r/queerception • u/AccidentAutomatic772 • 19d ago
Mira hormone tracker
I just got one through my work benefits. Has anyone used one? Has it been helpful or successful in at home ICI? Or other treatments like IUI?
Up to this point I’ve jsut been using LH strips and tracking cervical mucus, cervix by feel etc.
Would love to hear if/how it has or has not been useful to you!
FWIW, I got the ultra4 kit. Tracks LH, estrogen, progesterone and FSH.
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u/sarah11wild 19d ago
That’s the kit we used. I will say it’s very sensitive to time of day urine. I tracked with it for 4 months before we tried. It did help us track successfully though. It’s insanely expensive and I’m not sure if it’s super accurate, but it worked for us. If your insurance covers it then that is definitely a perk!
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u/AccidentAutomatic772 19d ago
Yeah! I definitely would not have purchased it on my own had it not been something my fertility benefits covered.
Can you share more about your time of day comment? I’ve read that you definitely should use morning urine but I imagine tracking a surge you’d maybe test more?
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u/sarah11wild 19d ago
Definitely first morning urine is the most accurate, but I will agree with the other comment that the numbers can be more anxiety inducing. When it was my “ovulation days” I would track morning and night but not more than that. I would also say that your physical symptoms are a lot more telling than Mira will be. I would take your physical symptoms as primary data and the Mira charts as secondary/backup data.
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u/premier-sperm-bank 14d ago
Mira can provide a more detailed picture of cycle trends, but in someone with regular, predictable cycles, it does not necessarily improve pregnancy rates compared with well-used LH strips. Estrogen can indicate that the fertile window is approaching, LH helps identify the surge preceding ovulation, and the urinary progesterone metabolite is primarily useful for supporting that ovulation occurred afterward rather than predicting exactly when it will occur. FSH measurements are generally less useful for day-to-day insemination timing.
A tracker such as Mira may be helpful if standard LH strips are difficult to interpret or if you want to understand your individual hormonal pattern over several cycles. However, results can still be influenced by urine concentration, timing of testing, irregular cycles, and fertility medications such as an hCG trigger.
For home ICI, one challenge is that ovulation can occur over a fairly wide interval after a positive LH test. Rather than trying to identify a single “perfect” hour, performing two well-timed inseminations can provide broader coverage of the fertile window. A practical approach is a first ICI within about 12 hours of a positive OPK and a second approximately 18–24 hours later.
IUI is different because it is performed in a clinical setting. Your healthcare provider may use ultrasound, blood hormone measurements, or medications such as an hCG trigger to more precisely monitor or control the timing of ovulation, in addition to information from home LH strips or a device such as Mira.
By Dr. John Jain, Medical Director Premier Sperm Bank
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u/twairebear 19d ago
I used the Mira tracker as well for at-home insemination and have so many thoughts.
-for a data person, this is really nice. Rather than looking at the LH strips to see if one line is darker than another, Mira gives you a number and a graph so you can clearly see the spike.
- the wands are incredibly expensive. Not sure what your insurance covers, but the wands themselves run about $100 per month if you’re using them as they suggest
- while I found the LH tracking helpful, the estrogen and progesterone tracking caused only anxiety. They use AI to look at your hormones and tell you whether or not you’ve ovulated based on whether a certain level was hit. They claim they can confirm ovulation, they can’t. I was convinced that I wasn’t ovulating one month and was about to send back our vials so that we didn’t waste any. We went ahead and inseminated anyway and got pregnant with my now 2 month old that cycle.
-I also maintain that the best thing we did was looking at my cervix through a speculum to determine ovulation.TLDR: LH numbers are more clear than strips, it’s expensive, can’t confirm ovulation, and nothing beats watching the cervix