Short cycles

[FrankieRose82]

Hi,

Has anyone got any advise for me please. I've just turned 41 (last week) and my periods are 23/24 days occasionally longer Is there anyway I can extend my cycle? I know this is not a great sign.

24 day cycles aren't necessarily a bad thing. It all depends on when in that cycle you ovulate. Have you been temp tracking/ doing opks to pinpoint when in your cycle you ovulate? What's important if that you have at least at 10 day luteal phase to make sure there's time for implantation to happen before AF arrives. Any idea how many dpo you usually get to before AF?

Short cycles aren't necessarily an issue, you can still have a long enough follicular and luteal phase with cycles that length.

I have shorter cycles too (23-26 days) but always a 12 day luteal phase, so I conceived just fine on 5th cycle of trying. Nearly 11 weeks now :)

Start doing opk strips to try and find out when you ovulate in your cycle.

I believe coq10 can lengthen cycles, but I have no personal experience with it. I think it improves egg quality (so likely lengthening the follicular phase).

Have your cycles always been that length or have they shortened over time? Given your age, it may be prudent to have your amh levels checked.

It would be worth tracking when you ovulate. The cycle length isn't an issue in itself seeing as it is consistent each cycle. It's more your luteal phase. You may just be ovulating early, with a decent luteal phase length.

I found that taking vitamin D lengthened my luteal phase though.

So I ovulate between day 10 and day 12. I seem to have a 14 day luteal phase. I want to push my ovulation back a couple days as I'm worried my egg isn't mature enough. I had my AMH done last year and they said it was normal for my age. I had pretty good egg reserve considering I'm older. We will see. I've heard Angus cactus is good?

Great news that you have that nice long luteal phase! In your 40s the follicular does tend to shorten as a result of egg quality. You can try Agnus castus, it won't do you any harm, but I'd say that's more for hormone regulation than egg quality.

Agree with PP that coq10 is likely to be a good choice. Also, make sure you take a multivitamin but choose something that is low in antioxidants as they can harm egg quality too. There's plenty of good options but they do tend to be quite pricey. Lastly, depends on your budget but I've heard red light treatment each evening really improves circulation to the ovaries which again boosts egg quality, people often do it before IVF cycles to increase the number of viable eggs collected.