Content table
Trying to get pregnant and wondering: Why am I getting so many positive ovulation tests?
Seeing a positive ovulation test 7 days in a row may leave you confused or concerned. But in all reality, it’s a pretty common phenomenon.
There are actually quite a few underlying reasons for so many consecutive positives on your ovulation tests.
The main culprits could be: your LH surge type, medications you’re on, or a recent pregnancy. It could also be a sign of a hormonal condition like PCOS.
Try your best not to worry though. We’re spilling all the details on getting multiple positive results leading up to ovulation.
Takeaways
How many days have your ovulation tests been positive? | Why this may happen… |
2 days | This is normal. LH can stay high for 24-36 hours after the initial rise; medications or pregnancy can also affect OPK results |
3 days | This is normal. LH can stay high for 24-36 hours after the initial rise; medications or pregnancy can also affect OPK results |
4 days | You may have a gradual LH surge; this is normal. You could also have PCOS (a diagnosed condition). Medications or pregnancy can also affect OPK results. |
5 days | You may have a gradual LH surge; this is normal. You could also have PCOS (a diagnosed condition). Medications or pregnancy can also affect OPK results.You may have a gradual LH surge or PCOS |
6 days | You may have a gradual LH surge; this is normal. You could also have PCOS (a diagnosed condition). Medications or pregnancy can also affect OPK results.You may have a gradual LH surge or PCOS |
7 days | You may have a gradual LH surge; this is normal. You could also have PCOS (a diagnosed condition). Medications or pregnancy can also affect OPK results.You may have PCOS or another condition |
- Seeing a positive ovulation test line for several days is not unusual. This is because for some women, rising LH levels will span the course of 2 – 6 days.
- A gradual-onset LH pattern, PCOS, pregnancy, and certain medications could all cause you to get a positive LH test line for multiple days.
- If you have a gradual LH surge pattern, it’s a good idea to add another tracking method to predict ovulation. This could be tracking your CM or BBT or using a more comprehensive fertility monitor like Inito.
- If you’re taking a fertility medication or you’ve had a recent pregnancy loss (or delivery), you could also get a false positive test stick. If that’s the case, connect with your doctor about your next steps.
- If LH testing and ovulation tracking feel overwhelming for you, you’re not alone. Join the Inito Facebook group for moral support while trying to get pregnant.
What causes a positive LH/ovulation test?
At-home ovulation tests work by detecting the amount of luteinizing hormone (LH) in your urine.
On analog ovulation predictor kits (OPKs), a line that’s as dark or darker than the control line is considered positive. This level of darkness would mean that you have a high amount of LH in your urine at the time of the test.
For most OPKs, your LH levels need to be 20 – 40 mIU/mL or higher in order to show a positive result. When you do test positive, ovulation is likely just around the corner! You can expect to ovulate about 24-36 hours after detecting your LH surge.
But here’s the thing most women don’t realize about ovulation testing…
Not everyone’s LH surges in the same pattern. In fact, more than half of cycles don’t have a single LH surge pattern. Learn more about what we mean in the next two sections!
How long does an ovulation test normally stay positive?
“Normal” is a tricky word in the fertility world. When it comes to ovulation testing, there are a few common types of LH surge patterns. So determining what’s “normal” for you will depend on which LH surge type you have.
If you have a short surge (aka rapid-onset surge), then you may see a positive OPK for only a day or two.
If you have a gradual-onset surge type though, the pattern may look a bit different. Sounds a bit complex, we know! But if you want to truly get to the bottom of this… Why would ovulation tests show high fertility multiple days in a row?
Keep reading. In the next section, we’ll break down all the reasons that this could happen, and it will all start to make more sense.
Know more: LH Levels & Surges: What Does a ‘Normal’ LH Level Look Like?
Reasons you could get positive ovulation test results 7 days in a row
There are four major reasons this can happen:
1. LH surge type
As mentioned, there are a variety of possible LH surge types you could have. With gradual LH surges, you’re likely to get positive results on your LH tests for multiple days. This is because your levels of luteinizing hormone (LH) are lingering above the threshold levels of the ovulation test you’re using.
In the early days of LH testing, it was thought that the normal pattern for LH surges was a rapid surge. But now we know that gradual surges are common too. In fact, in a study of 43 women, 57.1% of them had a gradual LH surge.
Another study that followed 281 cycles found that the average LH surge length was 4.8 days. And for some women, it was even up to 16 days long.
The gradual-onset surge types below could all cause positive OPKs for 2 days up to a week or more.
Plateau LH surge
In a plateau surge, your LH rises and then stays high for several days. This surge pattern is seen in about 11% of cycles.
Read more: What Does a Faint Line On An Ovulation Test Mean?
Double LH surge
A double LH surge happens when your LH levels spike two times in one menstrual cycle. If your LH levels stay relatively high between these two spikes, you could get positive OPKs a few consecutive days.
While this may sound concerning, it’s really rather normal. About 33% of cycles have a double surge.
Multiple LH surges
Multiple LH surges are similar to a double surge. But instead of having two LH peaks, you would see more than two spikes.
This is a little less common, but in some cases (not all) it can still be normal. Up to 8% of cycles are a multiple LH surge.
Read more: Two LH Surges a Week Apart: What Does it Mean?
2. PCOS
Another reason you could see a positive LH test for 7 days or more is if you have polycystic ovary syndrome. PCOS is a hormonal condition that nearly 13% of reproductive-aged women experience.
One of the hallmarks of this condition is consistently high levels of luteinizing hormone. In fact, almost 60% of women with PCOS are considered to have LH hypersecretion. This is a fancy term that means their bodies produce LH in excess.
One reason this may happen is that many women with PCOS have hyperandrogenism. With hyperandrogenism, increased levels of male sex hormones can alter the sensitivity of your hypothalamus (a part of your brain that regulates hormone production). And as a result, your pituitary gland will produce extra LH.
So when your LH levels are higher for this reason, you could see multiple positive LH tests. But those positive OPKs don’t actually mean that you’re about to ovulate.
Know more: Using Ovulation Tests With PCOS: Can You Trust the Accuracy?
3. Pregnancy
Can continuous positive ovulation test mean pregnancy? Oddly enough, several positive OPKs could mean you’re pregnant. (Or that you were recently pregnant). So wacky, right? But stick with us on this one…
Structurally speaking, LH and human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) are very similar. Both of them have an alpha and beta subunit, and their beta subunits are nearly identical.
So if you’re using an OPK that measures beta LH (and many do), it could mistake hCG for LH. This would cause you to get false positives.
Even if you’re not currently pregnant, residual hCG from a recent miscarriage or delivery could cause a false positive LH test.
Know more: False Positive on an Ovulation Test: 6 Reasons They Happen
4. Medication
A final reason for seeing positive LH tests for 3 days or longer is if you’re taking certain medications.
Many medications prescribed for fertility treatments can cause changes to your hormone levels.
Some of these medications include:
- Clomiphene citrate – used to treat anovulation or irregular menstrual cycles
- hCG trigger shot – used to help induce ovulation
- Menotropins – used to stimulate multiple mature eggs
- Danazol – used in treating conditions like endometriosis and fibrocystic breast disease
When you’re on any of these meds, your natural LH levels may be affected. And of course, this could give you false positive LH results. A few other drugs that also could mess with LH testing are steroids, NSAIDs, and hormonal birth control.
Are you on any of these medications? Talk to your doctor about the best plan of action for tracking your ovulation.
As you’re probably experiencing firsthand, getting multiple positive LH tests can make predicting your peak fertility a bit tricky. So let’s go over a plan for what you can do about it.
What should I do if I keep getting positive LH tests?
If you’ve been getting positive OPKs for several days, here’s what we suggest you do!
Reason for positive LH tests | Suggested action plan |
Gradual LH surge | If you’re using OPKs, add an additional tracking method. This could include tracking your basal body temperature (BBT) or cervical mucus (CM). Better yet, use a more robust fertility monitor like Inito. It can also help you track your fertility hormones, and hormone trends, and figure out what kind of LH surge you have. And since it also measures PdG (urine metabolite of progesterone), you’ll be able to actually confirm if you ovulated. |
PCOS | If you have PCOS, unfortunately, OPKs won’t be very reliable for you. But that doesn’t mean you can’t track ovulation! Again, a fertility monitor like Inito will tell you if and when you are actually ovulating. It will also help you keep better tabs on your fertile window. |
Pregnancy | Take a home pregnancy test to confirm if you’re pregnant or not. You could even ask your doctor to order you a blood pregnancy test. A blood test will give the exact value of hCG in your blood. This could help to tell whether you’re pregnant or potentially having a miscarriage. |
Medication | If you’re on any meds that may cross-react with LH, ask your doctor about how to best track ovulation. |
Not sure which of these reasons is the culprit for your many positive LH tests? It’s probably best to make an appointment with your doctor to see what’s going on.
FAQs
Yes, this is totally normal! Luteinizing hormone can surge in several different patterns. For some, LH will surge fairly quickly over the course of a day. But for others, LH could surge gradually over the course of 2 – 6 days. In this case, you could see positive LH tests for multiple days.
No, it simply means that your LH levels remain high for those several days. Regardless of how long your LH surge is, your fertile window is about 6 days long. This window has to do with how long the sperm and egg can each survive in the female reproductive tract. Sperm can live for up to 5 days there. But an egg can only last 12 – 24 hours once released. That’s why your fertile window includes the 4 days before ovulation as well as the day of and after ovulation.
It could be from having a gradual-onset LH surge type. This is when LH levels either plateau or spike more than once over several days. (This is completely normal by the way). Fertility medications, PCOS, and recent pregnancy can also lead to LH levels that stay high.
This may be a sign that you have PCOS or another hormonal condition. Or, if you’re new to using ovulation tests, first check to make sure that you are using them correctly.
Ovulation tests aren’t as straightforward as pregnancy tests. Remember, for an ovulation test to be considered positive, the test line needs to be darker than (or as dark as) the control line. If you’re confident that you’re using them correctly and still have concerns though, talk to your doctor.
It could be. Since hCG and LH are similar in structure, sometimes they cross-react on a test strip. So it’s possible that if you’re pregnant, your ovulation test could mistake the hCG for LH and get a positive result. It really depends on the brand of your OPK.
Was this article helpful?
- Detection of ovulation, a review of currently available methods – PMC
- Relationships between the luteinizing hormone surge and other characteristics of the menstrual cycle in normally ovulating women – Fertility and Sterility
- Polycystic ovary syndrome
- Frontiers | Role of luteinizing hormone elevation in outcomes of ovulation induction with letrozole for polycystic ovary syndrome
- Mechanism of elevated LH/FSH ratio in lean PCOS revisited: a path analysis | Scientific Reports
+2K others have already subscribed
+2K subscribers
