HFC Review Board (Review of ovulation calculations)

HFC Review Board

Review of ovulation calculations

Posted by: gracekissed

When: 5/30/2009 10:50:12 PM

URL:

http://www.myfertilitycharts.com/webedition/20/generatechart.aspx?y=2009&m=5&d=14&a=1&ev=1&mc=1&dt=0&g=0&l=&fid=3072&pub=1

OK, after putting in data from the last 19 cycles I've charted, I've found that the ovulation calculations are confusing, excessive and misleading. The sympto-thermal rule states that post-ovulatory infertility resumes on the evening of the 3rd day of post-peak temperature shift AND the fourth day of fluid dry-up. All of my charts have been pretty clear according to these rules.

However, your program gives me some crazy ovulation dates, and separates the "cervical fluid" ovulation from the "temperature ovulation" sometimes by a matter of weeks. It seems to be that the first 'peak day' is marked as ovulation instead of the peak day that corresponds with the temperature rise- which is a serious glitch in correct chart interpretation.

Not to mention that it is incorrect to assume an ovulation on peak day, since scientifically, ovulation has been shown to occur +2 or -2 days surrounding the last day of fertile fluid. And it is extremely confusing to have more than one ovulation days on the same chart- you only ovulate once... I think I understand the reasoning, i.e. you can't pinpoint ovulation to the day, but then surely it would be wiser to simply separate the fertile zone from the infertile zone, or to give one (short) range of days during which ovulation occured?

The online program seems to be somewhat better at recognizing the LAST peak as the true peak day, but neither place seems to be able to recognize a slow-rise or fall-back temperature pattern. Also, "peak day ovulation" has been confirmed on my first (incomplete and anovulatory) chart simply from 3 days of fluid I happened to mark down. This is ridiculous, since there was no dry-up entered, and even if you were to base ovulation on fluid signs only (as the Billings method does), you need 4 days of dry-up post peak day to show this.

In addition, I have had to remove altogether my sickness-related temperatures instead of simply marking them disturbed. The program saw the 3-4 days of elevated temps and marked ovulation cross-hairs, irrespective of the fact that they were marked "invalid" and didn't correspond at all with a fluid peak.

In general, I like the lay-out of this program, and I like the statistical analysis it offers, but it doesn't do me much good when I have to manually override 1/4 of my ovulation dates because they have been evaluated incorrectly. I have a very stable luteal phase, but according to your programs calculations, have a pretty wide variation. For example, it gave me a 17 day LP in a cycle that had a 14 day LP- this is a problem, and I probably would have been wasting a lot of pregnancy tests if I had been relying on it's interpretation at the time).

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Follow-ups:

RE: Review of ovulation calculations (Brian Frackelton - 6/7/2009 3:47:52 PM)
RE: Review of ovulation calculations
(Brian Frackelton - 5/31/2009 2:49:11 AM)
- RE: RE: Review of ovulation calculations (gracekissed - 6/1/2009 8:35:37 PM)
RE: Review of ovulation calculations (gracekissed - 5/30/2009 10:55:17 PM)

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