After miscarriage - when do HCG and LH strips work again?

[Anonymous]

Two weeks ago I miscarried naturally at 8 weeks. It was all over pretty quickly and confirmed by ultrasound. Within a week, bleeding completely stopped and my cervix closed. From the stories on other boards, I am grateful for how easy it all was.

Since my pregnancy was confirmed by ultrasound before the miscarriage, I do not need to monitor HCG with blood tests. My OB simply told me to pee on a pregnancy test after a couple weeks to make sure it comes out negative.

This past weekend, I tried both the HCG and LH / OPK tests on both Saturday and Sunday. The pregnancy tests are still coming up faintly positive, but so are the LH tests. Are the LH tests valid at all? Am I about to ovulate or is this just picking up residual pregnancy hormones?

DH and I are ready to 'jump back in,' but I'm wondering when to expect my body will be back to normal. Would love to hear others' experiences. Thanks!

[Anonymous]

So sorry for your loss. The LH tests pick up HCG. I'd said make sure the PG test is negative, then start the LH to catch ovulation. Best of luck to you.

[Anonymous]

Thanks. It seems like my CM has restarted (not quite egg-white but maybe pre-ovulatory), so I'm encouraged if confused.

[Anonymous]

My doctor wanted a blood test to make sure hcg was under 5. The strips turning positive suggest your hcg is higher than that. So I'd definitively wait until those strips are completely negative and personally I'd want a blood test.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So sorry for your loss. The LH tests pick up HCG. I'd said make sure the PG test is negative, then start the LH to catch ovulation. Best of luck to you.

This. I found out about a pregnancy that ended in a miscarriage through a positive LH strip (I'd had bleeding that I thought was a light period and was thinking I'd ovulating soon and had a weird feeling when the LH test was super positive). In my experience the LH strip turning positive means there's still a decent amount of HCG around. I don't think a very small HCG level turns an LH strip positive.

I had a D&C for that miscarriage, so was not monitored for HCG. I got my first negative pregnancy test about 3 weeks after the procedure and my period exactly 1 month later. That first cycle ended up being weird -- I ovulated really late which made the cycle ~60 days. Just a heads up since at the time time I thought my period returning meant all would be back to normal. We did end up cycle the month after that though. He's 5 months old now.

Good luck to you. I know what it's like to just want your body to get back to normal so you can at least have a chance to try again. Hope it's quick for you.

[Anonymous]

PP here. We ended up *conceiving* the month after that. Wow sleep deprivation is getting to me

[Anonymous]

my 8week+ miscarriages both saw me ovulating about 6 weeks after the d+c, and it usually would take one or two cycles to get back to normal.

if you are using wondfo LH strips and HCG strips, a squinter on the HCG maps to a beta of about 16 for me, and the LH strip will be dark but not blazingly positive.

short answer is, the LH strips won't "work" until your betas are close to 0, but since I tend to have LH strips in abundance and not so many HCG strips, I just use the LH strips to test out the miscarriages. they will keep getting lighter until they start getting darker again.

[Anonymous]

OP here. So it took 60 days to get your first period post miscarriage? Oh wow, I’m not mentally ready for that. I had 60 days between my last period and the miscarriage (as in my 8 weeks of pregnancy!). Waiting the same amount of time AGAIN to get back to normal would drive me bonkers.

DH and I are half trying to conceive before I even get that first period. HCG and LH strips are all negative now and I suspect I might have ovulated a couple days ago. But perhaps just wishful, impatient thinking.

[Anonymous]

I didn't try using the strips before I got my first period after miscarriage, but in case it's helpful to have another data point on the timing, I got my period 6 weeks after a miscarriage at 6.5 weeks. Started using the strips after that (started using them early in case I ovulated early) and got pregnant on the second regular cycle after the miscarriage.

[Anonymous]

OP back, just sharing for the next person to search the boards..

Got a relatively normal period 30 days after the miscarriage (perhaps an extra clot at first but otherwise normal). A pregnancy test was still faintly positive at day 13 after the miscarriage but negative by day 16.

It's the first "normal" cycle now and the OPKs still seem consistently a touch positive when they should be all negative. Probably not going to bother with them again for awhile.