Ob/Gyn says ovulation strips are useless!

[anyothergirl]

I was having some routine hospital checks and was talking about ttc in the near future. I mentioned I've got some ovulation test strips and will track whats going on with my ovulation in between appointments. She sort of smirked and said, "Ah, well, the ovulation tests are fairly useless, we don't set much by them really - if they don't show up positive I wouldn't necessarily assume you aren't ovulating". Has anyone else heard this from an "official" source?! I have a big stash of tests and am faithfully peeing on them every other time I go!

Even if you use them once a day around ovulation you can still miss your peak LH so you should ideally test every 12 hours around ovulation in case you have a really short rise if you find you're never getting a positive. So from that point of view it would be easy to think you aren't getting a positive and therefore aren't ovulating, but actually you could just miss the LH rise.

Also if you have PCOS they can show positive on quite a few days even when you aren't ovulating as PCOSers levels of LH are too high. Therefore they can be useless for some women.

They worked for me after TTC for over a year, worked second time with strips. Maybe coincidence but can't do any harm.

They worked very well for me. I had an irregular cycle and was never quite sure when I ovulated. The peak showed up very clearly each month and I got pregnant very quickly when using them. Staying pregnant proved slightly more problematic so I ended up using OPK a lot (7 pregnancies) and found them consistently helpful.

I heard that they detect the surge of hormone prior to ovulation but can't actually tell you if you do then go on to ovulate. Temping is more accurate as that will show you if you are really ovulating but of course doesn't warn you in advance, so you have to do a couple of months to get to know your cycle.

Worked for me. Became pregnant both times the month I did opks.