Birth Control for Hormone Stabilization: A Research Thread

That’s interesting. I hate that it’s so frustrating!

So you need more basal than you used to, but your single basal dose works through your entire cycle? Is that correct?

I’m not entirely sure yet. I increased my basal about 4 days before the last week of the Nuvaring. Now I’m a couple days into the first week of the Nuvaring, and I haven’t had to decrease the dose yet.

While the increase is certainly correlated with my cycle, I’m not convinced that it was caused by it. I expected some nighttime lows or downward trend lines indicating that I needed to lower my dose again during the first week of the Nuvaring cycle. As those have not occurred, I’m now thinking the increase was unrelated to my cycle.

I did need a 1 unit increase for the last week of the Nuvaring in my last cycle though, so who knows. I’m about ready to blame the moon for the whole thing :rofl:

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Does anyone know anything about the cycle tracking watch called Ava? Website is avawomen.com. You wear it nightly and it supposedly tracks your estrogen rise prior to ovulation and the additional subsequent rise of progesterone. On the one hand it sounds like snake oil, but on the other hand I don’t see the harm in trying it out to see how accurate the app tracker/watch combo are aside from cost. We don’t seem to have many tools to try so I’m willing to give anything a go to see what it does.

The screenshot of the calendar on that tracker looks nearly identical to the screen in the new Fitbit cycle tracking feature:

I’ve only been using the Fitbit feature for a month and a bit, but so far it seems quite accurate already.

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No blaming the moon.

It’s official. I need 1-2 units more basal for the last 1.5 weeks of my cycle and the first .5 weeks of my cycle.

I decreased my basal dose yesterday by 1 unit, and I decreased it by an additional unit today. I expect to encounter lows during the night tonight because of how long Tresiba works and the patterns I’ve seen over the course of today.

Thanks for posting all this info about hormones and basal rates @T1Allison. It’s really helping me dial in my basal rates at different times of the month. I don’t see the insulin sensitivity changes in bolus doses that others are describing, but my basal rates definitely need a small adjustment.

My average and standard deviation over the last 30 days are better than they’ve ever been. Can’t thank you enough!! :heart::heart:

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I don’t even have a cycle and I pretty regularly need increases - decreases of that sort throughout any given month. I’m just a dude so I can’t really relate truly but I’m wondering if in some cases there are random patterns (which we all have to some and varying extents) that get mentally assigned to that consideration

I love it! It makes me so happy that collaboration and individual tracking are helping decode the “why” and the “how” for best biological basal rate practices for you.

Your posts about your experiences with Nuvaring helped me realize several key things that have helped my self-care immensely. FUDding for the win!! :raised_hands::raised_hands:

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Maybe. In my case, I think cyclical hormones have much more to do with it due to the consistent timing and repetition of what I’m seeing each cycle.

Today, nothing was working as planned. I hadn’t felt what I would normally feel to indicate ovulation (cramping) but the timing seemed close. I went ahead and eeked in an extra 10% basal and suddenly my fasting numbers went back to a nice 110 flat line and my dinner bolus worked like a charm (whereas routine breakfast had been a lingering 250 disaster even with a stout pre-bolus time). It’s oddly comforting and worrying to me that such a small change makes such a huge difference.

But I wouldn’t be surprised if other things could affect even male basal rates on a recurring basis, but I have no idea what that would be (outside of seasonal changes) or how to track it.

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@T1Allison, @Katers87, do you think that it might make sense to write a wiki that summarizes your experience with Nuvaring? Or possibly a thread focused on Nuvaring experience, consolidating all the info gained?

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I’m all for it. I think @Katers87’s more recent experience is super super helpful, but I’m happy to throw in my recollection and comparison to bg without Nuvaring.

I also need to get back to my Wiki project on the female survey. It’s been collecting dust due to life happenings lately! :grinning:

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Yes, I think that would be a good idea. I can draft something up in the next week. I’ll send it to you in a message @T1Allison, and you can add to it before we post it :slight_smile:

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