NFP w/ PCOS?

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Have any of you had any luck/experience w/ NFP w/ PCOS (polycystic ovarian syndrom)? :confused:
I have PCOS and my cycles are WAY off, so I don’t know how well it will work for me. Do any of the classes/books talk about these kind of issues?
I used TCOYF before I got pg w/ #1-but only as a tool to prove I was NOT ovulating… and with breastfeeding and moving so often, I haven’t “gotten around to it” again…
Lame I know…
I would like to know if any of you have any insight. TYIA!!! 👋
 
Welcome! 👋

I personally don’t have any info on PCOS and NFP, but here’s a link to an old thread.

If you do a search on here for PCOS or NFP, you can find a lot of different threads, but the one I linked to above is the one I found that actually addressed the issue specifically. 😃
 
My wife has PCOS and we use NFP. The Couple To Couple League has a section on PCOS on their web page. Check out ccli.org

NFP if done right works with woman that have PCOS. The overall shifts and things still happen just at varying times. The normal course you take does not directly address PCOS and the teacher we had knew very little on the topic, but we have found people at Couple to Couple League “central” very helpful with this.

It was especially hard in our situation due to the fact we started NFP right after we had our first kid and before my wife was diagnosed with PCOS. The close tracking of fertility cycles actually prompted us to goto a doctor to figure out why my wife was sometimes have exteremely long cycles and sometimes normal ones.

Just make sure your OB/GYN is NFP friendly. You will find that non-NFP friendly doctors will just subscribe birth control because it is the easy way.
 
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proudafwife-n-m:
Have any of you had any luck/experience w/ NFP w/ PCOS (polycystic ovarian syndrom)? :confused:
I have PCOS and my cycles are WAY off, so I don’t know how well it will work for me. Do any of the classes/books talk about these kind of issues?
I used TCOYF before I got pg w/ #1-but only as a tool to prove I was NOT ovulating… and with breastfeeding and moving so often, I haven’t “gotten around to it” again…
Lame I know…
I would like to know if any of you have any insight. TYIA!!! 👋
Click to expand...
You should consider training in the Creighton Model of NFP. www.creightonmodel.com and www.fertilitycare.org.
 
Thanks!!! I feel better now! We are going to start looking into classes when we move (USAF family… moving AGAIN!)

Krystin
 
Based on a response I had to give in another thread, I figured it would be good to address it here.

If you have PCOS I highly suggest making sure whichever method you pick for NFP uses more then just mucus readings.

In our own experience going by just mucus readings would have involved an unplanned pregnancy. My wife had the tell-tale mucus changes but didn’t have a thermal shift. Since Couple to Couple league methods (sympto-thermal) cross checks both we continued to abstain. This later proved to be correct.

I haven’t studied all the methods of NFP but in our experience the Couple to Couple method works with PCOS.
 
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Marauder:
In our own experience going by just mucus readings would have involved an unplanned pregnancy.
Click to expand...
Marauder, I’m not sure why you’re so certain that your wife would have become pregnant if you’d used a mucus-only method. (ESP, maybe? 😉 ) First of all, even if a woman ovulates on “day X” (as per the temperature shift), if she doesn’t have fertile-type mucus, she won’t be able to conceive. Ovulation doesn’t always = fertility.

Secondly, it sounds like you were just following the mucus symptom of the STM. This isn’t the same as using a true mucus-only method (e.g. Creighton, Billings, or Family of the Americas). There are significant differences in the rules and observations, which affect the accuracy. So, it’s not really fair to generalize from one to the other.

Anyway, for the original poster, I’d second the recommendation to look into the Creighton method. Dr. Thomas Hilgers, who developed the method, is a nationally renowned expert in PCOS. In fact, in addition to tracking fertility, Creighton charts can also be used to diagnose endocrine disorders and prescribe individualized treatment.

FYI, here are some sample mucus charts from women with abnormal cycles due to PCOS. (These are from the Billings web site. Creighton doesn’t make their materials available online, since their method is exclusively taught by medical professionals.)

woomb.org/omrrca/vigil/fertilityDisorders2.html

Some of these charts would just require a straightforward application of the rules…but I can see how it could get frustrating if you had the last type (“fertile-type” mucus all the time)! :o This is where expert advice could make all the difference.
 
I have PCOS and I use the Creighton method. I have been so blessed by my instructor who is a nurse and is incredibly knowledgeable about PCOS. She has worked very closely with Dr. Hilgers in developing the Creighton method and I am blessed to have her as our instructor. I have come to believe that the Creighton method is a great way to track my total reproductive health. For example, my doctor (also an amazing man who is NFP only) can look at my chart and see how the medicine is working without doing an ultrasound.
I highly reccomend you look into it!
 
I have PCOS and also use the Creighton method. I was diagnosed 13 years ago and for 12 years struggled with all of the problems associated with PCOS- acne, extra hair, plus I only had my period about 1 - 2 times per year. Ugh… My Creighton Doctor was the first one who ever took a look at me and said, “We can fix that.” I had surgery and now have 28 day cycles. Plus my skin has cleared up and the extra hair situation.

If you are looking for NFP for NFP’s sake, any of the methods can definitely work for you. If you are looking for a method that could actually prompt a physician to fix your medical problem, Creighton is the way to go.
 
For those of you with PCOS and using NFP, do you use progesterone or a progestin to induce a bleed if you experience amenorrhea for “X” amount of time? How do you factor this into your NFP charting?

Autumn
 
I have PCOS and posted a thread here a couple months ago. On Saturday, my fiance and I started the classes for the Sympto-Thermal Method. It looks like it will work well for us.
 
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