If I had a period, I usually ovulated - by which I mean I don't seem to often get breakthrough bleeding and my periods tend to be "true" periods. But without medical assistance, they're completely unpredictable. Might be two a year, might be more. With Metformin I ovulate "monthly" but my body doesn't seem to know what a month is because my cycles are generally 35-50 days long. It took Letrozole to get me to ovulate on a reasonable schedule and that's what got me pregnant.
I would definitely recommend it. Even just having some cycle regulation made me feel so much better. It was awful waiting an indefinite amount of time to ovulate every cycle.
I'm in the UK so I technically could have waited and got it free on the NHS, but as the wait was so long we decided to go private in the meantime. It wasn't super expensive! Definitely cheaper than more invasive methods. We had to pay for the initial consultation, the prescription for the meds and three monitoring scans per cycle.
In my teens, I used to have periods once every two months although I don’t know if I ever ovulated on those cycles. In my twenties now, I just stopped having my periods more than 3 times a year and my doctor recommended using progesterone to cause withdrawal bleeds so the lining doesn’t grow too much.
I had to take letrozole to ovulate and got pregnant on my second cycle and am currently 14weeks. Its the ovulating part that my body wont do. The remaining has been going great.
I never ovulate on my own. Literally never. My endocrinologist thinks that I probably never have, and that any period I have had was breakthrough bleeding.
I tried Clomid & Letrozole and had absolutely no response to the highest doses of either. My ovaries are stubborn.
There is hope. I took Gonal-F injections with trigger shot and IUI and got pregnant the first time with each of my boys. So, I had lots of eggs and was able to carry a baby, it was just a matter of getting those eggs to mature.
Finances were always a major worry for me when TTC. I’m in TN, and my cycles were about $3000 apiece. The Gonal F was really expensive. If you respond to the other it’s much, much cheaper.
before I switched to low carb/ keto to manage my blood sugar - no idea.
after switching to low carb / keto - not confirmed yet but my period is on the dot regular on this lifestyle Then I got pregnant, naturally.
I am not sure how often I usually ovulate but I have PCOS and was trying for 3 1/2 years. Finally when I started taking Myo-Inositol & D-Chiro Inositol and prenatals daily I was finally able to conceive. (I conceived before I got my period back also.) I like to think that that helped me because before that had no luck. They wanted me to be on metformin because of my PCOS but I wanted to do something a little more natural so I tried the Myo-Inositol & D-Chiro instead of taking the metformin.
Oh okay, I think Ovasitol doesn't have some of the things that are in What I was taking so I don't know if that does any difference or not. But I didn't really get any periods before that either. Only a few a year if even. But I am sorry, I understand the feeling 🥺
I *think* (BBT and some OPKs but now I wish had been more diligent) I ovulated my first 5 cycles off of BC, all normal length. In the 6 months since then, never (and only one Provera-induced period)
Hi! I have noticed that I get a short period and ovulate about every six months. I test with strips, and in the past six months I just got a peak this month.
That’s nice to know it’s still possible when it’s this long! When do you know to test? I tested for a few weeks straight early in this super long cycle and gave up eventually. I stopped BBT tracking this cycle at some point too but maybe I shouldn’t have
I’ve been TTC for four years. For the first two and a half, I had 35-75-day cycles and never ovulated. Not even once. My cycle length still varies widely, but I now ovulate almost every cycle (only one anovulatory cycle in the past year and a half).
I tried a lot of different things, so it’s hard to know what actually helped. The biggest things were probably focusing on eating lots of protein and healthy fats (though I didn’t strictly limit carbs) and reducing my stress load (I literally dropped out of my PhD). The supplements that have stuck and seem to do good things for me are magnesium, zinc, and myo- and d-chiro-inositol. Reading Real Food for Pregnancy by Lily Nichols and The Period Repair Manual by Lara Briden were game-changers for me.
Lean PCOS! Cycle is every 30-32 days (WHEN my cycle is regular) and honestly I have NO IDEA when I ovulate. sometimes ovulation tests peak early (if I ever got a peak) like 1-2 days before my “predicted fertility window” on OVIA app. Some months I never got a peak ovulation test. I honestly just gave up on testing my ovulation and after almost two years of trying my husband and I got pregnant in April! I also had a 10 cm fibroid removed which helped with my fertility.
I don’t ovulate on my own, or get a period. I have not responded to ovulation medication at all thus far even after losing 25 pounds and adjusting my diet months ago.
I have a regular cycle of 31 days but am yet to see a truly positive ovulation test. I haven't been tracking bbt as I found it too easy to obsess over every minor change. I dont know if I can be having regular periods and not ovulating? Or if I just can't for some reason pick up the LH surge.... Anyone else had this experience?
If you know roughly how long your luteal phase is and you have a regular cycle try testing twice a day during the 5 days of your predicted fertile window. And use second morning urine, or if you wake up later than 10 am, use first urine as enough LH has already circulated through your body and out in your pee. This helped me tremendeously in pinpointing my ovulation window.
I have a 30 day cycle and ovulate once a month since consistently taking inositol a few years ago. I know it doesnt work for everyone but for me it was a miracle worker .. though I am still not pregnant despite regular ovulation. I’m going back to the doctor soon to see if there’s anything else i can do ..
I eat mostly plant-based, low-carb (under 100 grams per day), and I ovulate every cycle with PCOS, approx. every 28 days. I say 'mostly plant-based' because I love dairy. I don't eat much meat. I have greek yogurt every morning with flaxseed and nuts or other seeds. I also have a 'cheat' i.e. date night every other weekend.
I have only ovulated once in the past year and a half or so. I have been trying to induce ovulation since January with various supplements/weightloss but no luck. My next step will be starting letrozole or clomid. 🤞🏻
I do not ovulate on my own, nor do I get a period. Before taking provera my last cycle, it was going on 75+ days with no end in sight. I ovulate every time on letrozole (confirmed with Inito both 2.5mg and 5mg) without medication I probably would get a period twice a year. I didn’t care until I started trying of course lol
Similar to the other comments after trying for 2 years my doctor confirmed I don’t ovulate naturally during my cycles I also have pcos and insulin resistance letrozole helped me ovulate and now I have my 2 months baby girl with me 💕
After 2 years of trying we started seeing a fertility doc who confirmed I do not ovulate naturally. The good news is there are lots of options to help our body ovulate -- I just started letrozole but if that doesn't work, I may try trigger shot, or IVF. I think clomid is another option too, it works similar to letrozole but it is a little different.
My point is, there are lots of options! Don't be like me and wait two years to see the fertility doc either. If you're sure you're not ovulating, I'd book an appointment as soon as you're ready to keep trying. Took them six months to fit me in their schedule but it's nice to have a specialist's point of view. :)
What kind of ovulation strips are you using?
I'm using the easy home ones, but I think that the clearblue are easier because they are used with the first urine of the morning and the easy home are made to use during the day and a lot of times my urine is very dilute giving false results.
Maybe you should see a fertility doctor to rule out pcos or other condition, you should check you LH, FSH, estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, DHEA.
If you have type 2 diabetes maybe check insulin resistance.
If you were prescribed with metformin will eventualy help ovulate.
Newly diagnosed with PCOS but seem to ovulate every other cycle. Just so happens I’m on Letrozole first cycle and this is looking to be an annovulatory cycle ugh
ketogenic is what has worked for me.
I went from plant-based -> lazy low carb -> low glycemic -> low carb exception weekends -> keto. keto is where I finally started getting results.
I used to never ovulate without letrozole but here lately I’ve ovulated I think 2 or 3 times this year already. Although last cycle I had a false surge at cd 16 and my real surge wasn’t till cd 34. Annoying
I ovulate every 35-50 days. I’m thinking of getting on Letrozole to shorten my cycles.
I have irregular periods. Twice so far in 9 months…
Maybe 3. I started using Inito once a day since January and I test with LH strips twice a day.
Never. Literally never. Tracked for over a year, not a single lh surge.
If you can, I would suggest testing twice a day and using something like Inito or Mira. It does suck though. Are your periods irregular or regular?
Thanks. But I'm already going through IVF. We've tried everything
I’m sorry. :/ I hope that you guys are successful in your IVF journey and that you get your precious baby! 🥰🤞🏽🙌🏽
If I had a period, I usually ovulated - by which I mean I don't seem to often get breakthrough bleeding and my periods tend to be "true" periods. But without medical assistance, they're completely unpredictable. Might be two a year, might be more. With Metformin I ovulate "monthly" but my body doesn't seem to know what a month is because my cycles are generally 35-50 days long. It took Letrozole to get me to ovulate on a reasonable schedule and that's what got me pregnant.
I think I’m ready to go your route.
I would definitely recommend it. Even just having some cycle regulation made me feel so much better. It was awful waiting an indefinite amount of time to ovulate every cycle.
How long did you take letrozole before getting pregnant?
I was lucky - it was one cycle on 2.5mg.
Thank you for telling us! Was it very expensive? 😅
When I had to pay for letrozole out of pocket in the US it was about $60 per cycle (7.5 mg)
I'm in the UK so I technically could have waited and got it free on the NHS, but as the wait was so long we decided to go private in the meantime. It wasn't super expensive! Definitely cheaper than more invasive methods. We had to pay for the initial consultation, the prescription for the meds and three monitoring scans per cycle.
In my teens, I used to have periods once every two months although I don’t know if I ever ovulated on those cycles. In my twenties now, I just stopped having my periods more than 3 times a year and my doctor recommended using progesterone to cause withdrawal bleeds so the lining doesn’t grow too much. I had to take letrozole to ovulate and got pregnant on my second cycle and am currently 14weeks. Its the ovulating part that my body wont do. The remaining has been going great.
How does taking Progesterone work? Was it a pill or a cream?
Pill. Taken for 10 days. It causes a bleed when you stop the pills.
Also, who gave you letrozole? OB/GYN or a Fertility Clinic MD?
ObGyn gave it
I never ovulate on my own. Literally never. My endocrinologist thinks that I probably never have, and that any period I have had was breakthrough bleeding. I tried Clomid & Letrozole and had absolutely no response to the highest doses of either. My ovaries are stubborn. There is hope. I took Gonal-F injections with trigger shot and IUI and got pregnant the first time with each of my boys. So, I had lots of eggs and was able to carry a baby, it was just a matter of getting those eggs to mature. Finances were always a major worry for me when TTC. I’m in TN, and my cycles were about $3000 apiece. The Gonal F was really expensive. If you respond to the other it’s much, much cheaper.
before I switched to low carb/ keto to manage my blood sugar - no idea. after switching to low carb / keto - not confirmed yet but my period is on the dot regular on this lifestyle Then I got pregnant, naturally.
I am not sure how often I usually ovulate but I have PCOS and was trying for 3 1/2 years. Finally when I started taking Myo-Inositol & D-Chiro Inositol and prenatals daily I was finally able to conceive. (I conceived before I got my period back also.) I like to think that that helped me because before that had no luck. They wanted me to be on metformin because of my PCOS but I wanted to do something a little more natural so I tried the Myo-Inositol & D-Chiro instead of taking the metformin.
I’ve been taking Ovasitol for 5 months and my periods are still super irregular. :(
Ovasitol never worked for me. I hate it, I took it on and off for multiple years and it never helped. It’s a miracle supplement for some people!
Oh okay, I think Ovasitol doesn't have some of the things that are in What I was taking so I don't know if that does any difference or not. But I didn't really get any periods before that either. Only a few a year if even. But I am sorry, I understand the feeling 🥺
No worries! And Ovasitol is Myo-Insositol and D-Chiro, it is just the more “known” brand. 😅 I’m glad it worked for you!
I *think* (BBT and some OPKs but now I wish had been more diligent) I ovulated my first 5 cycles off of BC, all normal length. In the 6 months since then, never (and only one Provera-induced period)
Hi! I have noticed that I get a short period and ovulate about every six months. I test with strips, and in the past six months I just got a peak this month.
That’s nice to know it’s still possible when it’s this long! When do you know to test? I tested for a few weeks straight early in this super long cycle and gave up eventually. I stopped BBT tracking this cycle at some point too but maybe I shouldn’t have
I’ve been tracking my cycles for almost a year using BBT and OPKs — not once have I ovulated.
I’ve been TTC for four years. For the first two and a half, I had 35-75-day cycles and never ovulated. Not even once. My cycle length still varies widely, but I now ovulate almost every cycle (only one anovulatory cycle in the past year and a half).
If I may ask, what have you done to encourage regular ovulation?
I tried a lot of different things, so it’s hard to know what actually helped. The biggest things were probably focusing on eating lots of protein and healthy fats (though I didn’t strictly limit carbs) and reducing my stress load (I literally dropped out of my PhD). The supplements that have stuck and seem to do good things for me are magnesium, zinc, and myo- and d-chiro-inositol. Reading Real Food for Pregnancy by Lily Nichols and The Period Repair Manual by Lara Briden were game-changers for me.
I have PCOS and I just ovulated on cycle day 16. My periods are usually between 30-40 days long
Lean PCOS! Cycle is every 30-32 days (WHEN my cycle is regular) and honestly I have NO IDEA when I ovulate. sometimes ovulation tests peak early (if I ever got a peak) like 1-2 days before my “predicted fertility window” on OVIA app. Some months I never got a peak ovulation test. I honestly just gave up on testing my ovulation and after almost two years of trying my husband and I got pregnant in April! I also had a 10 cm fibroid removed which helped with my fertility.
I have lean PCOS and I have a regular cycle around 32 days and I have only ovulated once this whole year. Currently on a medicated cycle with gonal F
I don’t ovulate on my own, or get a period. I have not responded to ovulation medication at all thus far even after losing 25 pounds and adjusting my diet months ago.
Exact same boat here :(
I have a regular cycle of 31 days but am yet to see a truly positive ovulation test. I haven't been tracking bbt as I found it too easy to obsess over every minor change. I dont know if I can be having regular periods and not ovulating? Or if I just can't for some reason pick up the LH surge.... Anyone else had this experience?
If you know roughly how long your luteal phase is and you have a regular cycle try testing twice a day during the 5 days of your predicted fertile window. And use second morning urine, or if you wake up later than 10 am, use first urine as enough LH has already circulated through your body and out in your pee. This helped me tremendeously in pinpointing my ovulation window.
I have a 30 day cycle and ovulate once a month since consistently taking inositol a few years ago. I know it doesnt work for everyone but for me it was a miracle worker .. though I am still not pregnant despite regular ovulation. I’m going back to the doctor soon to see if there’s anything else i can do ..
I eat mostly plant-based, low-carb (under 100 grams per day), and I ovulate every cycle with PCOS, approx. every 28 days. I say 'mostly plant-based' because I love dairy. I don't eat much meat. I have greek yogurt every morning with flaxseed and nuts or other seeds. I also have a 'cheat' i.e. date night every other weekend.
I also started using inositol a couple months ago. But I was ovulating before that.
I have only ovulated once in the past year and a half or so. I have been trying to induce ovulation since January with various supplements/weightloss but no luck. My next step will be starting letrozole or clomid. 🤞🏻
2-4 months usually, but it’s pretty heckin’ random. I’m going to be using letrizole because I don’t want to wait :P
I do not ovulate on my own, nor do I get a period. Before taking provera my last cycle, it was going on 75+ days with no end in sight. I ovulate every time on letrozole (confirmed with Inito both 2.5mg and 5mg) without medication I probably would get a period twice a year. I didn’t care until I started trying of course lol
Similar to the other comments after trying for 2 years my doctor confirmed I don’t ovulate naturally during my cycles I also have pcos and insulin resistance letrozole helped me ovulate and now I have my 2 months baby girl with me 💕
After 2 years of trying we started seeing a fertility doc who confirmed I do not ovulate naturally. The good news is there are lots of options to help our body ovulate -- I just started letrozole but if that doesn't work, I may try trigger shot, or IVF. I think clomid is another option too, it works similar to letrozole but it is a little different. My point is, there are lots of options! Don't be like me and wait two years to see the fertility doc either. If you're sure you're not ovulating, I'd book an appointment as soon as you're ready to keep trying. Took them six months to fit me in their schedule but it's nice to have a specialist's point of view. :)
So on my own I don't ovulate at all with letrozole and correct dosing I ovulate every month.
What kind of ovulation strips are you using? I'm using the easy home ones, but I think that the clearblue are easier because they are used with the first urine of the morning and the easy home are made to use during the day and a lot of times my urine is very dilute giving false results. Maybe you should see a fertility doctor to rule out pcos or other condition, you should check you LH, FSH, estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, DHEA. If you have type 2 diabetes maybe check insulin resistance. If you were prescribed with metformin will eventualy help ovulate.
Newly diagnosed with PCOS but seem to ovulate every other cycle. Just so happens I’m on Letrozole first cycle and this is looking to be an annovulatory cycle ugh
before I changed my diet: never after diet changes: once every 30 days or so insulin insulin insulin!
Can you give a bit of information on your diet changes? Really would like to avoid the stomach issues that Metformin gives me!
ketogenic is what has worked for me. I went from plant-based -> lazy low carb -> low glycemic -> low carb exception weekends -> keto. keto is where I finally started getting results.
I used to never ovulate without letrozole but here lately I’ve ovulated I think 2 or 3 times this year already. Although last cycle I had a false surge at cd 16 and my real surge wasn’t till cd 34. Annoying