I am always so impressed by my many readers over the years who have shared with me ways in which they have been able to diagnose medical issues through charting their cycles. I’ve chosen just one for now, but will share more in the future.

A couple of weeks ago, Kisha wrote me that she had a miscarriage at eight weeks, but had to have a manual vacuum procedure following it. The day after the procedure, she resumed charting her temps which remained high before plummeting to her pre-ovulatory temps. She was relieved, because she thought she was already back on track. Moving forward, she experienced all of the classic signs of an ovulatory cycle, but instead of getting her period when her temps dropped at the end of her cycle, there was nothing. She was obviously confused, but decided to continue charting. Once again, she had a classic ovulatory cycle, but again, when her temps dropped at the end of the cycle, she didn’t bleed.

When she expressed concern that she hadn’t yet gotten her period, her doctor assured her that some women just take more time to resume cycling following a miscarriage. She wasn’t satisfied with that explanation though, because her charts were clearly reflecting that she had resumed ovulating.

Sure enough, after a lot of persuasion, she convinced her doctor to do some testing, upon which she learned that she had developed Asherman’s Syndrome, a condition in which bands of scar tissue develop inside the uterus or cervix, in her case from having had the vacuum procedure. The adhesions prevented her period from being released.

What Kisha’s story confirms is that women who chart have the added benefit of not only following their gut, but providing evidence to support their requests to have diagnostic tests when things seem amiss. In her case, early intervention prevented further scarring. She is now healing, and hopefully, will be able to get pregnant again soon.