1st time Ovulation tracking and pcos

[Wishfulthinking2021]

Hi ladies,
This is my first thread. I'm 33 years old and want to start TTC in the next 6 months. I've recently been diagnosed with PCOS and have irregular periods, so I've no idea if I actually ovulate or not. I've decided to try and track this with OPKs and BBT but getting so confused. I'm not sure when I should be seeing dips and rises, and starting to feel disheartened with it all.

I think OPKs are quite unreliable with PCOS because it causes you to have high LH unrelated to ovulation. I think BBT should be accurate despite PCOS but it looks like you have missed quite a few days on your chart? I would recommend using fertility friend the bbt charts tend to be much clearer x

It looks like you probably ovulated on CD16

@Hopefulhedgehog yeah unfortunately I have missed a few days. I currently work a mix of day and night shifts, an advice I've seen with bbt is to temp at the same time everyday. Which is near on impossible

Ah that’s tricky. I don’t use your app so don’t necessarily follow what it is showing but it seems to indicate very clear peak on your OPK on day 16 and your temps have risen by day 20 so you have likely ovulated in that period x

@Hopefulhedgehog thank you. Do you know if you get a dip or rise in either LH or BBT before your period? It would be great to know if there was an indicator of AF arriving

LH is only really useful for ovulation so there is little point in tracking it right through your cycle. I stop OPKS as soon as I’ve had my peak. BBT will fall shortly before or during AF. Mine starts to fall from around 3/4 days before AF is due which is 12DPO for me (have attached my chart from last cycle so you can see). If you are not taking BBT consistently at the same time etc then it may not be reliable so you may be better to just use ICs when you start TTC rather than relying on BBT. The changes in BBT are really small so charting can be pretty useless if you are unable to take temps at the same time every day - especially with your shift work you may just not get on with it and lots of others don’t either.