Ovia asks you to track a range of symptoms – everything from how your head, breast, and pelvic areas are feeling, to what’s going on in your gut, to your sex drive. These symptoms are not just markers of how you’re feeling physically, they’re also your body’s way of communicating what’s going on inside of you.
How are these symptoms relevant for fertility?
Certain physical symptoms are important indicators of fertility and ovulation. These signs can be a sign of, for example, an upcoming fertile window and ovulation. Symptoms like backaches, cramps, tender breasts, and pelvic pain are common signs of ovulation. For example, when an egg is released from an ovary, some women feel discomfort on that side of their body – this is known as mittelschmerz pain, which is German for “middle pain.” Some women might never feel this, since the physical symptoms that manifest during the different stages of the menstrual cycle can be different for everyone. As you continue to track your unique symptoms, you may notice that other physical symptoms line up with ovulation for you, like getting headaches, or feeling hungrier in the days leading up to ovulation. If you log these symptoms from cycle to cycle, it can help identify patterns that exist for you, which can better clue you into how these physical symptoms correspond to different stages of your cycle.
How do I track these symptoms?
When you go to track your data on the data logging screen, under the “Symptoms” section you’ll find a number of different symptoms listed under different categories: “overall,” “head and neck,” “chest and back,” “stomach/gastrointestinal,” “pelvic area,” “arms and legs,” and “sleep and lifestyle.” Under each of these categories, there are a number of common symptoms you can track. For example, under the “chest and back” category, you can choose from “backaches,” “tender breasts,” or “sore nipples.” You may or may not find it relevant to track something in each category – it really depends on how you’re feeling and what sort of symptoms you’re experiencing on any given day. If you do so every day, you’ll start seeing patterns in your physical symptoms from cycle to cycle.
