OPK neg and ovulating? - Trying to Conceive (TTC) Message Board

km7503 · 01-14-2006, 07:30 AM

Okay, so I was wondering...can the OPK be negative but you are actually ovulating? I took it on Wednesday...(3 days ago) and it was neg. Today, I have really intense cramping, none like I've ever had in the last 10 months of TTC and my breasts were sore yesterday. So, I'm pretty sure I'm ovulating but today the OPK was neg. also. Does it only PREDICT that it will happen and I missed my chance to test Thursday and yesterday?
Just curious...since this is my first AF cycle for a while...I'm pretty irregular. (I hate these OPKs!)

greenjppixie · 01-14-2006, 02:32 PM

Yes, that can happen. The one time that I relied on an OPK I missed my chance. I Oed early and the OPK never picked it up.

It wasn't until my temp had been raised for almost 5 days that I realized I had already Oed. OPKs are designed to detect your LH surge, which happens before you O, not when you already are Oing. The problems with this are: Many women have more than 1 LH surge before the real O actually happens. A lot of women see the first OPK and think that's it. Also, some women have an LH surge that comes and goes in a matter of hours. If you are one of those women you have to use the OPK twice a day or more in order to catch it. Personally, that's too much $$$ and too much of a bother for me.

I have much better luck with BBT charting and it doesn't cost me a thing. I know that a lot of women have a good deal of success with OPKs, I'm just not one of them. Hopefully they will work better for you!

bronicagirl · 01-14-2006, 05:07 PM

The surge needed to make an ovulation test turn posative can be missed. When my cycles were longer i used to get posatives for 2 days. Now my cycles are shorter, i go from negative to posative to negative in a few hours. I literally have to test about 3-4 times a day or id miss it, and think id only ever had negative results.
This last cycle for instance, 10.30pm definately negative, 11.45pm definately posative, 6.30am the following morning definately negative again. With both of those negatives being no where even near posative.
So if id just tested once a day, i would be "ovulating but with only ever negative ovulation tests" or so it would seem.

km7503 · 01-16-2006, 06:31 AM

Thank you for your posts! Sometimes I feel like I'm literally going crazy with all this stuff. After my cousin, who's a nurse, told me that it should indicate that I WAS ovulating at that moment, I was convinced that I didn't this month. Now, I'm not sure if I did! Well, I guess there's a little hope though.

So, my question is, how do you know the length of the cycle? How do you know if it changes or how many times to test? I know that for me, with the irregularity, it's just too expensive to keep up with all that.