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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 to detect early pregnancy?

7 replies

NSJ28 · 14/04/2022 12:14

Hi,

I have seen many a thread about OPK's detecting pregnancy before a HCG test does. So this question goes out to those of you who have gone on to get a BFP after an OPK possibly indicated a pregnancy.

I am 7 or 8 dpo today. I used OPK's to track my ovulation and got high and peak readings around CD19, 20 and 21. I'm sure I ovulated on CD20 or 21. I have taken a couple of OPK's since then and have all been very feint, low readings. Today I have taken one and it's a bit darker (I know it's not positive, I know how OPK's work, and I also know that this is by no way an accurate way to detect pregnancy, etc etc) I'm just curious. What do you guys think? Pic attached.

OPK's to detect early pregnancy?
OP posts:
BiscuitLover3678 · 14/04/2022 14:20

How would an opk detect pregnancy? I have no idea!

NSJ28 · 14/04/2022 14:38

@BiscuitLover3678 I'm not sure myself, I've just seen it A LOT on here, I think it's something to do with it picking up the hcg hormone

OP posts:
MollieTD · 14/04/2022 15:01

That’s not a positive OPK first of all - mine always looked like that just before my period, always got my hopes up. After IVF, OPKs showed negative the whole time, pregnancy test then positive.

I’m sure it works for some people to detect it but I wouldn’t have any faith in it either way!

MollieTD · 14/04/2022 15:02

(Also sorry, just re-read your birthday in brackets!! Just hold off a bit and I hope you get the outcome you want)

MollieTD · 14/04/2022 15:03

*bit in brackets! My god.

allthingssparkly · 14/04/2022 15:35

If you are pregnant a pregnancy test would pick it up first before an OPK, so I've heard anyway. 7/8 DPO is still early. I'd wait a day or two more and take a pregnancy test which will give you a clearer answer. Good luck @NSJ28

babyjellyfish · 14/04/2022 15:54

HCG (the pregnancy hormone) and LH (the hormone which peaks shortly before ovulation) are very similar to each other at a molecular level. There is something in HCG which will be recognised by an ovulation test as LH, when it is not LH. (It can also trick the human body, not just a strip test, because if you inject yourself with HCG when you have a large enough follicle, your ovaries will mistakenly think you're having an LH surge and it will trigger the final maturation stage and ovulation, which is why fertility treatment often involves HCG shots to trigger ovulation.)

But there are some important differences between HCG and LH. Firstly, any level of HCG in the blood or urine indicates pregnancy, meaning that any line on a pregnancy test, however faint, indicates pregnancy. However, there is always a certain minimum level of LH in the blood and urine even when we are not about to ovulate, which means that in order for an ovulation test to be positive, the test line needs to be darker than the control line.

For this reason, the amount of LH needed to turn an ovulation test positive is quite high (at least 100 miu, I think), whereas a pregnancy test may be positive with an HCG level as low as 5 miu.

This means that if you are pregnant, you will certainly get a line on an ovulation test, but you would anyway whether you were pregnant or not. And if you are pregnant enough to turn an ovulation test positive, you would have been testing positive on an actual pregnancy test for at least a couple of days already.

So yes, ovulation tests detect pregnancy, but they can't distinguish between LH and HCG, and they aren't a reliable method of determining whether you are pregnant or not. If you know for sure that you ovulated 2-3 weeks ago and your period is late and for some reason you absolutely can't get your hands on a pregnancy test but you have an ovulation test at home, a strong line on an ovulation test is a good sign that you probably are pregnant.

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