The Mittleschmertz/Ovulation Pain thread!!

[atomic sagebrush]

Do you have crazy ovulation pain (mittelschmertz) regularly, off and on, or all of a sudden out of the blue?? PLEASE share your experiences with unusual/severe (even if for you , it is the usual state of affairs) ovulation pain in this thread! Chime in with your history or at any point if you have an oddball month! And tell us how you deal with it.

Ovulation pain is one of those things that we don't talk about a lot but for some of us it is an issue that really affects quality of life!! It can be terrifying to those who have never experienced it and so let's get these experiences down in black and white so we can all breathe a sigh of relief about how common it really is.

[atomic sagebrush]

I have had ovulation pain that is at times so bad as to be almost debilitating, off and on since I was about 25. Not every month but 6-9 times a year I experience at least some O pain.

This past month (Sept.) I started getting O pain and huge amounts of EWCM on CD 3!!! (that's right, 3 days after my period started) I ovulated CD 14. It went on until 3 days after ovulation and was so bad it woke me up several nights. It was worse on the left side but I had pain on both and also uterine cramps and back pain.

I am actually really glad I knew about mittelschmertz because otherwise I think I would have thought I was dying or something LOL.

[BlessedMomma]

I do get it as well. It started after my 2nd was born so i was 25 or 26 yrs old. Its worse for some reason when i ovulate on the right side, and i ovulate from that side more often ( ill ovulate 2-3 times in a row from the right and then once from the left). It feels like bad gas cramps and random sharp pinches. The worst pain is on the night before and day of ovulation. Its not excruciating just a little painful and uncomfortable.i usually ovulate day 19 or 20 of my cycle and i aill have ewcm 3 days b4 and day of ovulation.

[fluffyturtle]

Question. How long does ovulation pain last for? If I ovulated on Sunday.. is it normal to cramp from Saturday to Saturday?

[Frilly Lady]

I've had ov pain for as long as I can remember, some months worse than others and it has got worse since having my first ds 17 years ago. The pain usually starts around day 8 with lots of EWCM and builds up to day 13 then eases on day 14 when I ovulate. It is very painful when I go to sit down or if my lower stomach is pushed and I find my back gets very painful when I have to stand for a time then it travels down my right leg only. It's something that I've got used to and now I'm getting older it's quite reassuring that I'm still working so to speak!

[atomic sagebrush]

Question. How long does ovulation pain last for? If I ovulated on Sunday.. is it normal to cramp from Saturday to Saturday?

Well, it's normal for me!! I often get it for over a week and then this last month it went on for like 2 weeks straight.

[atomic sagebrush]

I've had ov pain for as long as I can remember, some months worse than others and it has got worse since having my first ds 17 years ago. The pain usually starts around day 8 with lots of EWCM and builds up to day 13 then eases on day 14 when I ovulate. It is very painful when I go to sit down or if my lower stomach is pushed and I find my back gets very painful when I have to stand for a time then it travels down my right leg only. It's something that I've got used to and now I'm getting older it's quite reassuring that I'm still working so to speak!

I also find it reassuring!! At 44 it's nice to know I'm not quite at "full crone" status. ;)

[hotdogz&boyz]

I only started getting ovulation pain after my third child was born.

I was always aware of a mild "heaviness" feeling for a day or two around ovulation before I had children and after my first son (I caught the first egg after my second, so I don't know there). But never anything I would consider "pain."

But my first cycle after I had my third child...I almost called an ambulance I was in so much pain. I was out shopping at Target and started feeling a sharper pain off my left side. I hurried to finish. But the time I got to my car, it was like "bend me over, throwing up" pain. I was so afraid it was a burst appendix or something. Thankfully, I thought back and realized that my first PP AF had been a little over 2 weeks before and it was a doozy as well. I called my mom and asked if she experienced that type of pain with ovulation (she had previously told me she felt pain) and she confirmed it was probably ovulation pain and not me dying in the Target parking lot. I had to stay in my car, not moving or barely breathing for over an hour before it subsided enough for me to drive home. It came and went to greater or lesser degrees for about 48 hours before dissipating. Every month after that got a bit less painful, but still pretty obvious. However, I never could tell which side I was ovulating on, sometimes both sides would hurt. Sometimes just one, but then I would get sudden sharp pains on the other side. By the time we conceived this baby, it had lessened to a mild unpleasant cramping for a couple days around ovulation. Something I could pop an Advil or two for and move on.

I did notice that sometimes my pain came alongside a positive OPK...and sometimes it was several days before the positive OPK came along and was mostly gone when it went positive. And sometimes it seemed stronger after my OPK had been positive for a day or two and seemed that my surge was over. Not sure what was up with that. I know the pain was related to ovulation, but didn't seem to be a great predictor of actual ovulation for me. More like a general warning. Lol.

[timi10]

I have it normally a day after ovulation, I know because I am a pee stick addict so I always check when I ovaulate months before TTC :poas: :)

[Grace]

I'm pretty sure I had it this month. Woke up at night with strong pains in my right abdomin. Like someone here mentioned it felt like a bad case of gas... I think I ovulated that night or the next day

Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk

[mommymachine]

I have had ovulation pain that is at times so bad as to be almost debilitating, off and on since I was about 25. Not every month but 6-9 times a year I experience at least some O pain.

This past month (Sept.) I started getting O pain and huge amounts of EWCM on CD 3!!! (that's right, 3 days after my period started) I ovulated CD 14. It went on until 3 days after ovulation and was so bad it woke me up several nights. It was worse on the left side but I had pain on both and also uterine cramps and back pain.

I am actually really glad I knew about mittelschmertz because otherwise I think I would have thought I was dying or something LOL.

Atomic, do you usually get pain on both sides or just one side? I am CD 16 and for the past two or three days I have been getting pains just on the left side...normal?

[atomic sagebrush]

Yes I get it ALLL over the place and there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to it. This past month I had stabbing pains on the left for a few days and then on the right for a few days.

THis month I noticed it was severe CD 5-10 and then went away. Oed on CD 14 and had NO O pain around ovulation!!

[GirlieCat]

I am jumping onto this very old post because I need help (and I have never started a new thread of my own so I just tag onto others). :think:

I never recall having O pain when I was younger/adolescent and then I was on birth control pills for most of my adult life (except one dreadful year I switched to an IUD instead of the pill). I stopped taking BC in January 2016 and I had only one day of mild cramping the first cycle off BC but I didn't know what it was. Every cycle since the pain has gotten worse and longer. Once I started using OPKs the pain has actual been a good sign because for three cycles straight I got my first +OPK the first day of cramping. Pain is lasting for about 3-4 days and is pretty intense around day 2 or 3. Intense enough to have to use a heat pad and sit on the couch doing much of nothing. It definitely gets in the way of normal everyday life. It is all over pain, not necessarily just one side although sometimes it feels more one sided for a few hours.

This cycle is my first on clomid so I know that can increase pain, but I don't really think this month is worse than my non-clomid cycles. I am on day 4 of cramps and the pain was especially bad day 2. I hate it because I just feel so blah.

I am just assuming that I am ovulating at some point during these O pain days since I get a +OPK typically when they start or shortly thereafter. If O pain can't be relied upon to actual pin point O then how do we pinpoint O? Is the only way to temp?
Is O pain like this something to be concerned about? Does it mean anything about my bodies ability to spit out the egg? Is it linked to PCOS?

Thanks

[Dreamsister]

What about nausea? Is this something any of you have experienced in relation to O?


DS1 (9) ❤️ DS2 (8) [emoji173] DS3 (5) ❤️ DW (41) [emoji1326] DH (38) [emoji144] TTC'ing pink from May 2016

[atomic sagebrush]

I love to keep the old threads going. That way we have more informative threads that answer people's questions without having to loook and look thru 50 short unhelpful threads. :) :agree:

Girliecat, that is how it was with me too. I never had it as a young girl/woman, and then it came on gradually over time, starting with my first memory of it when I was about 24-25ish. I suspect that it would have for you as well, but you were on the pill and it prevented it. It is not fun, my advice is to pop an ibuprofen as that can kind of quiet down the pain enough to deal with. One ibuprofen should not be enough to delay or stop O, but if you're worried about that, just don't take it on O Day. I find ibuprofen works much better than Tylenol as there may be some inflammation involved and Tylenol doesn't help inflammation. I can function through it most months but occasionally it's nice to just take the edge off of it.

Not everyone has worse O pain on Clomid. Some people actually find it improves. The body is weird.

So many women I have spoken with experience it somewhere on the continuum. I believe it to be totally normal (and it certainly is for me, as well) I had an ovarian cyst once and it was def. a different, more urgent kind of pain and got my attention. The thing you must be aware of, is that doctors LOVE to treat you for totally normal things, so you very well could go into your doctor, they'd test you for 9 million things and scare you terribly and then come out of it with no diagnosis anyway (and this I know because enough people have seen the doctor for it.) My pains are on the extreme end of all the people I've ever spoken with and I don't have PCOS, have extremely regular cycles, and have gotten pregnant easily 5 times (actually 6 but lost one) so I do not find it to be correlated at least for me. Now, of course some people may have a different experience and have some other problem occuring at the same time, but I see no cause and effect where Mittleschmertz, even quite severe, is indicative of anything bad or dire at all.

You don't need to pinpoint O. I know it's a scary notion, but there is no need to do that. Just have an attempt at positive OPK. Even with temping, it's not infallible, and I just see very little point to doing that since timing doesn't sway anyway. :)

[atomic sagebrush]

What about nausea? Is this something any of you have experienced in relation to O?


DS1 (9) ❤️ DS2 (8) [emoji173] DS3 (5) ❤️ DW (41) [emoji1326] DH (38) [emoji144] TTC'ing pink from May 2016

I have experienced it a few times and it's been reported to me a few times as well. One of the most interesting experiences I had in this department was when I went onto the birth control pill and suddenly developed "morning sickness" for about a week till my body adjusted to the hormones. Not that this is O related of course, but that I do know firsthand that hormones can make you nauseous!

[GirlieCat]

Atomic, thank you for the information.

I was thinking how lucky we are to have to deal with this pain and then I thought that I tend to have a lot of discomfort and issues down there in general and it got me to remembering about when I was younger and my appendix burst. Long and short of it is that due to a misdiagnosis from a doctor, my appendix was left in me after it was inflamed and it ruptured and I was left with sever peritonitis. I was in the hospital over a week and very sick for many weeks after that. They even had a drain in my stomach for 3 weeks because the infection had to be able to drain out (I know TMI). I knew that the peritonitis changed me. My digestion has always been a bit more delicate and I get very strong digestion pains and noises. I never thought that it could affect my reproductive system too until I stumbled across an article on peritonitis and infertility.

I did some research and have found that most research show no link between a regular appendectomy and fertility, but there is some evidence that a perforated appendix and the infection that it causes can affect fertility. In particular it talked about scare tissue around your ovaries and tubes. I am wondering if this could be something that leads to my lengthy and intense O pains (not to mention the fact that I am not pregnant yet after all these months of TTC). I don't get bad pains at all before AF but since that is localized inside the uterus, not outside in the abdominal cavity like the ovaries and tubes are, where the infection was, maybe that would make sense.

Have you heard of a link between a perforated appendix, or peritonitis, and issues with fertility or pain? Thanks.

[atomic sagebrush]

I have heard of it and I do think it may be reason for an HSG to be performed just to be certain that there are no blockages. Here is a reassuring study about it. Association of Perforation of the Appendix with Female Tubal Infertility (http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/content/153/6/566.full)

I do not think this is the cause of the O Pains though as I believe it to be, 99 times out of 100, just something that some of us have worse than other people.

[GirlieCat]

Thank you Atomic. I will be discussing this and the HSG with my doctor. I never even thought to mention the perforated appendix but now I know.

[honeybee37]

I never got it before I had my first child. Most months I get it and it comes in day 5 of ewcm. Ewcm quickly dried up after. For me it lasts exactly 45 minutes and is usually so bad I have to lie down and feel faint. I went to the Drs about it last year, had an US which showed nothing unusual....

[purple]

I never noticed having O pain until my first clomid cycle when I conceived DS1. My O pain is more of a tender feeling around my uterus or ovaries (I am not exactly sure where everything is located :) ). I have had it in non medicated cycles too and it varies in painfulness. The clomid cycle I did last year was very painful and the ones this year were ok. It lasts a few days and is most painful on O day.

Although it is painful it is handy in knowing when I am ovulating :)

[Throwaway_panther]

I love to keep the old threads going. That way we have more informative threads that answer people's questions without having to loook and look thru 50 short unhelpful threads. :) :agree:

Girliecat, that is how it was with me too. I never had it as a young girl/woman, and then it came on gradually over time, starting with my first memory of it when I was about 24-25ish. I suspect that it would have for you as well, but you were on the pill and it prevented it. It is not fun, my advice is to pop an ibuprofen as that can kind of quiet down the pain enough to deal with. One ibuprofen should not be enough to delay or stop O, but if you're worried about that, just don't take it on O Day. I find ibuprofen works much better than Tylenol as there may be some inflammation involved and Tylenol doesn't help inflammation. I can function through it most months but occasionally it's nice to just take the edge off of it.

Not everyone has worse O pain on Clomid. Some people actually find it improves. The body is weird.

So many women I have spoken with experience it somewhere on the continuum. I believe it to be totally normal (and it certainly is for me, as well) I had an ovarian cyst once and it was def. a different, more urgent kind of pain and got my attention. The thing you must be aware of, is that doctors LOVE to treat you for totally normal things, so you very well could go into your doctor, they'd test you for 9 million things and scare you terribly and then come out of it with no diagnosis anyway (and this I know because enough people have seen the doctor for it.) My pains are on the extreme end of all the people I've ever spoken with and I don't have PCOS, have extremely regular cycles, and have gotten pregnant easily 5 times (actually 6 but lost one) so I do not find it to be correlated at least for me. Now, of course some people may have a different experience and have some other problem occuring at the same time, but I see no cause and effect where Mittleschmertz, even quite severe, is indicative of anything bad or dire at all.

You don't need to pinpoint O. I know it's a scary notion, but there is no need to do that. Just have an attempt at positive OPK. Even with temping, it's not infallible, and I just see very little point to doing that since timing doesn't sway anyway. :)

Oops, I totally found this thread after making me own -- my bad!

I'm glad I found this, too. I think that's what threw me off... so many things online or in medical sources say, "Don't ignore ovulation pain" or "pain at ovulation isn't normal." But my uterus and ovaries have been as inspected as they can be lol!

Thank you for this thread, I'm so sorry I didn't see it sooner when I was working myself into a tailspin!

[atomic sagebrush]

No worries at all! I was glad to help.

There is this really frustrating dichotomy where doctors will pathologicalize (that's a word, right?) normal things and then turn around and act like things that are not at all normal, are totally not even worthy of investigating. That's why we have so much frustration historically with doctors overtreating for fibroids and tipped uterus and ovulation pain, but at the same time, people are going in not ovulating for months and having short LP's or recurrent losses and doctors are like "let's just wait and see what happens in a year" . Drives me batty.

[Mummyof4boys]

Just noticed this thread!

Glad I’m not the only one experiencing this. I only started getting ov pain since the birth of DS#4 nearly five years ago. My lower abdominal/pelvic area is very tender for about 4-5 days leading up to and including ov day. This coincides with EWCM and very sore nipples while breastfeeding too.