OPK Question
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Anonymous
| Is it best to use the OPK twice a day, AM and PM? Any advice appreciated. |
Anonymous
| Yes, I would use them twice a day. However, it's best to chart (take your temperature, watch for other fertility signs, and note them all down) your entire cycle so you know when ovulation is likely, and then only start testing with OPKs from the five days before your expected ovulation date (and until you get a positive). That way you're not using 60 OPKs a month and are still very likely to catch ovulation. Check out FertilityFriend.com - they have a great tutorial. |
Anonymous
| I agree with PP. Although I used a million of the cheap sticks every month, but for multiple reasons, I'm super glad I was temping the month I got pregnant, the biggest of which was the OPK showed positive, but temping showed I hadn't yet, so I kept OPK-ing and ovulated later. |
Anonymous
| I have a short LH surge, so if I only tested once a day, I would miss it. |
Anonymous
|
Op here, So where I work, I will not be able to test in the bathrooms because of lack of privacy. I have heard conflicting things about using FMU to test, but I think my schedule will have to be first thing in the AM, and then again about 5 PM when I get home. I am planning to start the opk's on day8 of my cycle.
If I start temping now (tomorrow is day 6) is it worth it? |
Anonymous
You can start temping, but it won't really help that much with this month. Temping will tell you when ovulation has already happened. When you temp over several months, you can start to see patterns and then predict when you're about to ovulate. Be sure to take your temp at the same time every morning BEFoRE you get out of bed and after 4 hours of continuous sleep. So if you get up to pee at 5am, then you can't go back to bed, sleep for an hour and temp at 6am. You have to do the same time all week long, even weekends. I typically ovulated on day 13. I started using OPKs usually around the afternoon of day 10. |
Anonymous
|
I usually tested twice a day, because often my FMU wouldn't show a surge, but around 11am-3pm, it'd hit. That said, waiting until 5pm shouldn't be a huge deal...
Your work bathroom isn't private? What does that mean? I used to do it in a stall at work. I'd have a small paper cup that I'd pee in, dip the stick, wait a minute or two. Dump the pee, throw the cup in the "sanitary napkin" disposal, tuck the stick back in the wrapper (I used wondfo, individually wrapped) and go back to my desk. Then I'd pull it out to read it. Then wrap in tissues and throw away. |
Anonymous
|
[quote=Anonymous]Op here, So where I work, I will not be able to test in the bathrooms because of lack of privacy. I have heard conflicting things about using FMU to test, but I think my schedule will have to be first thing in the AM, and then again about 5 PM when I get home. I am planning to start the opk's on day8 of my cycle.
If I start temping now (tomorrow is day 6) is it worth it?[/quote] Yes because you are only on day 6 so ovulation hasn't happened yet. I would track your temp on a site like fertilityfriend.com |
Anonymous
| I monitored in the mornings and hadn't gotten anything. Then one night mid cycle I got cramps and tested and was ovulating. I was curious and tested again the next morning and still had a positive. That was the month I conceived my toddler. |
Anonymous
| Maybe this is a dumb question (I am new to TTC), but if the OPK advises to only test first thing in the morning (or after your longest sleep) when the hormones are most likely to be detected, what is the rationale behind testing again later in the day? Simply that the hormone surge for some of us might happen later in the day? If that was the case, wouldn't the next morning's test catch it? |
Anonymous
| For some women catching the surge the next morning may be too late. You want to catch the surge as early as possible. |
Anonymous
| My hormone surge almost never showed up first thing in the morning--and was short, so the following morning wouldn't necessarily catch it either. Generally in the 10-2 window was best for me. Also, agreed with PP that I peed on the stick in the stall and then waited until it finished it's test, put it back in its wrapper, and then brought it back to my office. Good luck! |
Anonymous
|
Temping was helpful to me in understanding what was going on better in my cycle. I think it really helped me time things better, although it did take about 2 months to really get to a point where I had an understanding of what I was seeing.
If you really can't test at all during the day, then I guess I'd do AM and PM. It's best to test not immediately in the morning, though, and I always found that my PM tests were usually negative because my pee was not concentrated enough. I did best testing in mid-morning. Maybe you could test right before leaving the house (i.e. not immediately upon waking up). I think the LH surge isn't supposed to show up in your first morning pee very well (?). I get what you mean about testing at work, but couldn't you manage to do it sort of privately? If you have a stall, you can probably do it without anyone knowing. Then just wait in the stall until the three minutes are up to read the test (or put it in your purse upright and take it to your desk or something). Not ideal but probably not any more unusual than changing a pad or tampon at work. |
Anonymous
|
Np here. I was feeling like I was missing my surge with Wondfo lately, but wasn't testing in the pm because I thought that I had to not drink anything and hold my lee for hours. Is that the case?
Also, I just got a smiley face on the ClearBlue digital but checked the Wondfo against it and it wasn't quite positive. I guess I'm just curious about the technicalities of testing in the afternoon, and also the differences across tests. Do I test again, or assume the smiley is the real deal? |
Anonymous
| Lee=pee. |