As the title states, the more I read about how to interpret the test strips, the more confused I get. I’m new to testing and test daily from CD 12 on (I have a 31 day cycle). I am able to feel something around my ovulation and my cervical mucus changes. Last cycle, I had these symptoms on CD 21 and when I took a test that night the line on my test strip was slightly darker than the control line. What does that mean?? Does it mean I ovulate 24-48 hours after that? Or does that mean I was ovulating at that moment? When should we be absolutely having sex to ensure we don’t miss the window? My gyno told me (before I even started using the strips) that if there is any confusion, it’s safest to just have sex every other day from CD 12 to CD 24 (she said normally she tells people CD 10-20 but since I have a longer cycle do 12-24).
Please explain test strips to me like I’m 5!
- Thread starter jackie
- Start date
monicawinter
New member
@jackie Your doctor is right. And you can ovulate anywhere from 12-38 hours after a LH rise which is when the line is as dark as the control or peak. But it’s not exact so that’s why they say every other day in that window is the smartest. Unless you’re doing ultrasounds and blood tests, opk strips and even temping isn’t exact.
@jackie I used ovulation strips for all 6 of my intended pregnancies and managed to get pregnant in either 1 or 2 cycles, never having to have sex more than 3 times with each try (and often just 2 times) in the fertile window predicted by the strips. (The suggestion to have sex on schedule every other day from CD 12-24 just sounds exhausting by comparison.)
As the others said, you should start using ovulation strips daily from about CD 10. I personally only ever used the cheap Easy@Home ones so I could go through them as liberally as I pleased. Since they were so cheap, I tested twice a day, sometimes even three times a day when I started to see the surge take form. It's recommended that you don't test with first morning urine, but for me, that was my most concentrated urine so I always tested when I woke up at 6am, then again in the afternoon at about 1pm after not having water for a couple of hours, and if I started to see the test line darkening, also at about 8pm. (Abstaining from drinking during this whole window of time, while recommended, was not a workable solution for me as I immediately got dehydration headaches, but if you're ok with drinking very little during the days you're testing, then I guess follow the recommendations and test with second morning urine around 9-10am or so.)
I didn't bother to have sex until the test line got as dark as the control line (unless we wanted to, of course!), and then we tried to have sex as soon after that as possible. If possible, we'd try to have sex every 36 hours (so alternating morning and evening sex, as needed -- we have kids so those were our only options) and again, never had to do it more than 3 times during a fertile window. Even 2 times was often fine for us with such precise tracking, though we then had sex every 48 hours instead of every 36.
A few important things to understand about ovulation and conception:
TL;DR: Start having sex as soon as your test line matches the control line in color, and try to have sex at least 2-3 times once that happens in a space of about 3-4 days.
As the others said, you should start using ovulation strips daily from about CD 10. I personally only ever used the cheap Easy@Home ones so I could go through them as liberally as I pleased. Since they were so cheap, I tested twice a day, sometimes even three times a day when I started to see the surge take form. It's recommended that you don't test with first morning urine, but for me, that was my most concentrated urine so I always tested when I woke up at 6am, then again in the afternoon at about 1pm after not having water for a couple of hours, and if I started to see the test line darkening, also at about 8pm. (Abstaining from drinking during this whole window of time, while recommended, was not a workable solution for me as I immediately got dehydration headaches, but if you're ok with drinking very little during the days you're testing, then I guess follow the recommendations and test with second morning urine around 9-10am or so.)
I didn't bother to have sex until the test line got as dark as the control line (unless we wanted to, of course!), and then we tried to have sex as soon after that as possible. If possible, we'd try to have sex every 36 hours (so alternating morning and evening sex, as needed -- we have kids so those were our only options) and again, never had to do it more than 3 times during a fertile window. Even 2 times was often fine for us with such precise tracking, though we then had sex every 48 hours instead of every 36.
A few important things to understand about ovulation and conception:
- Ovulation can happen either on the day when you first test positive with strips, or on the following day, or the day after that. (To be absolutely certain, you can confirm with temping, but I never bothered.)
- Some sperm can travel to the fallopian tubes in minutes, and some can take several hours to get there.
- Sperm can live inside your body for up to 5 days, though you should only really count on them hanging around for 2 days to be super conservative.
- An egg, once released, only lives for about 12-24 hours, so a much shorter window of time, compared to the sperm.
TL;DR: Start having sex as soon as your test line matches the control line in color, and try to have sex at least 2-3 times once that happens in a space of about 3-4 days.
jasmine_childoftheking
New member
@jprice63 Hi! I found your reply when researching ovulation strips and I feel like from everything I’ve read, this one has explained it the best. Question for you - when do I start testing if I’ve never tested before? I have a few years of tracked periods on Flo app but that’s all the info I got. Also - how come the first morning pee works for some and doesn’t work for others? I’m not sure if I should try that or not. Lastly, once the color matches the control line does that mean it’s the “surge” thanks!!
@blucrane Hello! The reason it's recommended that you don't test with first morning urine (FMU) but with second morning urine (at 9-10am) is that for most folks, the hormone you're trying to catch doesn't peak until later in the morning. But there are other things that influence how concentrated LH is in your urine, most significantly, the amount of water you take in -- the more water you drink, the more you're diluting your urine, including how much LH seems to be in it. That's why it's recommended that you don't drink too much water during the day while you're testing (limit water intake 3-4 hours before the test), so that you don't dilute your urine too much.
I personally always drink a lot of water throughout the day, and when I don't drink enough, I get these annoyingly lasting dehydration headaches, so my most reliably concentrated urine is FMU (after many nighttime hours of not drinking water) which is why I would always test it. If you are not like me and can sustain not drinking a lot of water during the days while you test, then follow the official recommendations and test somewhere in the window from 9-10am to about 6-8pm while limiting your water intake for 3-4 hours prior to testing.
The apps you're using must have an ovulation day predicted for you. (If not, try the app Clue for instance.) If you've never tested before, you might want to start testing several days before this predicted ovulation day. Honestly, the availability of the super cheap testing strips removes the mindset of scarcity and allows you to test as early as you like, maybe even on a uselessly early like, say, 6-7 days past ovulation, and test once a day, say, with the morning urine to see what your baseline level of LH is. I used the Premom app to take photos of the strips and it gives you a numerical value for the readout. For my low-LH days, the baseline could have been somewhere around 0.05-0.2 or so (but that's just my body).
Then sometime before your ovulation, you'll start seeing a rise in LH. For me, I'd start paying attention when LH would start registering at 0.4-0.5, that would tell me I should start testing more often. There are so many cheap LH strips out there (I personally used Easy@Home ones) that when I saw a tick up in the numbers, I would just start testing 3 times a day at times after I didn't drink too much water (for me that was FMU, then at noon when returning from the morning walk, and then again at 6pm after the evening walk).
Every person has a different surge profile, either "slow" (over a course of 2-3 days) or "fast" (in less than a day), and that's something that you'll be able to figure out only after testing for several months in a row. My surge was slowish, so it took 2-3 days overall. During those days, I tested anywhere from 3 to 5 times, sometimes as late as 10pm, which is also outside the recommended window, but in my case, it was occasionally (rarely!) the time of my peak. From what I recall, the test line started getting darker than the control line when the LH values reached about 1.0, and in my case, they could stay above 1.0 for about 1.5 days, reaching as high as 1.6 or 1.7 at their peak. But that is just my pattern. You will figure out yours once you start testing.
An important thing to figure out is how you are your partner are about having on-demand sex and to come up with a system that would be sustainable for the two of you for months on end (since it might take a while to get pregnant). We really prioritized keeping the enjoyment of spontaneous sex throughout the month (2ish times a week tends to be our sweet spot) and we tried to never force ourselves to have sex more than 3 (rarely 4) times during the fertile window. I read about couples who had sex every day for 8 days in a row! That would exhaust us and not be sustainable for 6ish+ months, but ymmv. I do suggest really reflecting on how much sex might feel like too much because you don't want to unintentionally kill off your mutual libido while TTC, to the extent that that kind of thing can be avoided. Maybe you two would enjoy having 8 days of sex in a row months on end, and if so, go for it! Only you can answer that question for yourself.
But in our case and with my surge pattern, we started having sex when I saw my LH numbers get into 0.5-0.7 range and then try to have sex 3 times 24-36 hours apart, sometimes alternating morning and evening sex.
My mind has not been steeping in TTC thoughts for a while, but I've read different (and conflicting!) things about what defines the start of the "surge." Where I've landed in my understanding is that the start of the surge is when your baseline numbers start ticking up (so I guess that would be when mine went from being 0.05-0.2 to being 0.4-0.5). The "peak" is... well, what it sounds like. Because of all that stuff about wanting sperm there before the egg arrives, you should start having sex once you detect the surge which is before the peak. Bodies differ in when they actually release the egg after the surge or peak and the only way to know for sure when you ovulated is by temping over several months. We never bothered and still did fine. I did pay attention to my cervical mucus to try to have another indicator of ovulation approaching, and that's probably a worthwhile low-effort sort of thing to do for anyone TTC.
Anyway, I know this is a lot of words but hope it's at least somewhat helpful. Best of luck to you
I personally always drink a lot of water throughout the day, and when I don't drink enough, I get these annoyingly lasting dehydration headaches, so my most reliably concentrated urine is FMU (after many nighttime hours of not drinking water) which is why I would always test it. If you are not like me and can sustain not drinking a lot of water during the days while you test, then follow the official recommendations and test somewhere in the window from 9-10am to about 6-8pm while limiting your water intake for 3-4 hours prior to testing.
The apps you're using must have an ovulation day predicted for you. (If not, try the app Clue for instance.) If you've never tested before, you might want to start testing several days before this predicted ovulation day. Honestly, the availability of the super cheap testing strips removes the mindset of scarcity and allows you to test as early as you like, maybe even on a uselessly early like, say, 6-7 days past ovulation, and test once a day, say, with the morning urine to see what your baseline level of LH is. I used the Premom app to take photos of the strips and it gives you a numerical value for the readout. For my low-LH days, the baseline could have been somewhere around 0.05-0.2 or so (but that's just my body).
Then sometime before your ovulation, you'll start seeing a rise in LH. For me, I'd start paying attention when LH would start registering at 0.4-0.5, that would tell me I should start testing more often. There are so many cheap LH strips out there (I personally used Easy@Home ones) that when I saw a tick up in the numbers, I would just start testing 3 times a day at times after I didn't drink too much water (for me that was FMU, then at noon when returning from the morning walk, and then again at 6pm after the evening walk).
Every person has a different surge profile, either "slow" (over a course of 2-3 days) or "fast" (in less than a day), and that's something that you'll be able to figure out only after testing for several months in a row. My surge was slowish, so it took 2-3 days overall. During those days, I tested anywhere from 3 to 5 times, sometimes as late as 10pm, which is also outside the recommended window, but in my case, it was occasionally (rarely!) the time of my peak. From what I recall, the test line started getting darker than the control line when the LH values reached about 1.0, and in my case, they could stay above 1.0 for about 1.5 days, reaching as high as 1.6 or 1.7 at their peak. But that is just my pattern. You will figure out yours once you start testing.
An important thing to figure out is how you are your partner are about having on-demand sex and to come up with a system that would be sustainable for the two of you for months on end (since it might take a while to get pregnant). We really prioritized keeping the enjoyment of spontaneous sex throughout the month (2ish times a week tends to be our sweet spot) and we tried to never force ourselves to have sex more than 3 (rarely 4) times during the fertile window. I read about couples who had sex every day for 8 days in a row! That would exhaust us and not be sustainable for 6ish+ months, but ymmv. I do suggest really reflecting on how much sex might feel like too much because you don't want to unintentionally kill off your mutual libido while TTC, to the extent that that kind of thing can be avoided. Maybe you two would enjoy having 8 days of sex in a row months on end, and if so, go for it! Only you can answer that question for yourself.
But in our case and with my surge pattern, we started having sex when I saw my LH numbers get into 0.5-0.7 range and then try to have sex 3 times 24-36 hours apart, sometimes alternating morning and evening sex.
My mind has not been steeping in TTC thoughts for a while, but I've read different (and conflicting!) things about what defines the start of the "surge." Where I've landed in my understanding is that the start of the surge is when your baseline numbers start ticking up (so I guess that would be when mine went from being 0.05-0.2 to being 0.4-0.5). The "peak" is... well, what it sounds like. Because of all that stuff about wanting sperm there before the egg arrives, you should start having sex once you detect the surge which is before the peak. Bodies differ in when they actually release the egg after the surge or peak and the only way to know for sure when you ovulated is by temping over several months. We never bothered and still did fine. I did pay attention to my cervical mucus to try to have another indicator of ovulation approaching, and that's probably a worthwhile low-effort sort of thing to do for anyone TTC.
Anyway, I know this is a lot of words but hope it's at least somewhat helpful. Best of luck to you
williams36
New member
@jackie From the first positive- which is when your test line is the same or darker than the control - you ovulate 24-36 hours later. Some people have long surges (like myself, I test positive 2-3 days) others barely catch it so the first one counts.
The rule of thumb is 3 days before ovulation is most fertile but you can absolutely catch it as ovulation is happening, and I would count on ovulation happening soon with the test line darker than control and ensure a deposit.
What I do is deposit every other day from a week before predicted ovulation due to irregular cycles and until 3 days after I calculate ovulation (I count ovulation as happening 24 hours after a positive test based on experience with how my body feels)
I think the faq might be helpfull FAQ
The rule of thumb is 3 days before ovulation is most fertile but you can absolutely catch it as ovulation is happening, and I would count on ovulation happening soon with the test line darker than control and ensure a deposit.
What I do is deposit every other day from a week before predicted ovulation due to irregular cycles and until 3 days after I calculate ovulation (I count ovulation as happening 24 hours after a positive test based on experience with how my body feels)
I think the faq might be helpfull FAQ
brookelowe454
New member
@williams36 This part confuses me because on the Premom website and instructions, it says after the peak, not after the first positive. I see a lot of advice on here that if you have multiple high days, you go with the first positive, but the opk instructions say otherwise
@brookelowe454 I've had peaks after I had ovulated (according to BBT and when I got my period after). I have a short surge and I ovulate very quickly when it happens. Peak is already too late most of the time. I think OPK instructions use the word peak but really mean "positive".
unashamed4life
New member
@brookelowe454 Honestly, ovulation happens after the first peak. It happens on the downward slope of the LH curve
jasmine_childoftheking
New member
@unashamed4life Do you think this still applies if your LH is high 2-3 days apart with low LH tests in between the highs?
rayrocanaldo
New member
@jackie I recommend to start testing with OPKs everyday from CD10 (or CD12, since your cycles are longer). If the test line is at least as dark as the control line, that means you will probably ovulate 24-48 hours later. The following days, the test can remain just as dark so it’s important to catch the FIRST day that your test is positive to be able to time your ovulation. Your chances are better if you start having sex a couple of days before ovulation so if you can have sex as soon as your test is positive, the better your chances. That being said, if you’re really regular and know the day you typically ovulate, you can start having sex every other day starting 4-6 days before your predicted ovulation to up your chances as well! And then keep on testing just to make your ovulation dates are accurate every time.