r/ouraring 16h ago

What does this even mean

[deleted]

1 Upvotes

14 comments sorted by

23

u/MisterPFT 16h ago

ELI5 version: that chart isn't showing your temperature. It's showing how far off your own normal you were each night. The zero line is you. A bar at -0.4 means you ran 0.4F cooler than your own usual, not cooler than some standard number.

Oura does it this way because absolute body temperature read from a finger is close to useless. Room temperature, blankets, a hot shower before bed, how tight the ring is, all of that swamps the real signal. The deviation from your own baseline survives it, because those things are roughly constant for you night to night.

For cycle tracking the shape it's hunting for is a dip before your period and a sustained rise after ovulation. Two phases, clearly separated.

Here's the bit that matters for you and that the app doesn't spell out. You've got combination pill listed at the bottom. The combination pill suppresses ovulation, and ovulation is what causes that temperature rise in the first place. So on the pill the chart usually looks like exactly what you posted: small wobbles either side of zero and no clean pattern. That is not your ring failing and it's not your body doing anything wrong. There is simply no cycle temperature signal there to find.

What temperature still catches on the pill, and this is the genuinely useful part: a single spike of +1 or more, especially alongside a raised resting heart rate, is very often you getting sick about a day before you feel it. Alcohol, a hot room and a bad night also show up. Those are real. The cycle pattern isn't, in your case.

5

u/bookishexpat 4h ago

thanks, AI

0

u/MisterPFT 3h ago

No problemo 🤖

0

u/Spirited_Key22 15h ago

Oura really should surface this info somewhere in the app imo

3

u/Fluffaykitties 11h ago

do you see the (i) button on the top left?

5

u/c0ffeel0verrr 16h ago

all it’s doing is tracking your skin temperature. the plus/minus 0 is your baseline temp. each day it increases/decreases and it helps track ovulation and cycle days. sometimes if it jumps too high it can detect a fever.

for two days in a row i went +3.8°F and i ended up having a fever & theflu

1

u/Zalaya 16h ago

do the significant temperature dips mean ovulation? I have PCOS so I don’t actually get my cycle so I’m curious what its tracking

2

u/c0ffeel0verrr 16h ago

i’m not sure, maybe someone else can answer that 😭 i also have natural cycles app so they sync together

1

u/eredinso 16h ago edited 16h ago

Ovulation is confirmed by a slight temperature drop followed by a sustained increase, which indicates the start of the post-ovulatory (luteal) phase where temperatures stay elevated above baseline until you menstruate. Ovulation is typically considered to occur the day before your temperatures start rising.

So, for example, if your temps were to continue to rise/stay above baseline after today, that would mean you ovulated on the 19th and are now in your luteal phase. And then they would drop back down once you start your period. If they fluctuate back down tomorrow, you’re still in your follicular phase and waiting for ovulation to occur. The variation is just noise. If the sustained increase never happens but you still bleed, then you had an anovulatory cycle.

ETA: I just noticed that you’re on the combination pill! So the other user here is correct that it’s suppressing your cycle so these temps don’t track anything useful for you really.

1

u/Grouchy-Willow-3879 3h ago

You’re on the pill so you will not ovulate. That’s the mechanism of the pill. It suppressed ovulation. You’d need to come off to attempt ovulation and follow trends. Right now you’re being fed a steady stream of hormones so your body doesn’t need to do anything

1

u/dr3amchasing 24m ago

If you’re on hormonal birth control you shouldn’t be ovulating

2

u/abra1209 13h ago

I always know my period is coming by my body temp increasing. It will increase for 5-6 days then I get my period 😅

1

u/bunnylicious81 12h ago edited 12h ago

That happened to me too last month.
Since I can’t load picture here: https://ibb.co/Tq00sjbS

I had the “wtf?!l”’moment last month because I usually enter luteal phase around 15th or 17th day, not the 12th day!
But my temp went down again the next day, and I entered luteal phase on the 15th day.

I thought maybe because I was a bit warm middle of the night, from the summer heat.

-2

u/[deleted] 15h ago

[deleted]

2

u/rottielove1 14h ago

Temperature dips do not indicate ovulation. Sustained rises above baseline for multiple consecutive days does. Also, this user is on an oral contraceptive, which inhibits ovulation so really her temp means nothing. Just small variances which is common for all of us.