Fluctuations in bbt

[loopylew]

This is mjy first month of temping and i was wondering if any of you girls found that your temp was higher the monring after the night before drinking alcohol? also does the time you take your bbt make a lot of difference to the overall picture? i take mine within the same hour but a weekend is different to a weekday. I know what it says on FF but i just wondered what everyones actual experience was.

 

[poppy]

LL,

The time you take it is quite important (that is why I found it difficult to take it at the same time every morning!). A difference of about half an hour to an hour probably won't make much difference, but a few hours probably will (your body temperature goes up I think the later you take it - someone correct me here if I am wrong!). On one of the websites, it actually does an adjustment (I think it is 'Mymonthlycycle.com') if you are later or earlier than your normal cycle.

Alcohol consumption definately has an affect on the body temperature (it usually raises it), also, things like illness and sleepless/restless nights do affect it as well - it is a complicated art this bbt thing!

How is it going for you?

 

[loopylew]

ok, just getting the hang on it, i definately have an "abnormal" rise last Sunday am after drinking Saturday night. Im out again tonight and right on ovulation (cos i have irregular cycles, so don't actually know exactly when it is), so i wanted to check with others if their temps rose after drinking the night before or else i might mistake it for ov rise, does that make sense?
Also on FF does "drinking" on the specific bit mean alcohol or just thirsty? its not clear

 

[poppy]

An ovulation rise is a sustained rise - so, your temperature would rise and remain high until just before your AF (sometimes you do get temperature dips during this time, which some people believe might indicate implantation - the much talked about 'implantation dip.' However, a lot of women get it and don't become pregnant).

Are you using opks as well this cycle?

 

[loopylew]

yeah trying to, opk's and charting are all new to me, do you use both? how often do you use an opk? with the irregular cycles i started testing on Wed and havn't had a positive yet.

 

[Tishimouse]

Hi there,

I'm using FF to chart my BBT's too and just getting used to it. This is my 2nd month and it's really interesting to have 2 months to compare.

"Drinking" refers to alcohol and not just any fluids as alcohol for most people will cause their temps to fluctuate (usually rise). If you tick the box for drinking when you have a few bevvies, FF will take this into account when reading your chart, so it's worth putting the info in. I had 3 half glasses of Guinness last night and my temp is up a little from the last 6 days, so it could be the alcohol that has done that.

As for time differences, I take mine at 0805 hrs any morning that I can, but because I work a rolling shift pattern, this coming week I will have to chart in the afternoon when I wake up after nights. There is some info on FF about shift workers and it recommends that you take your temp on these days after at least 3 hours of consistent sleep. It shows up on the chart as an OPEN blue dot as opposed to the other CLOSED blue dots. However, although it makes the chart more difficult to read, I found it fine last month and still got a good overall indication of what's going on during my cycle. I got a reading on my ovulation too, which shows that it didn't make that much difference at all. Therefore, if I were you, I wouldn't worry about your weekends being slightly different by hours, just as long as you take them after a long period of sleep.

Good luck with it.

 

[loopylew]

Thanks Tish that really helps, ill tick drinking now then, they should put drank alcohol rather than drinking as its not clear.

 

[Tishimouse]

I know. It's not clear, but I've read and re-read and re-read all the info on FF (I paid for the 90 days membership) and find it really informative. However, I keep learning something new each time I read it. There are so many finer details with this ttc that I keep skimming over.

I have added a few of my own icons too including one for DRINKING WATER as this is something I'm not so good at. I've also added one for VITAMINS, referring to my folic acid and multi vit. I'm taking Boots Mum To Be Plus with Omega 3 and ginger. I love the idea of the ginger as it's soothing on the stomach and helps me with the iron content.

 

[poppy]

yeah trying to, opk's and charting are all new to me, do you use both? how often do you use an opk? with the irregular cycles i started testing on Wed and havn't had a positive yet.

I did BBT one month, but found that I obsessed about the results too muchand hated waking up at 7 o'clock at a weekend to take my temp. (might go back to it at some point, but not at the moment). I do use OPKs (this is my fourth month of using them). As I have fairly regular cycles, I use the guidelines on the box of when to start using them - once you have established a pattern, you probably only need to use one or two a cycle (if you are regular). The three times I have used them, I have got: October: positive on CD15; November: CD14; December (I wanted to see if I was ovulating again after the miscarriage) - I got a positive about three weeks after the miscarriage, so am not quite sure about the day and January: CD14.

Don't worry about not getting a line yet, some women get no lines (or very faint ones) and then suddenly get the dark line. Other women get progressively darker lines and there are some who never get as dark as the test line.

This month I got a very light line on the Friday (CD13), a dark line (not as dark as the test line) on the Saturday morning, a line as dark as the test line, maybe a bit darker in the evening and a dark line (but lighter than the test line) on the Sunday morning (still registered on the Clearblue Digital as a positive). I recon I ovulated either on the Saturday evening or early on Sunday morning as I felt ovulation pains around eleven - twelve o'clock at night and the hormone was going down on Sunday morning.

Keep positive LL!