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Conception

When's the best time to get pregnant? Use our interactive ovulation calculator to work out when you're most fertile and most likely to conceive.

OPK's, are they all pretty much the same?

4 replies

bauble99 · 08/12/2005 09:11

Are any of them more sensitive than others? I need to start testing at the weekend and went to Boots yesterday where all that was left were their own brand. Are the First Response, Clearblue etc. versions any better or am I just falling for the marketing! I know that some types of Pg test are more sensitive than others and I'm wondering if the same applies to OPK's.

TIA

OP posts:
rubles · 08/12/2005 09:37

This month and the month before I used opks and became a bit disillusioned. I had two different brands which were bought over the internet, so a lot cheaper than boots.
I used brand A the first month and only ever got a faint line at the time when my temperatures said I would have ovulated, the rest of the time nothing. I was testing at around 5pm. The line should have been darker than the control, so I didn't know if I hadn't ovulated or if the test was rubbish. We weren't ttc that month, it was just me being weird.

This month I used both brands at the same time, and usually tested at midday-ish to see if my LH was peaking earlier in the day.
With brand A I still only got a faint line at the time of ovulation but nothing else for the rest of the time, but with brand B I had a line all the time but at ovulation it went darker. So according to brand A I didn't ovulate this month, but I am now pregnant.

I think that these tests are really difficult to use and potentially really confusing, so I'd advise you to look at your other signs as well and don't rely solely on opks.

If you are interested, the brand B sticks I used were Accor from earlypregnancy.com - cheapies. (This whole exercise would have been far too expensive if I had gone for the expensive branded tests.)

A web site that you may have heard of, which I found put in in perspective was peeonastick.com - I think it is well worth a visit before you start using opks.

bauble99 · 08/12/2005 09:56

Thanks for that, rubles and congratulations! I love the name of the website too. I'm going to start temping as well but I'll need to start next month as I'm (hopefully) too close to OV to establish enough baseline temps to detect an increase, IYKWIM. My cycles are all over the place (28, 35, 30 days over the last 3 months) so I'm going to need a lot of OPK's I suspect. It took 11 months for me to conceive last time and, as age is an issue, I need to get going in earnest. How long did it take you to conceive?

OP posts:
rubles · 08/12/2005 12:27

It was my first month so I was very, very lucky.

jane313 · 08/12/2005 18:21

I used some cheap ones on the internet and never got a +ve. Then I read some stuff on here and elsewhere and they said its best to test after 12 cos thats when the morning hormone surge is detected in your urine and I had been doing that first thing. Also don't wee for 4 hours before hand. I then used the clearblue digital ones(you can sometimes get them cheap on ebay). I got +ves on them and actually tested one of the cheap ones with the same sample and got a -ve.

That said I have now have blood tests and not ovulating (the opks only measure the hormone surge) and am waiting for a referal to a fertility dept.

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