Cycle Tracking - Part 3
Welcome to the final part of my cycle tracking blog series.
By now you should have a clear view of why tracking cycles can provide so much insight into your fertility and overall cycle health, you should know what you need in order to effectively and cheaply track your cycles and you are hopefully on your way to tracking your current cycle!
So what is all of this data telling you?
In a nutshell, it’s starting to give some insight into ovulation and what might be going on with your hormones.
Overall, we’re looking for a bi-phasic pattern - we should see a clear shift in BBT between the follicular (pre-ovulation) and luteal (post-ovulation) phases of your cycle.
In a healthy cycle with healthy ovulation, we would expect to see:
Low BBT in the follicular phase of the cycle (period to ovulation) usually ranging from 97.0 to 97.6F or 36.11 to 36.44C
See a clear LH surge via the OPK
Get plenty of clear / egg-white consistency cervical mucous around the time of the LH surge
A rise in BBT after ovulation - usually ranging from 97.7 to 98.3F or 36.50 to 36.83C
It is this shift in temperature that confirms you ovulated
BBT will remain high for the rest of the cycle for about 12-14 days - if you are pregnant then it will stay high, if you are not, then it will drop sharply prior to the start of your next period (rising BBT is linked to rising progesterone)
What is a temperature shift?
The rule of thumb to follow on your chart in terms of whether or not you ovulated is this - you expect to see a temperature rise of at least 0.2F or 0.11C higher than the temperatures of the previous 6 days and this should be sustained or higher for 3 days or more.
What to look out for:
No clear rise in temperate - indicates lack of ovulation. Keep charting the whole cycle as some people ovulate much later.
Quite low BBT - this can be indicative of thyroid issues
You got a rise but it lasted less than 12 days - this can indicate an issue with progesterone and should be investigated with a health professional
If you don’t get much of an LH surge or you have a very early LH surge (i.e. short cycles) - then I’d be thinking about the quality of the egg as it might not have had enough time to mature fully prior to ovulation. There can be a few reasons for this and it can be investigated with a health professional.
Cervical mucous around ovulation should be plenty, clear and egg-white like in texture. Any other types are not optimal for conception and so I would focus with my clients on improving the quality of their cervical mucous in this case.
Interesting points
Even if you have very fixed cycle lengths - the date of ovulation can vary within that because lots of things (stress in particular) can affect ovulation. But it’s the follicular phase that varies, not usually the luteal phase.
So you might ovulate a bit later in your cycle than normal, but if your luteal phase is normally 14 days, then it would still be between 13-15 days (it only varies 1 day either side of your usual). So this is how you can end up having longer or irregular cycles. If this is a regular occurrence, then something is potentially imbalanced with the first phase of your cycle and can be investigated further.
You should start to see a pattern emerge with your cervical mucous and for a more detailed explanation, Kindara have some great FAQ’s which you can see here.
Hopefully now you have a good understanding of what a healthy cycle looks like and you’re well on your way to gathering this invaluable insight for yourself.
I’d love to hear from you to know how you’re getting on if there’s anything you need support with - you can contact me here any time.