of days, and depending when you test, you could catch it right at the beginning or right at the end. So its all guesswork.

cheechymunchy,

OPK's work on two misleading principles; namely that a rise in LH is immediately followed by ovulation and that women only have one rise in LH every month. Both of these are not true.

A women can ovulate earlier, later or not at all in any given cycle. Generally speaking you are more likely to be ovulating regularly if your periods are regular. If periods are irregular then ovulation is less likely to be happening regularly.

Thats what they're supposed to do. You get one day where it is positive, and you ovulate within 36 hours of the positive test. So probably today. So keep at it!

The test was neg today cos the hormone surge has finished. It will still have stimulated your ovaries to send the egg out though.