An Easy, Chemical-Free Birth Control Option. Daysy Fertility Tracker Review
Hormonal birth control is readily recommended by doctors for a supposedly easy way to decide if and when you are ready to have children. Unfortunately, it is not without side effects…some of which are very long-lasting and even impact our future children and grandchildren. Which is why looking into alternative birth control options is invaluable if you’re sexually active and are not ready to have a child right now.
When I was newly engaged, super excited to be marrying my BFF and planning all things wedding, an obligatory visit to the Ob-Gyn was on the list of pre-wedding to-do’s. I ignorantly thought that as newlyweds, we wouldn’t want to mess with barrier methods so my best option was to get on the pill. I felt super grown-up as I began taking them and was hopeful it would clear up my hormonal breakouts as well. The results were disastrous. And it took me years to realize there were better methods (and to get over the effects of HBC).
In this post, I'm sharing an easy, hormone-free birth control option and will cover:
The Importance of Fertility Tracking and Your 5th Vital Sign
The Symptoms and Side Effects of Hormonal Birth Control
My Experience on Hormonal Birth Control (Pill, Patch, and Vaginal Ring)
How the Daysy Works
An Easier Way to Track Fertility Using the Daysy Fertility Tracker
Final Thoughts on Birth Control and the Daysy Fertility Tracker
So if you’re looking for a way to track your fertility to either avoid pregnancy or to get pregnant that doesn’t have side effects, then you’re in the right place. And you don’t have to suffer through the unwanted effects of hormonal birth control like I did.
The Importance of Fertility Tracking and Your 5th Vital Sign
First of all, let’s talk about periods. The American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology has called menstruation the 5th vital sign. Your period truly reveals so much about your hormonal and overall health, so it’s super important to educate ourselves (and our daughters) about what’s normal, what’s not, and what to do about it.
So even if having a baby, or not having a baby, is not at the forefront of our minds, every woman should be tracking her periods and fertility as a part of overall health awareness. Not in an obsessive way. But as a way to know what’s normal for you and when something’s a bit off with your body. It can clue us into blood sugar, thyroid, and hormone health.
The Symptoms and Side Effects of Hormonal Birth Control
Enter hormonal birth control. A seemingly simple option to prevent pregnancy. But one of the side effects of HBC is removal of your 5th vital sign. Basically hormonal contraceptives like the pill, the patch, or vaginal ring prevent ovulation from occurring and therefore, menstruation. So while there is a bleed happening during the placebo or “off” week, it’s not a true menses but rather a breakthrough bleed from the sudden removal of hormones.
If we don’t have a true menstrual bleed, (plus are taking estrogen) our estrogen levels will continue to increase as menstruation is one way to get rid of estrogen. Excess estrogen, aka estrogen dominance, can look like excess body fat, depression, headaches, thyroid, increased clots, decreased libido, increased blood sugar issues, and an increased risk of cancer.
Here are more of the side effects and symptoms of HBC (read the insert):
Dry nose, chapped lips, vaginal irritation and dryness, blood clotting, stroke, increased or decreased hair growth, increased blood pressure, breast tenderness or enlargement, headaches and migraines, mood swings, decreased sense of overall well-being, bloating, nausea, weight fluctuations, appetite changes…
My Experience on Hormonal Birth Control (Pill, Patch, and Vaginal Ring)
When I first began taking birth control pills (BCP), I honestly didn’t know there were any other good options. And I certainly didn’t know about all of the potential side effects. I naively thought that since I was young and healthy, it wouldn’t negatively affect me.
So when I was 21 and about to get married, I began taking BCP’s. I was excited for my future and upcoming wedding. Unfortunately, almost immediately after beginning the pill, I began having rages. Like out of nowhere I would feel myself bubbling up with the most anger I’ve ever felt. Not because of anything happening around me. I could just be sitting in my dorm room studying when all of a sudden I’d be insanely angry. It’s really amazing my roommate and I are still friends because I’m sure I was acting strange, although I was definitely aware of what was happening so was working hard to keep my emotions in check. It really scared me that at any moment I would lose control and violently lash out at someone.
I reached out to my Ob-Gyn to try something different since that was clearly affecting my emotions in a big way. The next pill I tried didn’t have such a major effect on my emotions, thankfully.
But the next bomb dropped when, in spite of skipping the placebo week of pills in an attempt to skip my “period”, I started bleeding on my wedding day. Nightmare!
And although I hoped it would stop the next day as I took the next pill, it didn’t. So on my honeymoon I got in touch with my Ob-Gyn again. She prescribed estrogen pills to try to stop the bleeding. It didn’t work. What it DID do was make me continue bleeding for an entire month straight. So for the whole first month of my marriage I was bleeding! And not just a little. It was like a full blown period with cramps and all the things that come along with it. I was devastated! But thankfully my sweet new husband was so supportive and we dealt. What else can you do, ya know?
After that month, I continued taking pills cause I didn’t know what else to do. I thought things would regulate now that I was doing the regular cycle again and not trying to skip my period. But I was still having a lot of breakthrough bleeding and just didn’t feel like myself. So I went to another doctor who put me on the patch. I was hopeful my body would like this better.
It didn’t.
In fact, I had an allergic reaction to the patch and broke out in a rashes whenever I used it.
So my doctor put me on the NuvaRing. A vaginal insert laced with hormones. (this grosses me out so much now! I’m appalled that I did this!) Finally, I started feeling a bit more like myself and was bleeding more regularly. I still had all the acne, breast tenderness, and cramps around my bleed. In addition, I had extra cramping between “periods”, vaginal irritation, and unusual discharge (not infection, just from the insert), due to wearing the ring all the time. Ugh!
This was all in my first year of marriage. And I ignorantly thought all this was a normal part of being sexually active! So I stayed on the NuvaRing up until I was ready to start trying to get pregnant a few years later. It took a few months for my periods to regulate and then thankfully, I was able to get pregnant.
I felt so much better when I got off of birth control that I vowed I never wanted to be on that stuff again! I felt like myself again! And what sealed the deal to help me not feel like I needed to get back on HBC was when I was trying to get pregnant and researching how to track ovulation, I came across the book, “Taking Charge of Your Fertility” by Toni Weschler. It really opened my eyes to the signs of fertility and cycle tracking…something I did to achieve pregnancy, but had been told that it wouldn’t be an effective way to keep from getting pregnant. So when I decided to use the method to not only get pregnant but to keep from getting pregnant for a bit of a birth rest after having my first baby, I was unsure about how well it would work. And obviously, since I didn’t have my period for a year after having my baby, I didn’t get to put it to the test for quite awhile.
But then, I finally was able to use the Fertility Awareness Method, track my fertility, and use a backup method (like a condom) when needed. It worked beautifully! And when I was ready for more children, I was able to easily conceive. When I needed a rest between babies, I was able to avoid pregnancy because I knew exactly when I was fertile.
Fast forward to a little over a year ago when I learned about the Daysy Fertility Tracker. A high tech basal body thermometer that has all the tracking and charting built in! You better believe I started checking into how this worked and if it could make tracking my cycle even easier.
How Daysy Works
Basically, the Daysy is a basal body thermometer which tracks your daily temperature and maps out your fertility based on your temperature patterns. Much like what I had been doing, but without having to write anything down. With the Daysy, you use the Daysy Day app on your phone for the charting, so once you take your temperature, you simply sync up the Daysy with your phone and it puts in all your info and charts for you.
Once in the app, you have a calendar view or a line chart view, so it’s really easy to see what your body is doing.
The Daysy thermometer itself is just a cute little unobtrusive thermometer that looks pretty much like any other thermometer so it doesn’t stick out like a sore thumb on your nightstand. Basically every morning when you wake up, you push the button once on the Daysy to turn it on, push it again to take your temperature and wait for the reading. And that’s it! You can then just wait for the Daysy to turn itself off or go ahead and double tap the button to sync it up with the app (stores several days’ worth so in the thermometer itself so doesn’t have to be done daily).
Another cool feature is that when you turn the Daysy on, it will have a light that’s either red, yellow, or green. If you’re fertile, the light will be red meaning you need to either abstain or use a backup method to keep from getting pregnant.
The yellow light means it’s still learning your cycle or your temp is fluctuating a bit so it might be wise to use a backup method just in case. There will be fewer yellow lights the longer you use the Daysy and it gets used to your cycle.
The green light means you aren’t fertile so conception isn’t likely. So no barrier needed during this time.
An Easier Way to Track Fertility Using the Daysy Fertility Tracker
Since I’m a pretty low hassle kind of girl, I was hoping the Daysy would be super simple to use. Confession: I really hadn’t been tracking my cycle all that closely for the past few years since I had a pretty good idea of when I was ovulating based on symptoms plus having previously tracked my fertility in detail. So I was basically doing the lazy/busy girl’s method of fertility tracking. Lol!
When I started using the Daysy, I was happy with how easy it was to use and how it had the app to track my cycle so I didn’t have to write anything down and keep track of it myself. It really was super simple to use - all I had to do was take my temperature first thing when I woke up each day- and made fertility tracking a no-brainer.
I was quite surprised to learn that I wasn’t ovulating the same day I had been in years previous. I knew my cycle length had changed but I didn’t realize just how much my day of ovulation had changed. That was a real eye-opener for me. And while I am still in a good range with cycle length and ovulation day, it really raised my awareness of the fact that my body is aging and things are shifting. Great information to have so I can continue monitoring my hormone health as I navigate perimenopause and menopause in the coming years.
One thing I don’t personally love is that all the info has to be looked at on the Daysy Day app so I can’t actually see my temperature unless I open the app and sync up the thermometer. The only thing visible on the thermometer itself are the red, green, or yellow lights showing if you’re fertile or not. I would really love if I could see my temp without having to log into the app each time. Which is something that the Lady Comp (made by the same people as Daysy) does since it’s not app-based. I almost got the Lady Comp for that very reason, but in the end, the lower cost won out. Plus I love the low profile of the Daysy and how it looks like a regular thermometer, so it’s easier to be discreet.
As far as accuracy, the Pearl index for these fertility trackers (Daysy, Pearly, and LadyComp) is about 0.7 which means it is 99.36% accurate and there’s less than a 1% chance of getting pregnant when used correctly. There are more studies in the works to double-check that accuracy, but I can attest to the fact that if you are using these devices, know your cycle, and use a backup method or abstain from intercourse on fertile days, there really isn’t going to be much of a chance of pregnancy unless the backup method fails.
Price-wise, it’s way less than buying monthly birth control or condoms for constant use. I’ve had my Daysy for over a year with no problem and know other women who have had theirs for 5-6 years and they’re still going strong. So at $299 divided over say, 5 years, that’s only about $5/month. (Plus, I have a discount code for you for 10% off, so even better!)
It also qualifies as a medical expense so you can use your HSA to pay for it.
I haven’t personally used the Lady Comp or Pearly which are the non-app-based fertility trackers from the same company. They’ve actually been around a lot longer than the Daysy so there have been more studies done on them. If you’re more interested in those, they cost $495 and $375 respectively. (10% off with my discount code!)
Final Thoughts on Birth Control & the Daysy Fertility Tracker
If I had it to do over, I would have done a lot more research and never have gotten on chemical birth control in the first place. I would most definitely have used the Daysy Fertility Tracker had it been available then! Perhaps my first month of marriage would have been a lot smoother in that department.
I want this for you too! Hormone imbalance sucks! And being on hormonal birth control or just not knowing what’s going on with your body is something no woman (or her husband) should have to deal with. As my husband likes to say, “Happy wife, happy life.” (to which I always respond, “Happy husband, happy lusband”…though it doesn’t quite have the same ring to it. Lol!)
Thankfully, there is a lot more awareness now and some great options to make fertility tracking super simple and effective for either achieving or avoiding pregnancy. While you could for sure use a basal thermometer and pen and paper to track your cycles, the Daysy is such an affordable and sleek option, it really is a no-brainer for not only tracking your fertility, but keeping track of your hormone and overall health easily and effectively.
So if you’re sick of the side effects of birth control and could use a simple way to track your cycles, I’d highly recommend getting the Daysy Fertility Tracker for it’s reliability, ease of use, and cost effectiveness.
Click through my link below to get 10% off a Daysy!
Note: For educational purposes only. Not to take the place of or be taken as medical advice.
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