Cycle

Cycle tracks your menstrual cycle and connects it to your lab results. Log your periods and HealthViewer works out cycle lengths, predicts your next period, estimates phases, and shows the cycle day next to every result drawn while you were tracking.

Hormones such as progesterone, estradiol, LH and FSH read very differently depending on the cycle day, and routine tests such as iron, cholesterol and CRP shift with the cycle too. See Your cycle shows up in your labs for the background.

What You’ll See

• Status — the current cycle day, the estimated phase, and when your next period is expected. Click Log today to record today.
• Worth mentioning to your doctor — appears only when your log shows a pattern such as cycles shorter than 21 days or longer than 38 days, periods lasting more than 8 days, widely varying cycle lengths, repeated spotting between periods, or a long time since your last logged period. These are patterns in what you logged, not a diagnosis.
• Calendar — logged period days, the predicted next period, and optionally the estimated fertile window.
• Cycle history — a chart and table of past cycles with their lengths and period lengths.

Logging a Day

Click any day on the calendar, including past days, to record:

• Bleeding — flow level, including spotting
• Symptoms — quick toggles such as cramps, headache, bloating, fatigue and mood changes
• Ovulation test (LH) — positive or negative
• Basal temperature
• Notes — free text

A cycle starts on the first day of bleeding. To get useful predictions and phases, log at least the start of each period. Filling in older periods from memory or another app works too.

Settings

• Luteal days — the number of days from ovulation to your next period, used to place ovulation and the phases. Most people are 12 to 14. If your positive LH tests suggest a different number, HealthViewer uses that instead.
• Show cycle phases — follicular, ovulation and luteal phases are estimates counted back from the next period. They are hidden automatically when your cycles are irregular or there isn’t enough history.
• Show estimated fertile window on the calendar — an estimate from your history only. It is not a method of contraception.
• Show cycle day and phase on lab results and trend charts — turns on the lab connections described below.

Pauses

Add a pause for a span when periods aren’t expected: pregnancy, postpartum, hormonal contraception, or another reason. Cycles that overlap a pause are left out of your statistics and predictions, and results drawn during a pause are labeled as paused.

In Cycle history you can also exclude any individual cycle from the statistics, for example one you logged incompletely. Cycles longer than 180 days are excluded automatically as a probable gap in the log.

How Cycle Connects to Your Labs

Lab results — open a result drawn while you were tracking and it shows the cycle day, the cycle length, and the estimated phase. For tests that vary with the cycle (progesterone, estradiol, LH, FSH, prolactin, iron studies, cholesterol, CA-125 and others) a short note explains how that test changes across the cycle.

Trends — click Cycle in the Trends toolbar. In Timeline mode, logged period days are shaded behind each chart and the predicted next period is outlined. Hover any point to see the cycle day and phase it was drawn on.

Export — the Export page offers a separate Download cycle log file with each logged day, its cycle day and phase, in the format and date range you choose.

Medications — record hormonal contraception in Medications so its start and stop dates appear on your trend charts, and add a matching pause here.

Hiding Cycle Tracking

Click the hide button at the top of the Cycle page, or use Settings → Navigation, to remove Cycle from the sidebar. While it’s hidden, cycle details also stay off the dashboard, lab results, trend charts and export, which is useful on a shared screen. Hiding it never deletes your data.

Tips

• At every blood draw, make sure the first day of your last period is logged. Afterward you can always tell which phase a result came from.
• For tests you repeat to follow a trend (lipids, iron, hs-CRP), use the cycle day on past results to schedule the next draw at a similar point in your cycle.
• A single surprising result drawn during your period is a reason to repeat the test at another point in the cycle.