After MC/CP

[dreamofdaughter]

How long does to take to start ovulating after a CP/MC? Is there anything you can do or take to help it along?

[ksmom]

I'm sorry for your loss.

It varies and no I don't think there's anything you can take to encourage ovulation. I ovulated 2-3 weeks after mine, so normal time maybe just a little delayed. A loss that early usually doesn't mess up the cycle too much.

[atomic sagebrush]

It varies. Most people will still ovulate on time with a chemical, but a large minority may have it be delayed a little.

No, there's nothing to take to make ovulation occur and we've actually found that people taking herbs and stuff to "restore their cycle" actually ended up with the opposite happening - their cycle going missing for quite a long time. So I dont' recommend that.

So sorry...

[dreamofdaughter]

Thank you.

I suspect I ovulated yesterday exactly 4 weeks after my CP bleed started. I suspect because my LH strip went super strong positive even before the other control line had fully formed. It's never been that dark before any other month since I started tracking. My temp this morning seemed more in line with estrogen production vs every other day (reached 36.48 today other days this month never get about 36.37 and mostly they have been yo yoing). I will know for sure of course after 3 days of sustained temps.

My ND wants me to start chaste tree next cycle. What do you think? I didn't ask her for it, she suggested. Does is 250mg until ov then 500 after that. I'm on the fence because obviously I can already get pregnant it's just the maintaining that's the issue. I've never had Prog issues in the past so I'm not sure that why I had the CP though my temp did drop a couple days before the bleeding began so who knows.

[atomic sagebrush]

Chemical pregnancies are not caused by low progesterone. They're caused by something having been wrong with the egg or the sperm or the way they combined or an error in cell division early on in the cycle and then when they start to implant your body senses that, and lowers progesterone because it "notices" that something isn't right with the pregnancy. The progesterone in this case drops because the pregnancy is not viable, not the other way around. So the solution is not raising progesterone. The chances are that the next time you conceive, everything will go according to plan and you don't need to do anything to prevent chemcicals, they're just sheer bad luck.

PLEASE do not take chaste tree (vitex) We have seen abysmal results for conception for women over 35 (if I recall you are over 35, right?) and even worse, that it really really disrupts the menstrual cycles I regularly, 1-2 times per month over the past 8 years, have people come onto this site who have been told to take chaste tree/vitex by a naturopath who have had their cycles go nuts and their ovulation stop or be very very late, AND they get a short LP oftentimes as well!! Plus, we have that many more who are on it and then just don't get pregnant for reasons that are inexplicble. When I have them go off the vitex then their cycles go back to normal again (eventually, that takes some time!!) and they do get pregnant.

[dreamofdaughter]

Thanks. For anyone reading my post, I meant the higher temps were in line with higher *progesterone* production not estrogen :) don't want to confuse other women learning about cycles here.

Today I temped & it was 36.67 so that's 98 degrees - ok I def ovulated! No chance of me conceiving this month sadly as DH has been away and the last BD wouldn't do much now. But maybe it's not the worst thing for my body to have a cycle and regroup.

I won't take the vitex. I will still find out why it was recommended for someone with near exact 28 day cycles. Maybe because I ovulate around day 11/12 she felt delaying ovulation might be a good thing to make the egg mature more?? Although I'm pretty sure based on dating I conceived my youngest on day 12.

What do you think of nettle tea? I've read that helps lower estrogen which might be good for a girl sway?

[atomic sagebrush]

Naturopaths throw vitex at everyone. It's their go to because many people can take it and it doesn't really do a whole lot so it looks like it helped when really it did nothing. The problem is that it has a negative effect on at least as many people who it does nothing for. Vitex can actually help some people with moderate to severe PCOS and so unfortunately they have extrapolated that to everyone, and then anyone who goes onto it and doesn't get pregnant is told that they need to take it longer and take more of it. People end up going years not conceiving that way.

She will have some explanation that will likely sound very convincing to you but they really don't have the same quality of data we have on this site (which I can go over in more detail if you'd like) and I urge you to avoid the stuff like the plague.

Ovulating on CD 12 is perfectly fine. There is no benefit to egg health by delaying ovulation and that is not why she would recommend it. She's recommended it because most people with fertility issues have PCOS and it may help some with PCOS but that doesn't mean that it is right for YOU.

I do not recommend nettle tea. I prefer you guys stick with things I've seen a lot of people use and get their desired gender while using them (and more important, safely). If you MUST take something we can do the red raspberry leaf tea. RRLT is much more a known, proven quantity and you can do 2c a day in the follicular phase, 1c a day in the luteal phase. At BFP gradually wean off, do not continue into pregnancy.

And if you do end up going on the vitex please always wean off that and never drop it cold turkey (except at ovulation ONLY). If you may be pregnant you MUST wean off it (even if they say otherwise, please wean off if you may be pregnant). It's only safe to stop it suddenly when you're around O becuase your levels of estrogen drop after that and your prog rises naturally and this counteracts any effect of stopping the vitex suddenly since your hormones undergo a sudden shift at that point in time anyway.

[dreamofdaughter]

You've definitely convinced me, no Vitex! I thought it was weird because I did get
pregnant so that's not my issue, obviously.

I will stick to my Swiss water decaf 2 cups a day and hot water the rest of the day.

Thanks!

[dreamofdaughter]

She will have some explanation that will likely sound very convincing to you but they really don't have the same quality of data we have on this site (which I can go over in more detail if you'd like) and I urge you to avoid the stuff like the plague.


Thank you.

So she said it would balance my hormones and naturally increase progesterone. :think: I was kind of excited when she suggested it because I thought hey, it sways girl! But now that I have been pregnant after swaying, I kind of want to be pregnant again really soon and the 4 weeks between my CP and ovulating again was the longest. wait. ever. so I won't risk it. And I just don't get how could I have gotten pregnant in the first place (esp at my age) if my hormones were out of balance??

How is it that vitex can help an irregular cycle but mess up a regular cycle? (I totally believe you :) I just don't get how that works ).

I did read that some people are advised to take it until 12 weeks pregnant. If it alters your hormones, that seems a little dangerous for the developing baby, no?

[atomic sagebrush]

Ah yes, the myth of the "balanced hormones". Balancing hormones is one of those things that sounds great but really doesn't mean anything at all. It's just something they say without really even knowing what it means. Female hormones during our fertile years are meant to be always in a state of flux - we're meant to be high in estrogen in the early part of the cycle, high in progesterone later in the cycle. Plus, at 7 days past ovulation, our body releases more estrogen to help sustain the uterine lining for another week because the corpus luteum that makes progesterone, naturally breaks down at that point in time. So taking vitex, which may or may not raise progesterone while definitely lowering estrogen, can really screw things up becuase you need that high estrogen both before ovulation and then starting a week after ovulation. I have seen a LOT of people who actually got a shorter LP because naturopaths (and quite a lot of doctors too) have misunderstood that short LP can be caused not always by low progesterone but oftentimes by low ESTROGEN and a malfunctioning of that secondary estrogen surge we get that maintains that lining for the last 7 days of the cycle as the CL breaks down.

Vitex has been among our lowest success rates among things said to sway pink. I think it's only 56% right now (and has always been that low!) So I really truly feel it's going to harm your sway, mess up your cycle, and lower your chances of conceiving.

The reason why vitex can help with SOME kinds of irregular cycles (NOT ALL OF THEM!) is due to the PCOS. PCOS is basically a state of too many hormones (cutting a lot of corners with this explanation) and so when you take something that can lower hormones such as estrogen/testosterone, in a person whose body was mixed up and making too much testosterone and/or estrogen and not making enough progesterone, it can free up some of the raw materials the body uses to make T and/or E and then they can end up with higher progesterone as a result. But this is NOT most people and in fact for anyone who has lower hormone levels to start with and lower amounts of raw materials too (such as, most people on LE Diet, as an example!) and have irregular cycles due to lower estrogen already, vitex is like throwing gasoline onto a fire. For someone who had issues due to too much of a good thing, lowering amounts of the good thing woud be, well, good LOL. But if you have issues due to too little of a good thing, the last thing you want to be doing is lowering the amounts of that good thing even more!!

The problem is, the majority of people who go to naturopaths have issues caused by PCOS or PCO tendencies, and/or they are simultaneously doing other things to boost fertility that make up for the effects of the vitex (such as eating well, drinking rasp. leaf tea, taking nutritional supplements) and so the naturopaths have never put all this together. They see vitex helping a lot of people and don't understand (because they're so into the principle of "balance" and this fundamental assumption where the female body is "broken" and always in need of being fixed, when it's simply operating as it should be, in a state of flux)that for a fair size chunk of the people who come to them, they're actually making some people worse off. They just don't know about any of that since it's not what they were taught in herb school, and it's only by the observations on this site with vitex that even I feel like I have any handle on how it works.

Yes I think it's INSANE to have anyone take herbs while pregnant. It's meant to be like a poor man's progesterone supplement I suppose, but since Harvard has shown not even prog supplements work to help people get or stay pregnant, that vitex during pregnancy seems like a massive risk for something that is of no benefit.

[dreamofdaughter]

Thank you atomic! Your repository of information is truly amazing. What a gift you have.

It makes sense now. I definitely do not feel comfortable taking any kind of herb or supplement (except prenatal and folate) when we conceive again. I had never had a CP/MC before this one but at least I couldn't "blame" it on anything. It just happened. Whereas, if I took Vitex and then weaned off and lost the baby, I would forever wonder if I would have that baby if I had just left well enough alone!

My next little bean is going to stick (doing a little bit of visualization there ;))

Thanks so much again, atomic.

[atomic sagebrush]

Aw, shucks! I was just fortunate to be put into a place where I could research how it worked plus observe real world results, without having the preconceived notions beforehand. docs and naturopaths all were taught a certain set of things but because I was basically ignorant LOL I was able to put together the research plus the reality to end up with a better understanding hopefully for the benefit of everyone.

Most losses are either totally random chance that no one can control (like chromosomal abnormalities, infection, etc) or things that are really easy to avoid, like not drinking when pregnant. We go down these rabbitholes of worry about preventing losses when really very, very, very few losses fall into that in between area of things that we did or didn't do. Probably because it gives us a sense of control about not having another loss in the future. But yes I totally understand! I accidentally took vitex in pregnancy (I had a totally normal "period" but was actually pregnant the entire time!) and didn't even wean off of it and somehow I did end up with a healthy baby at the end of it but I was wracked with guilt and worry until he was a good 3 years old before I could finally relax and say "ok he does appear to be totally unscathed".

[dreamofdaughter]

Hi Atomic,

I just wanted to let you know that I did talk to my ND again about vitex and she said she has never had anyone lose ovulation on it. Which, I find hard to believe given the stories here but anyway..not worth the risk to me. Anyway, she said it would help me naturally raise my progesterone but I declined to take it because I know I don't have prog issues. Today I confirmed I have a 16 day LP because I know for sure when I Ov after my recent loss and I have been patiently awaiting AF. And I have always suspected a 16 day LP so now I feel like I have confirmation of that! I started spotting this morning exactly 16 days after Ov and I expect flow tonight (cause my flow has been started more evening/night lately). It feels really empowering to feel like you know your body's rhythms! :)

[atomic sagebrush]

I also find that very hard to believe. But maybe she's giving people a super low dose. Some of the herb people give miniscule amounts of things we have trouble with in larger amounts. But then the question I have is if it's too low a dose to have any effect on people, is it even doing anything? And I don't have the answers to that. I just want you guys to hear the downsides and what our experiences have been with them, that's all.

I have noticed I"ve seemed to have 15 day LP, on occasion or possibly delayed O (but it sure didn't seem like it!) I do want you to operate under the assumption you may have 14 day LP at any given time even tho it's been 16 at other times.