Welcome to the umpteenth article you’ve read about LH surge and Ovulation. Perhaps you’ve been trying to answer that ONE question that has been whizzing through your brain at supersonic speed: When do you ovulate after an LH surge?
You’ll be relieved to hear that you ovulate in about 24 to 36 hours after an LH surge!
That simple, huh? You don’t have to read tons of text to get what you’re looking for. The answer is right there.
But if you want to know all about the luteinizing hormone, including how to track an LH surge, then you may want to read the whole blog.
Luteinizing hormone is a fertility hormone that starts your fertility window. Although your LH levels remain steady during your cycle, they seem to jump up right before you ovulate!
Now, that period when there is a sudden surge in LH is called the follicular phase. The follicles in this phase grow bigger and prepare to release an egg.
Thanks to the high level of LH, one of these follicles releases its egg during your cycle, causing ovulation.
There’s a critical event that happens when you ovulate. That released egg advances down your fallopian tube.
If there is a sperm nearby to fertilize it within 24 hours, it will move into your womb, where it attaches and develops into a baby.
If this doesn’t happen, “lady red” (also known as your period) comes visiting once again.
Typically, an LH surge lasts for two days. You should note the span of your LH surge before your ovulation. This goes a long way in timing sex when you are most fertile.
LH isn’t the only hormone that predicts when your ovulation will happen. For a fact, estrogen triggers the beginning of your fertile window. After about two days, your ovulation begins.
Most women experience their ovulation within 24 to 36 hours after an LH surge. However, once your ovulation is over, the LH falls back to its original level before you ovulate.
Speaking of your LH level, there is a range that your LH level maintains during the follicular phase, which is from 1.9 to 14.6 IU/L.
After the surge, your body shifts to the luteal phase. Here, your LH level is between 0.7 and 12.9 IU/L.
Now, look at the exciting part. During the LH surge, your hormone ranges between 12.2 IU/L and 118.0 IU/L!
Not only is tracking your level of luteinizing hormone essential but choosing the proper methods is too.
Below, we will briefly explain three common ways that you can use to track your LH surges.
Asides from LH tests, you might want to try out other tests to confirm that you ovulated, like:
Well, it depends. Yes, a spike in your luteinizing hormone shows that you have a high chance of ovulating. However, there is still a tiny chance that you may not ovulate. This could be because of different health issues that are peculiar to people like PCOS where baseline LH levels are usually high.
You may think your LH levels remain high even when you’re pregnant, considering all you have read.
But no, it doesn’t. The LH level in your body drops immediately after your ovulation and remains low during pregnancy (less than 1.5 IU/L).
Even though LH levels fluctuate throughout a woman’s menstrual cycle, the typical range during your period is 5 – 25 IU/L.
These fertility monitors make sure you can quickly check and track your hormones, particularly fertility hormones in your body. Some of them come with an app that you can download to your device.
When you have all you need, then you can start testing for your LH surge!
