What is opk test

OPKs also don't indicate whether cervical mucus is conducive to fertilization. The mucus produced by the cervix in midcyle, which you experience as vaginal discharge, must have a certain consistency clear and elastic, like egg whites in order to provide a fertile environment for sperm to swim through. OPKs do not monitor cervical mucus. OPKs are more precise than other methods of monitoring ovulation.

Used correctly, the major-brand OPKs are more than 97 percent effective in detecting an LH surge, which is used as a marker for ovulation. Although in most cases, OPKs provide an accurate forecast of your LH surge and subsequent ovulation, they are most effective when used together with other monitoring methods.

Along with an OPK, try examining your cervical mucus and charting your basal body temperature — the term refers to your lowest, or baseline, temperature, and is usually taken first thing in the morning. These methods combined can greatly increase your chances of becoming pregnant. OPKs should be used in the middle of your cycle, during the time when you would be most likely to ovulate. Note that it helps to have a sense of your typical cycle length, so start keeping track now if you haven't already!

By Deborah Gaines Updated January 10, Save Pin FB More. OPKs are convenient. Since you only need to use OPKs in the middle of your cycle, it's a little less work than other methods of tracking ovulation, such as charting your basal body temperature BBT , which requires a daily commitment. OPKs are widely available. So, conception can occur if you have sex 5 days before ovulation, and up to 1 day after ovulation.

Predicting ovulation is easier when you have a regular menstrual cycle. Some women prefer to test their urine in the morning, whereas others test it in the afternoon or evening. Whatever time you choose, make sure to test at the same time each day.

Keep in mind that liquid can dilute the amount of luteinizing hormone LH in your urine. So limit your intake of fluids about 2 hours before testing. It also helps not to urinate 1 to 2 hours before testing.

For the reasons above, many women use ovulation test kits right when they wake up. Testing in the morning also allows you plenty of time to get it on if the test gives you the green light!

While women with a regular cycle only need to test ovulation once a month, someone with an irregular cycle will have to test more frequently. Ovulation test strips are designed to detect levels of luteinizing hormone LH in your urine. This hormone signals ovulation, which is the release of an egg from your ovaries into the fallopian tube.

To test ovulation, you can urinate on the test stick, or urinate in a cup and place the stick in the urine. Results are usually available in about 5 minutes. Ovulation test kits have two lines: One is the control line that signals the test is working properly while the other is the test line. The test line appears lighter when you have a low level of LH in your body.

With such a short window to conceive every month, using an ovulation test kit improves the guesswork of predicting your most fertile days. Though ovulation tests are likely better than the other cycle-tracking measures, you might be wondering: How good are they?

Luckily, manufacturers of many tests will provide numbers on two key metrics — positive predictive value the percent of people who are ovulating when the ovulation tests tells them they are and negative predictive value the percent of people who are not ovulating when the ovulation tests tells them they are not — to give us an idea of how accurate a test is.

There are ways to increase the positive predictive value of ovulation tests, though. For example, when considering both LH surges and cervical mucus characteristics together, the positive predictive value can increase. The accuracy of threshold-based tests will also depend on what your average LH levels look like. The take-home here? False positives can be expected for women on the higher end of LH production, and false negatives can be expected for women on the lower end of LH production.

Hormones found in birth control medications — particularly estrogen and progesterone — can decrease your LH levels and affect your results. Drugs containing testosterone also decrease LH levels and can affect your results. One of the fertility drugs used in fertility treatment, clomiphene citrate Clomid , increases your LH levels to help you ovulate, and will affect your results. Here at Modern Fertility, our test strips are fairly priced so as many people as possible can get access to this important information.

You may also be able to get the cost of test strips reimbursed if you have a health savings account HSA or flexible spending account FSA as part of your health insurance plan. There are so many reasons why you might choose to use one cycle-tracking measure over another. Your best option might depend on what your goals are i.

For most of these methods, there are clear trade-offs in convenience and accuracy. Of frequently used methods, counting-based methods are the most convenient and require the least amount of effort, but are likely the least accurate.

Cervical mucus monitoring takes more time and effort, but is more accurate in pinpointing the fertile window. Generally speaking, the most accurate cycle-tracking measures will be the ones that measure ovulation most directly. The third most direct measures are things like cervical mucus and basal body temperature , which are associated with the hormones that are associated with ovulation. Each step removed from ovulation itself makes things more complex to interpret, and potentially introduces error — both of which affect how accurate a measure is.

Ovulation tests get a big thumbs-up from us. First, the Modern Fertility Ovulation Test tracks your LH at low, high, and peak levels to help you predict ovulation and your fertile window. The app also makes predictions and testing recommendations for future cycles. You can use our app to log your results and know when to test for pregnancy. Finally, you can use the Modern Fertility Hormone Test to understand how your fertility is changing over time. Our hormone test gives you insight into the number of eggs you have and can help you identify red flag issues — like PCOS or thyroid conditions — that could affect your reproductive health down the line.

This article was written by Talia Shirazi , and reviewed by Dr. Demystifying reproductive health and fertility, one bodily function at a time. This is a space for us to talk about health, fertility, careers, and more.