Are ovulation kits accurate?

Are ovulation kits accurate?

Transcription :

Did you know that traditional ovulation kits predict your fertile days but don’t actually tell you if you’ve ovulated? Every woman is unique, especially if you have PCOS or a thyroid condition which can impact your hormone levels and if you actually ovulate. Knowing if you’ve actually ovulated is super important if you’re trying to get pregnant, right? And that’s why it’s so important to track your cycles appropriately in the right way. In this video, I’m going to talk about a new tool and a new kit that’s going to help you do exactly that. This video is sponsored by Inito, so let’s jump into it.

My name is Dr. Marc Sklar, also known as the fertility expert, and I’ve been working with couples from all over the world for over 19 years through my coaching programs and right here in San Diego at my clinic. And obviously tracking ovulation, knowing if we’ve ovulated, tracking our cycles and our hormones is essential and something that we talk about every day with every couple that we support. And that’s partly why I’m making this video for all of you because I want to educate you like I educate them. Okay, so first, let’s talk about the importance of actually tracking ovulation. Because if you don’t know when you’re ovulating, you can’t time intercourse appropriately to give yourself the best chance and best opportunity to conceive. You can’t just conceive on any day of your cycle. You can’t have intercourse on any day of your cycle and expect to get pregnant.

And I know contrary to what you’ve been told, which is probably just that, that’s not really the case. We can only get pregnant around our ovulation window. We want to maximize that, which is why it’s so important to know when we’re ovulating. There are many things that can impact your ovulation, but there are four things that really stand out to me. First is stress. If you are stressed, and I see this all the time, it can shift your ovulation window, shift when you’re ovulating, and make it more difficult to track and predict it. Two, there are two other conditions that also make it more difficult to know if you’re ovulating, polycystic ovarian syndrome, PCOS, because you have or have the potential to have irregular cycles and anovulatory meaning you don’t ovulate or you don’t ovulate regularly, and having a thyroid issue. A thyroid condition can also impact your hormones and your ability to ovulate regularly.

And last but not least, the last is if we are a bit older in age, that can also impact regular ovulation and make it more difficult to track when we’re ovulating or if we’re ovulating. Now, I know many of you might be thinking, well, I’ve got that covered. I use an ovulation predictor kit, also known as an OPK. These are the standard kits that you get at the store at let’s say the pharmacy, CVS or Rite Aid or Walmart or Target, wherever it might be that you get them and they’re these little strips and you pee on them and it tells you if you are ovulating. So you think, well, doesn’t that tell me if I’m ovulating? Well, the reality is maybe, not so much. They are telling you if you’re in the window for ovulation, meaning each one of those kits has a threshold for a hormone called luteinizing hormone , LH.

And as long as that when you pee on them, the hormone hits that threshold, then it’s telling you that you are ovulating. But your personal threshold for ovulation might be different than somebody else’s personal threshold for ovulation or the average threshold, which is what those kits are made for and based on. And so that might not mean that you are actually ovulating, it just tells you you’ve hit that threshold. The second thing, which is I think really important, is that it doesn’t give you a number. It doesn’t tell you what your LH number is. It’s just telling you if you’ve hit their threshold. And most of those kits also don’t test anything but LH. They’re not looking at all the other hormones as well that might be impacting your ability to know if you’ve ovulated and how strong of an ovulation that was. And that’s why those kits are just okay and not great.

All right. So I want to talk about the kit that I am recommending for all of you, which is Inito. It comes in this little box, and when you open it up, it comes with two main things aside from the instructions. One is the tracking device itself. The other are these strips right here in this box right here, and a cup as well. And it comes with your guide on how to use it and the how-to of everything. So they make it very easy for you. We actually use this in our office. We had one of our staff members use it and she really liked it. She said it was very convenient and easy once you got used to it because you’ve got to get used to it. So this little guy right here clips onto your phone and I can’t show you my phone because I’m using that to record this video, but this little camera, this little camera right here goes over your camera.

And then there’s a little hole right here that you slide the strip after you’ve used it. So you pee into a little cup, you take one of these little strips out of here, let me open this up. Like this you open this up, you pee into a little cup. We’ll take that there. You’ve got there. You dip this in, you hold it in for 15 seconds, and then you take that and you slide it right in to here, just like that. But you’re going to do that while it’s on your phone. And again, it gives you all the instructions right here so that you know what to do and how to use it. And once you’re used to it, it’s really straightforward. It’s also really convenient because it’s not just telling you if you’ve ovulated, it’s going to give you specific hormones and feedback.

So we are checking three hormones. The first two are estradiol or estrogen for all of you. And LH, luteinizing hormone, which we’ve already discussed. As your estradiol increases, as you get closer to estrogen, about three or four days in advance, it starts to rise, then the kit will predict that estrogen is rising. And you’ll see this because it syncs with your app, right? So when it’s on the phone, it syncs with your app and puts all the information into it and tracks everything for you. And so it will tell you where your estrogen levels are, and we’ll put an image on the screen right now that shows what these graphs look like. And then as you get to ovulation or you ovulate, your LH will surge and peak and it will predict that and see that. And it will also tell you what the levels actually are.

It will give you a number for that. And then if you keep tracking afterwards, which I do recommend that you do, then that’s going to track progesterone. Okay? And it’s going to show you where your progesterone levels are. So it’s going to track all those other hormones as well, the two, estradiol and LH.So this tool allows you to do all of that built into this little device and makes it very convenient for you and gives you all the necessary information that you need to track your cycle, your hormones, and ovulation. Inito will track your ovulation by saying high fertility, peak fertility, or ovulation has occurred.

So it’s very clear when it tells you that. It also gives you these nice graphs and charts like we showed you that will show you where your hormones are throughout your cycle and what the levels actually are to show you what they’re doing, which is also wonderful. And like I mentioned before, it’s going to give you actual numbers, actual values for the key hormones that you need to track. So if you are having irregular cycles and you’re not sure where you’re ovulating or when you’re ovulating, if you have PCOS, thyroid conditions, if you’re a little bit older or stress is impacting you, or you’re just really trying to get more information about how you’re ovulating, when you’re ovulating and what your hormones are doing during your cycle, then Inito is a wonderful tool to help you do just that.

Many of the members in my Hope program, when they use a device like this that gives them the hormones, they still have a lot of questions, and so they rely on me and my team to support them through that process to help analyze their hormones, their graphs, and give them feedback on that to help guide them through their fertility challenges to know if the plan we’re using and the path that they’re on is actually working and getting the results that we all want. That’s a huge benefit of being part of my Hope Fertility Coaching Program. So if you want that sort of support and you want to customize plan, and you just want to understand more about what’s going on with your fertility, why you’re having the difficulties you’re having and that you can get the same support that they’re getting, then I want to invite you to apply to join my Hope Fertility Coaching Program.

You can do that by using the link in the description below. All right, do you have questions about your ovulation? Do you have questions about how to track your cycle? And do you have questions about what all of this means? If you do, leave those questions below in the comment section. If you have any questions around your fertility as well, please post those down there and I will do my best to answer those questions. I also want to hear from you, what did you find valuable about this video? Comment below and let me know. If you like this video, give me a thumbs up. If you’re not already a subscriber to my YouTube channel, please subscribe by hitting that bell right there so that you can get notified when I put out a new video for all of you. And until the next video, stay fertile.