A Few Start Up Tips To Get Up And Running With Your New cyclotest® 2 Plus
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So you've just received your nicely packaged cyclotest® 2 Plus contraceptive monitor, but now what do you do? Well first you should always read the instructions and follow them. Here we offer some extra tips and advise from our experience helping women start their journey to hormone free contraception.
1, What is the first thing I should do to get started?
2, Can I use cyclotest® if I’m still taking the pill?
3, Do I still have to use other contraceptives when I'm using cyclotest®?
4, When do I start to use cyclotest®?
5, Do I have to wait until my next cycle to start?
6, How do I get an accurate BBT?
7, Must I take the BBT reading at the same time every day?
8, How do I wake up on time to take my temperature?
9, I forgot to take my temperature reading within the 4 hour window, what now?
10, How can I check to see if I recorded my previous temperatures correctly?
11, What do two dashes on the right hand side of the screen mean?
14, How can I increase the accuracy of my cyclotest® even more?
15, So what are the optional fertility indicators that I can input into my cyclotest®?
16, Where should I keep my cyclotest®?
17, Can I open the device to see how it works?
18, I still need some help starting off with my cyclotest®. Who can help me?
1, What is the first thing I should do to get started?
Check that the thermometer is undamaged prior to measurement. Depending on where you use the themometer for measurement, a damaged sensor could cause unintentional injury. We also recommend cleaning the thermometer for hygiene reasons. Take a look at the quick start guide and the instructions, become familiar with it and leave it on your bedside until your next menstruation arrives.
2, Can I use cyclotest® if I’m still taking the pill?
The simultaneous use of cyclotest® 2 Plus and the pill is pointless. The pill is a contraceptive and renders the use of cyclotest® superfluous. Fertility Awareness for contraception only works if you have cycle which can be measured. The pill inhibits ovulation and therefore there is no cycle to monitor.
When you stop taking the pill the hormone levels in your body will need time to settle down and then your normal ovulatory cycle can begin again. How long this takes varies with every woman and also with the type of hormones used. Some women can stop with the pill and have their first real period (start of a new cycle) within a few weeks. Others wait for several month, often having bleeds which can be confused with menstruation. The doctor or Gyno who prescribed your pill and is supervising you whilst coming off it should be able to help you identify when your cycle has returned.
Remember, if you have no ovulatory cycle the Fertility Awareness Method (FAM) of contraception and any system that relies on it will not work.
3, Do I still have to use other forms of contraception when I start using cyclotest®?
cyclotest® is a diagnostic unit for determining the fertile and infertile days in a woman’s cycle.
The fertile days, also known as the fertility window, should be respected. The images on the left show how cyclotest shows your fertility status.
During the fertile phase you should, if you do not want to get pregnant, use an instantly reversible form of contraception (condom, diaphragm, cervical cap etc) or abstain from intercourse.
4, When do I start to use cyclotest®?
You dont need to do anything until your menstruation arrives. When it does enter the menstruation with the small round button as described in the instructions. This is DAY01 of your cycle. The following morning will be DAY02 and that is when you would start to take your waking temperatures.
5, I've just receeived my cyclotest but I've missed the start of my period. Do I have to wait until my next cycle to start?
Ideally, and according to the instruction book, you should start using your device on the first day of your period.
However, if you have already started your period, you can manually tell your device what day of your cycle you are on. Let’s assume you are on DAY04 of your cycle.
1. Press the small round button on the right and hold it down firmly. You will see “01 New Day” appear in the display screen. This is making the usual suggestion that today is DAY01 of your cycle.
2. In order to tell the device that you are on DAY04 of your cycle you must continue to hold down the small round button and then with your other hand, press the right arrow button ► 3 times. “04” should then appear in the display screen.
3. Continue to hold down the small round button until you hear your device beep. The beep means that the device has stored the information.
6, How do I get an accurate BBT?
It is essential for the correct use of cyclotest® 2 Plus that an accurate Basal Body Temperature (BBT) is recorded first thing in the morning. The BBT is the temperature which your body drops to when it is a state of absolute rest.
There is no fixed rule to say that you need to sleep for a certain number of hours to guarentee an accurate BBT upon waking as there are many influencing factors.
Imagine it's a hot summer day, you go to the gym after work, return home late, eat a large meal and then go to bed. You would need a long rest to come down from all of that activity and also the digesting of the late meal would keep your metabolism higher for longer impacting on your body's core temperature. On the other hand less rest would be needed if you ate earlier and spent the evening infront of the television or reading or book before going to sleep. If you have any medical conditions or are taking and medication which you believe could effect your BBT, explain to your doctor that you wish to chart your BBT for Fertility Awareness and see if there is any conflict.
The best way to take a BBT is actually when you are asleep however this has certain practical challanges so the goal is to take it as soon as possible upon waking but BEFORE getting up. Movement and actions raise your BBT.
7, Must I take the BBT reading at the same time every day?
The time at which you take your first temperature reading at the start of each cycle sets the time that you should take it for the rest of your cycle. The cyclotest® device has a four hour window within which you can take your temperature, so don’t panic if you oversleep (or if you get up earlier than usual).
For example: if you took your temperature at 7:35 am on DAY02 of your cycle (the day you marked the menstruation became DAY01 so DAY02 is the first morning you take your reading) then you could take it as early as 5.35 am or as late as 9.35 am. In both cases once you have taken the reading you can go back to sleep if you wish.
The time set by the DAY02 reading is only for that cycle. So when you arrive at DAY02 of your following cycle, the time you take that reading will become the new base time for that cycle.
Remember, with cyclotest® you only need to to take your BBT until you pass into your second infertile phase (just after ovulation through to menstruation)
8, How do I wake up on time to take my temperature?
cyclotest® has a built-in alarm clock. It rings at the base time set for the reading (the time you took the temperature on DAY02, as mentioned above) Once you have been woken by the unit, bring the unit into bed with you, place the sensor under your tongue and press the large round measurement button once to begin the measurement.
How do I know I have taken my temperature correctly?
The device will confirm a successful measurement by sounding a long beep and also you will see the temperature figure appear in the top right hand corner of the display window.
9, I forgot to take my temperature reading within the 4 hour window, what happes now?
cyclotest® will not accept a reading outside of the 4 hour window. This is for several reasons including making sure that two readings cant be registered in any one day and removing many instances of people recording 'bad' temperature readings when they haven't had a good night's sleep. Instead of the temperature reading you will just see two dashes - - (horizontal lines).
In general cyclotest can handle the occasional missed reading, if you were to miss a few we would highly recommend helping cyclotest identify your fertile moments by inputting other secondary fertility indicators.
10, How can I check to see if I recorded my previous temperatures correctly?
Whilst the device is off:
1. Press the right arrow ◄ once. You will see the data for that day.
2. Press the left arrow once and you will see the reading for the previous day. By continuing to press the left arrow it will show you the temperature readings for the previous days of your CURRENT cycle.
11, When I had a look at my previous temperature readings, on DAY03 there were two dashes on the right hand side of the screen. What does this mean?
It means your cyclotest® did not record a temperature on DAY03 of your cycle. Don’t panic! Simply carry on taking your temperature everyday as normal and ensure you listen for the three beeps before taking the thermometer out of your mouth.
12, How soon after starting with cyclotest® will I be able to rely upon it for showing my fertile days?
Your device will be able to provide you with an accurate prediction from DAY01 but until it knows more about your ovulation cycle it will give a larger than usual fertility window to be safe. If cyclotest® ever has a doubt it will always show you as potentially being fertile so in this way there is no 'guessing' and risks are reduced.
As cyclotest® learns more about your cycle, the predicted fertility window will get smaller and smaller.
13, My cyclotest® shows me as fertile for about 2 weeks. I thought my fertility window was only 6 days?
If any type of fertility monitor or even any Doctor or Gyno is not given enough 'good' data to work with, they quite simply can not identify when you are ovulating and so can not safely predict your fertility window.
To begin with cyclotest® heavily buffers your potential fertility window and assumes the earliest and latest ovulation dates possible to give a larger that usual fertility window in the first cycles until it understand more about you and your cycle.
Afetr the first cycle, the most common reason for a large fertility window is not taking enough 'good' temperature readings in the run up to ovulation so cyclotest doesn't decisively identify the ovulation.
Let's say you ovulated on DAY14, your egg would only be fertilisable for less than a day, but lets add two to be safe, so by DAY17 you should have passed into your second infertile phase - quite simply you couldn't ovulate again in this cycle so theres no risk of intercourse leading to pregnancy. If you failed to take 'good' readings, especially on the run up to ovulation, the ovulation wouldn't be identified so cyclotest would have to assume that it's still due even up until the arrival of your next menstruation. This is the most common cause of users having an extended fertility window being shown on their devices.
With our experience of coaching so many new users with their cyclotest® we can say that it's not unusual for new users to miss readings in the first cycle and so they end up with the extended fertility window being displayed. Not being in the habit of taking the temperature upon waking, not being in the habit of leaving cyclotest within reach of the bed, not using the thermometer correctly, not waiting the 20 seconds or so for the reading to finish and be saved (confirmed with a beep) are some of the most common, but completely understandable reasons why new users fail to get ovulation identified on their first cycle.
For this reason we highly recommend that a new users help cyclotest® recognise ovulation in this first recorded cycle by entering one of the secondary fertility indicators (LH hormone detection or cervical mucus observations) as mentioned below.
14, How can I increase the accuracy of my cyclotest® even more?
What makes cyclotest® very very special amongst contraceptive computers is the fact it can operate using the sympto-thermal method of natural family planning. Where as other monitors tend to rely on just one fertility indicator (temperature readings with Lady-Comp and Pearly or just hormone detection with Persona) cyclotest can combine more than one fertility indicator. The sympto-thermal charting method is what is heavily promoted within the world of Natural Family Planning (NFP) and is shown to be 99% accurate for contraception.
cyclotest® will work with a huge degree of accuracy using temperature readings alone but adding additional information you can obtain will just increase the accuracy and make you feel more confident!
It's worth remembering that this is handy if you are travelling and can't guarentee getting consistently 'good' readings on the run up to ovulation. For example packing a few ovulation tests to use when cyclotest® advises you that you are entering your fertile phase can be a sound and practical alternative to not having your ovulation identified due to missing temperature readings.
15, So what are the optional fertility indicators that I can input into my cyclotest®?
There are two secondary fertility indicators which can be inputted into into your cyclotest®.
The observation of cervical mucus secretions is a highly reliable way of reading your own body's signs of where in your cycle you are. Most women are familiar with the 'highly fertile' cervical mucus secretions, the eggy white discharges that happen around the mid point of their cycle. These secretions are present and observable for 3-4 days. The first day they are observed (implying that they were not present the day before) can be entered into cyclotest. The first appearance of this 'highly fertile' cervical mucus would be about 48 hours prior to ovulation. Read up on the Billings Method of Natural Family Planning if you would like to learn more.
Another of your body's natural indicators of where in your cycle you are isn't so visible. Part of the hugley complex chain of events leading up to ovulation involves a sudden jump in measurable levels of the hormone LH. The higher levels of the LH hormone can be identified by simple tests. The first day a positive result is observed (implying that they was not a positive when testing the day before) can be entered into cyclotest®. The first positive test result for the higher levels of the LH hormone would occure about 48 hours prior to ovulation. For this reason the correct name for these tests are Ovulation Predictor Kits (OPKs) and not actually ovulation tests, as the don't test for ovulation but predict that it will arrive in about 48 hours.
You only need to input the results of one of these observations into cyclotest and you don't even have to say which observation is being recorded since both of them would occure at the same time, about 48 hours prior to ovulation.
To input the result:
[You may want to do a “dummy run” before you actually start pressing the buttons on your device so that you get the sequence correct!]
1. Press and hold down the small round button. “01” should appear on the screen.
2. Whilst still holding down the small button, quickly press and hold the big round button until “CY” appears in the display.
3. Release the small round button, but keep the big button down until you hear a beep.
Once the device has beeped this is confirmation that it has registered the information.
16, Where should I keep my cyclotest®?
Like most electronic devices, using the unit in the immediate vicinity of mobile phones or microwave appliances may result in impaired functioning. Use and store the unit outside such an environment. Mobile phones should, depending on their transmitting power, be kept at a distance of at least 1 m from cyclotest® while the unit is in use. For correct use your cyclotest® should be kept within reach of your bed when you go to sleep so you can take your temperature in the morning without having to get out of bed and walk around which would begin to raise your Basal Body Temperature (BBT).
17, Can I open the device to see how it works?
Do not under any circumstances open or modify the unit. This is a medical product.
18, I still need some help starting off with my cyclotest®. Who can help me?
Contact us!
Check out the video below to see how easy it is to use Cyclotest 2 Plus!
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Cyclotest is the totally natural way to manage your contraception. Just a few clicks and you can place your order online NOW for your natural contraception solution!
Cyclotest is the totally natural way to manage your contraception. Just a few clicks and you can place your order online NOW for your natural contraception solution!