The usual when-did-I-ovulate post

[elettaria]

My charts may be seen here. The question is whether I ovulated on CD15 or CD18. I'm looking mainly at the thermal shift, as my other data aren't too reliable. I have a copper IUD, which means that I get a lot of EW. It always continues for a day or so after ovulation, and may continue throughout my luteal phase. I've only recently begun

Comments

[elettaria]

I looked up the copper/zinc thing last time this was brought up (and spent a day with a copper penny taped to my wrist to check for allergies!), and apart from a couple of posts in that forum where people guessed that their copper IUD was causing X problems, there was no proof anywhere and it seems to be an urban myth. I took extra zinc for a while anyway, until my herbalist pointed out that it was probably what was causing certain symptoms (and she appeared to be right, so I took the zinc back down to RDA levels). IUDs really do release less copper per day than you get from tap water. There's the usual problem when discussing side effects with contraception: anecdotal reports on the internet are often highly skewed, particularly towards the negative (getting info on Cerazette was a nightmare, as the research all said it was wonderful and the posts in forums all said it was horrific), and much of the time women are actually adjusting to coming off their previous method of contraception and/or lifestyle changes.

Unfortunately, even if the IUD does turn out to be causing problems, it's still the only suitable method of contraception for me. About the only possibility would be switching to a GyneFix, which releases a smaller amount of copper and is also frameless, but which is difficult to get inserted as the insertion/removal processes are a bugger and very few doctors will do it, plus I'd have to get them to agree there was a good reason to do so. (The only one in Edinburgh, I believe, is that awful gynae I mentioned above.) That said, it would help to know if it really is causing problems, as that might help in working out how to counteract them. I've been having problems with irritable bladder for a while, I don't know if that could be connected and whether a frameless IUD would help.

I don't know how good research on IUDs actually is. They're the most commonly-used contraceptive worldwide, which doesn't necessarily translate into research, let alone good research. There are a lot of horror stories and urban myths, and even fairly reputable websites will often have completely inaccurate and outdated information, which is one reason why I do treat anecdotal evidence with scepticism. I'm also very cautious about people who chalk everything up to the IUD. I mean, I developed problems with dermatitis a while ago, and if I'd been on that forum I could have been persuaded that it was a copper allergy due to the IUD. As a matter of fact, a localised patch of dermatitis was eventually traced to a change in shampoo, and the problem on my head was diagnosed by a dermatologist as seborrhoeic eczema (which is fungal). Do you have any links to discussions specifically about zinc depletion? All I've been able to find are discussions about copper or nickel allergies, which doesn't apply to me.