pH Questions...How often to test, fluctuations, etc.

Okay...Got several questions. Let's talk pH!

- When/how often should we test? Once a day, several times a day, etc.?

- How often should we be plotting these #s? (I'm a charter & love data...maybe too much)

- Without swaying, what are the normal pH #s/ranges throughout the cycle? Do they fluctuate throughout the day/cycle?

- W/Girl Sway what should the #s be?

- W/Boy Sway what should the #s be?

- How do I know if my sway diet is working? Are there key pH #s I should be getting throughout the cycle?

- Overall, how quickly does diet affect the pH #s?

Edited to add:
- What should DH's pH #s be and do they fluctuate as well?

I know some of these questions may be redundant...I'm new to pH testing and I'd really like to know how I'm doing. I've been on the Girl Diet for about a month and I need to get a handle on my pH (and maybe some reassurance that this darn diet is actually working!).

Thanks and best of luck on your sway! :luck:

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Originally Posted by UmaJain

Okay...Got several questions. Let's talk pH!

- When/how often should we test? Once a day, several times a day, etc.?

- How often should we be plotting these #s? (I'm a charter & love data...maybe too much)

- Without swaying, what are the normal pH #s/ranges throughout the cycle? Do they fluctuate throughout the day/cycle?

- W/Girl Sway what should the #s be?

- W/Boy Sway what should the #s be?

- How do I know if my sway diet is working? Are there key pH #s I should be getting throughout the cycle?

- Overall, how quickly does diet affect the pH #s?

Edited to add:
- What should DH's pH #s be and do they fluctuate as well?

I know some of these questions may be redundant...I'm new to pH testing and I'd really like to know how I'm doing. I've been on the Girl Diet for about a month and I need to get a handle on my pH (and maybe some reassurance that this darn diet is actually working!).

Thanks and best of luck on your sway! :luck:

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Argh I started to answer this but got interrupted and then it wasn't highlighted any more!! Feel free to BUMP any post that it looks like I am missing, I promise I'm not ignoring anyone LOL. Anyway, I think this is a great thread and will help me make my checking pH thread better.

1)I ~personally~ would not test very often at all. Don't bother testing if you have no EWCM, because the vaginal secretions are so acidic you are basically getting a false reading. So once a day around ovulation and then not at all for the rest of the month.

2)Don't plot the numbers, you don't need to. If you're getting more acidic, that's all you need to know. Getting obsessive over a sway is the surefire way to raise your testosterone and end up with an opposite and this tendency seems to be exacerbated by filling out charts and spreadsheets.

3)Without swaying, the normal vag. pH is around 4.5 except at ovulation when it will go up to the 6-8 range.

4)With a girl sway, your numbers should be around 5. With a boy sway, they should be 7-8. Some people will tell you higher or lower but I'm not entirely convinced they are checking their actual CM or if they are checking the pH of the various jellies and baking soda that they are using to alter their pH and this is not representative of what their pH is up inside the Fallopian tubes where the egg will be fertilized anyway.

Sperm have a very narrow range of tolerance where they are able to live and that is why both CM and semen have a normal pH in the 7's - both X and Y sperm thrive in this range. I suspect that what actually sways with pH for pink, is just killing off a lot of the sperm (since low sperm numbers seem to sway pink) and with blue, it's that high pH of baking soda counteracts a low vaginal pH and helps more sperm to survive, rather than sperm "liking" one pH over another.

5)pH is really not that helpful for knowing if your sway is working unfortunately. It responds to changes in diet quite easily but that does not always seem to translate into a baby of the "right" gender being conceived. I conceived a baby boy with very low pH and there are SO many opposites of people who's pH was fantastic, that the pH just cannot matter the way that some people say it does. The amount/consistency of your CM is much more helpful, as is your husband's sperm count (but there's no way to know this going in).

I feel like I need to pause here to point out that swaying is something that MUST be taken on faith in many ways. We don't have evidence that these things are working for us (or even that some of them work at all!), we have to take the leap of faith that they are. Yes, that is hard for a person who (as you described) like numbers and data BUT if anything, it actually helps your pink sway to let go of those things and not control everything.

I am kinda concerned that this is not a good sign for you - I am not trying to alarm you but unless you can kinda chill a little bit over the details, I am worried you might be setting yourself up for failure, even if you have the lowest pH on the planet and do everything 100% "right". Swaying obsession is the number one reason why pink sways fail - people like to blame it on the burrito they ate or because their DH made his deposit too deep but tons of others did the exact same thing. Whatever that spiritual force or personality quality is, that causes us to feel that swaying is a challenge that we are taking on and that we can "win" at it if the numbers are right and if we try hard enough, beyond any other factor, that is what sways blue.

6) DH's pH is probably going to be in the 7's. People have not had an awful lot of luck altering their husband's semen pH dramatically (which is why they add lime to it). You can try and get it a little lower with Crystal Light and cranberry but his body is designed to keep that nice pH at which sperm survive and thrive.

7)Diet can affect pH right away but it may not mean anything. pH does not have much scientific support behind it at all.

I hope I am not coming off harsh or discouraging, but I just really really don't want you to ruin your sway getting obsessed over checking pH when it has so little backing it up anyway.

atomicMy ph is always under 5 even around ovulation or after O...do you think is this normal? ( and I do check my actual CM because I don't use BS or anything else at all this months for now...)

Im not obsessed about ph (if anyone think that because I talk about it a lot ) I would be just happy to see change in my ph to .Like you say it suppose to respond to diet changes easy so if I would see mine go up a little then I can see it's working.That's all I want. But like this Im thinking it's not working for me.

A bazillllllion thanks! This is so informative! I'm naturally high-strung and Type-A unless I do yoga, which lately I just don't have the urge/energy to do. I do feel like I've let go of a lot lately and I've stopped taping all my OPKs to a chart I made (yes, lol, I'm that bad!) and just track a + one in FF. Although I really, really, REALLY want a girl (and this is our last), I will be happy being preggy again, regardless of the sex (although I plan to wait to find out). Regardless, I know we'll get the sweet soul we were meant to get.

Flava, good luck on your sway! Sending you all my BLUE DUST!

Atomic, I tested my cm few days ago just a few days before AF came.. very very little cm a little blob of creamy and it read at around 7.1... does this mean my reading down not count?

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Originally Posted by Flava

atomicMy ph is always under 5 even around ovulation or after O...do you think is this normal? ( and I do check my actual CM because I don't use BS or anything else at all this months for now...)

Im not obsessed about ph (if anyone think that because I talk about it a lot ) I would be just happy to see change in my ph to .Like you say it suppose to respond to diet changes easy so if I would see mine go up a little then I can see it's working.That's all I want. But like this Im thinking it's not working for me.

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Me too Me too! I would love to hear your thoughts on this Atomic. I have totally overhauled my diet but my CM is still very acidic. I do have more than I used to, so I know some things are working, but even at O mine is 4.5/5.0. And ITA Flava, I'm not obsessing over it but I keep reading that it should respond to changes in diet and mine definitely doesn't, so is the overall diet not doing anything for me? Which makes me think even apart from pH maybe I'm not changing anything, which of course makes me think another girl is inevitable.

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Originally Posted by Flava

atomicMy ph is always under 5 even around ovulation or after O...do you think is this normal? ( and I do check my actual CM because I don't use BS or anything else at all this months for now...)

Im not obsessed about ph (if anyone think that because I talk about it a lot ) I would be just happy to see change in my ph to .Like you say it suppose to respond to diet changes easy so if I would see mine go up a little then I can see it's working.That's all I want. But like this Im thinking it's not working for me.

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Yes, I think that's probably normal for you.

I know it's so frustrating not to see changes in your pH but really, pH of women and gender has never been actually even studied. All this pH stuff is based around theories that are like 100 years old and originally come from a veterinarian and then Dr. Shettles mistakenly looking at capacitated/uncapacitated sperm under a microscope and assuming they were Y and X (which they weren't!!) We don't even KNOW that pH means anything at all. Minerals, blood sugar, and testosterone all have WAY more scientific support. We do see changes in pH in people that are swaying, but we have no way of knowing if those changes sway in any way at all or if they're just as a result of swaying (as in, when you sway pink, some of the things you do tend to lower pH but we don't know if the lower pH actually sways in any way, or if it's also because of other things you do at the same time).

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Originally Posted by begonia

Me too Me too! I would love to hear your thoughts on this Atomic. I have totally overhauled my diet but my CM is still very acidic. I do have more than I used to, so I know some things are working, but even at O mine is 4.5/5.0. And ITA Flava, I'm not obsessing over it but I keep reading that it should respond to changes in diet and mine definitely doesn't, so is the overall diet not doing anything for me? Which makes me think even apart from pH maybe I'm not changing anything, which of course makes me think another girl is inevitable.

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I conceived a baby boy while swaying with pH of 4.5 and I know a lot of people have had similar experiences - that's where all these opposites come from. I think the amount of your CM is much more important than the pH of it, so if you're having more CM, that's a good sign regardless of your pH. Until there is a study done where random, non-swaying people (and it has to be a large number of people) test their pH prior to TTC and then see if there's even any correlation between CM pH and gender, I don't think pH is something that anyone should totally stress over.

Use some Pre-Seed/EW and just trust that the diet and supps are working for you in other ways. Sending you gobs of blue dust!!

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Originally Posted by UmaJain

A bazillllllion thanks! This is so informative! I'm naturally high-strung and Type-A unless I do yoga, which lately I just don't have the urge/energy to do. I do feel like I've let go of a lot lately and I've stopped taping all my OPKs to a chart I made (yes, lol, I'm that bad!) and just track a + one in FF. Although I really, really, REALLY want a girl (and this is our last), I will be happy being preggy again, regardless of the sex (although I plan to wait to find out). Regardless, I know we'll get the sweet soul we were meant to get.

Flava, good luck on your sway! Sending you all my BLUE DUST!

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That's great! Keep letting go of the things you can let go of and I really hope that your dreams come true!

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Originally Posted by TTC5

Atomic, I tested my cm few days ago just a few days before AF came.. very very little cm a little blob of creamy and it read at around 7.1... does this mean my reading down not count?

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No, higher pH away from ovulation is a good sign for a blue sway. It's that LOWER readings may be caused by the naturally low pH of the vajayjay and not from CM. If anything, your reading at O will prob. be even higher. Good luck!!