The first thing I always think, and often ask, when people ask about their irregular cycles are:

+ have you been charting your cycle?

+ do you know if you’re ovulating?

So many people think that they can’t and shouldn’t chart their cycle if they think it’s “irregular” but there is so much insight that comes with having a chart to look at.

I definitely believe it can help figure out what’s going on. And it definitely won't hurt the cause.

And the next thing I wonder, which helps if you're charting is whether you’re ovulating. Because often, not ovulating means really long, messed up cycles.

So, if you’re not already charting, I suggest starting.

If you want to learn how to properly and effectively do it I’ve got a course you can check out.

If you’re not going to be using it as birth control the two important things to chart are your basal body temperature and cervical fluid.

So, grab yourself a basal thermometer and start taking your temperature when your first wake up at the same time each day.

I recommend an app like Kindara to input all of your data.

And you can start checking your cervical fluid a few times each day when you go to the bathroom. Before you go take a minute to “swipe” across the opening of your vagina and take note of what you feel and see.

You’ll want to look for a spike in your temperature that is higher than the previous six temperatures to signify that you have ovulated. You can also look up chart examples of those with a regular cycle and those with an anovulatory cycle.

And charting your cervical fluid is good because you can see whether there is a pattern or if your fluid is all over the place.

Now, obviously there is a lot more that goes into charting, even to just track your cycle (and especially if you’re going to use it as birth control), but that’s a good place to start.

And another tool you can use to see if you’re ovulating are ovulation test strips. You can get a big pack of cheap ones off of Amazon pretty easily. And you can start testing around day 10 of your cycle. This tests for a surge in LH, and a positive test is when both lines are the same darkness. Unlike with a pregnancy test, a faint line on an LH test is actually a negative.

If you see that you’re getting two lines but not a positive for an extended period of time means that you’re probably not ovulating.

So, this post isn’t about fixing your irregular cycles. No, it’s about that first step into figuring out what might be going on. And there’s no one size fits all fix for irregular cycles. And there are many different things that could be causing them. But keep learning, keep charting and keep asking questions.