Please help me plan the use and timing of RepHresh....

[atomic sagebrush]

A study you have to pay to take part in, is NOT a study and should never have been published wherever it was published at. When my son was in a study on vaccines, they paid us compensation for being a part of it.

I am familiar with the Dutch study and the diet that they used was very very similar to the LE diet - even told people to eat 40-50 g protein (it's just a coincidence - that is the amount of protein advised by the Dutch government and so that's what they told people to eat). We talk about the Dutch study in the "paid for studies" forum and you can read the complete text there. DIET sways for real biological reasons, timing doesn't even make biological sense.

BTW - we had a member who did blood testing before and after and followed the protocols of the Dutch study and there was no difference in her blood levels of Ca, Mag, and pot, and her sodium actually went UP. Your body tightly regulates those levels of minerals in your blood and unless you are either very very deprived of nutrients (many months/years on diet) or have something seriously wrong with you (cancer), the levels in your blood****** do not change. If cal-mag sway, it's NOT by altering the levels of minerals in your blood.

[atomic sagebrush]

Thanks for your answer, I have a few more questions though If ph only matters immidiately after dtd, then surely timing must matter, since my ph is definitely higher at certain times (it is still low 3 days before o and it drops fairly quickly after ovulating).

Also, there is a study conducted in the Netherlands (often referred to as the Dutch study) which shows that the diet is only 80% effective when there is a cut off of 2-3 days in addition (without timing it was still favouring girls, but much much lower). This study is one of the only few that is actually conducted through a scientific body (at least the only one I know of), that bases its trial on diet plus timing. The trial is ongoing. So I dont understand when people say timing doesnt matter at all

Anyway, the cut off isnt my own choice, but mainly due to husbands work commitments and I agree, I dont think I can fall pg with a 3 day cut off

Can I ask you this in addition, if the ph is important when the little swimmers arrive and travel up, how do we ensure that the ph further up is also low? Does RepHresh help with this as well, or do we rely on the diet? Did you for example lie down after inserting the applicator to have the Rephresh travel up inside you as far as possible or is this an absurd idea?

Thanks in advance and congratulations on your pregnancy....a LIbra baby? My dream

I realize you got your BFP (congrats!!!) but I still feel like I have to answer this post in case anyone stumbles onto this thread later on.

EVERYONE'S pH is high at ovulation. That's the only way that sperm can survive to make it to the egg is the existence of alkaline EWCM. Both X and Y sperm thrive in CM and semen pH of 7 and up. The plain fact is, that most of the baby girls ever born on the face of the planet were to people who did not give 2 figs about timing or pH and simply had sex when the mood struck them. It strains belief that the 3.5 billion women walking around were conceived with 14 days abstain and one shot 3 days before O or 12 hours after O, and it is equally unbelievable that the 3.5 billion men were conceived with one shot BD right at ovulation when factually speaking, most babies are conceived from BD more than once in the fertile window, particularly the day before O and early on O day. Timing makes no sense at all whatsoever.

You CAN'T ensure that the pH is low higher up. The odds are that you do not even WANT it to be (esp. with a cutoff) because both X and Y sperm need pH in the 7's to survive to make it to the egg. Whatever is swaying, it is very likely that it happens at least partially while the sperm are in the vagina. Maybe it's sperm numbers that matter, maybe it's some other thing entirely but what it ISN'T is a magical property of intercourse on any given day.

If you read the "trouble with timing" essay that I wrote you can see the case against timing very clearly laid out and I don't feel any need to repeat it. Tons of studies have been done on timing over the course of 50 years, through scientific bodies!!!! From many more reputable sources than the Dutch Study people. And no discernable pattern has been found - that indicates to me that there IS no pattern there to find.

The Dutch study participants determined their own ovulation thru temping and OPK and based on previous cycles (which as we all know is not at all reliable and varies drastically month to month, esp. when following a diet). Toni Weschler (author of TCOYF) states in her book that previous cycles are not reliable for predicting future cycles and also that temping is unreliable for pink Shettles timing because you cannot know when you are going to ovulate, 2 and 3 days before ovulation. The Dutch study states very clearly that "LH surge WAS ASSUMED" to take place 24 hours before ovulation when in fact on average, ovulation takes place 36 hours after the start of the surge. They have NO CLUE when these people really ovulated. None. They are relying on self-reported information from inaccurate methodology and not even getting that right. Also, there were a whopping 5 people in the Dutch study who got diet correct and timing incorrect (1 girl, 4 boys = 80%) and a sample size of 5 proves absolutely nothing. I can flip 5 coins right now and I very well may get 80% heads - that does NOT prove that coin flips are 80% heads all the time.

Plus, they didn't even get timing right - the people weren't even told to abstain!!!

I'm not trying to go off on you, I just have to have the info on this site as accurate as I can because I am 10000% convinced that this blind and unquestioning faith in timing hurts people's sways.

[zanacal]

Congratulations nini!