If you pay enough attention, your menstrual cycle gives you ovulation symptoms.
Ovulation occurs during your menstrual cycle, but many women have no idea what days of the month they can get pregnant, leading many women to confuse ovulation symptoms with pregnancy symptoms or illness.
This article will discuss ovulation pain and other symptoms and answer the question: Can ovulation cause nausea?
Signs of ovulation are not commonly known to women, even though most women know when their menstrual period should be expected each month. The ovulation cycle falls into this cycle each month.
What is ovulation?
Your estrogen levels go up and down throughout the month.
When your estrogen is low, you don’t ovulate. Instead, when your estrogen and progesterone levels are low, your body is already preparing itself for pregnancy by preparing your eggs for release.
When ovulation occurs, your estrogen and progesterone levels are high, and that causes your pituitary gland to release a luteinizing hormone.
As these hormone levels peak, it causes your body to release an egg that can be fertilized. The period in which you can get pregnant is called ovulation, or your fertile window.
Can ovulation cause nausea?
It’s not just pregnancy or your period that can cause nausea.
Nausea during ovulation is one of the more common ovulation symptoms.
Birth control pills can sometimes regulate the hormonal changes that cause nausea during ovulation and other ovulation symptoms.
If you have irregular menstrual cycles or if you are a person who frequently has nausea, you may not notice this slight uptick in nausea during ovulation.
Other signs of ovulation
Your menstrual cycle can result in ovulation symptoms that you can learn to recognize.
This is handy if you are trying to avoid getting pregnant or trying to conceive.
There are many ovulation trackers available online, and many women track ovulation on a regular calendar, but understanding your body and learning to recognize the symptoms of ovulation can sometimes be a better source of knowledge for when you are ovulating.
The following are the other signs of ovulation, aside from nausea during ovulation, that you can learn to recognize when they occur to understand better what point in the ovulation cycle you are.
1. Ovulation pain
If you’ve ever felt an ache or sharp pain that can last anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours and then disappears, there’s a good chance it’s ovulation pain.
Known technically by the term Mittelschmerz, which translates to “middle pain,” this moderate to severe ovulation pain is often over fairly quickly but is often confused for sciatica, menstrual cramping, or a stitch in your side.
It can present as abdominal pain, pain in the lower abdomen, or even lower abdominal pain that shifts or radiates toward your back.
Ovulation typically occurs shortly after this painful ovulation symptom.
The pain you feel is the mature egg moving down where it needs to be for fertilization.
2. More cervical mucus
Cervical mucus changes are common in both pregnancy and ovulation.
When you are ovulating, your cervical mucus is more abundant. The cervical mucus lubricates the sperm that may enter, helping it get to and fertilize the egg.
Many women rely upon cervical mucus amount and consistency to help them know when they are ovulating.
3. Basal body temperature changes
Your basal body temperature is not quite the same as taking your temperature with a thermometer you stick in your mouth, under your armpit, or even in your ear.
The basal body temperature is taken much more sensitively, and even the slightest fluctuations in temperature matter if you are looking for signs of ovulation.
When ovulating, your basal body temperature dips a bit, and your body cools. This is not a massive change, so to accurately track your ovulation in this way, you should write down or record your daily basal body temperature.
Before doing anything, you should also check this temperature first thing in the morning.
Moving around or doing anything can change your temperature slightly, but enough to throw off the numbers you are tracking.
4. Breast tenderness
Breast tenderness is one of those signs of ovulation, menstruation, and a sign of pregnancy.
Much like cervical mucus changes, understanding your body is important. A baseline understanding of your breasts’ sensitivity and how they feel when you are not menstruating or ovulating will help you notice any changes.
Also, like changes in vaginal discharge and cervical fluid, you can gauge when you are in your fertile window based on how tender, swollen, or sensitive your breasts are.
The most challenging part for many women is paying enough attention to their bodies to notice when they are more tender or sensitive.
5. Ovulation bleeding
Ovulation bleeding can be very confusing.
It can be mistaken as the spotting that can occur when your period begins or even implantation bleeding, which can happen when the egg is fertilized.
Ovulation bleeding is usually very light vaginal bleeding that is light pink.
If you start having more than light spotting, you may want to check with your doctor to determine whether you have an underlying issue.
Ovarian cysts can cause bleeding confused with regular periods, ovulation, or implantation bleeding.
6. Dizziness during ovulation
Ovulating women also sometimes have to contend with dizziness before menstruation begins.
A common symptom of many issues regarding ovulation is one of the common symptoms, but it is typically paired with that nauseous feeling that sticks around for a few hours or even a few days.
This can be due to the hormonal imbalance when taking fertility medications or even the hormonal shift that occurs on ovulation day and the days leading up to it.
7. Headaches
That painful sensation that often starts behind the eyes, in the temples, or where your neck meets the base of your head is one of the many annoying signs of ovulation.
If breast soreness, dizzy spells, nausea compared to morning sickness, and light spotting weren’t enough, the headaches that can come with ovulation would have you reaching for the Tylenol in a jiffy.
These usually only last a few hours, but they can be brutal, especially when coupled or combined with other ovulation symptoms.
8. Heightened senses
This one may be a little more tolerable if we all try to convince ourselves that we can have Spiderman-like senses once a month. However, it’s not all that neat.
Women have reported a heightened sense of smell and taste during ovulation.
Normal and not permanent, it’s thought that this occurs because your body is trying to prepare for pregnancy, and a better sense of smell and taste can lead you to eat better foods and stay away from harmful substances.
How long does ovulation nausea last
Every woman is different, but for most women, ovulation nausea typically lasts for up to five days before ovulation occurs.
Suppose you have issues with keeping food down or have a severe loss of appetite due to nausea during ovulation. In that case, you can take anti-nausea medications to stave off the symptoms while your body passes that mature egg to where it needs fertilization.
If you experience nausea during ovulation as the ovary releases the egg, and it gets severe enough to interfere with your day-to-day life, consider contacting your doctor to see if any treatment is available.
Your doctor may suggest getting on birth control that can help to regulate hormonal changes and symptoms such as nausea during ovulation.
Why women track ovulation and ovulation symptoms
You may think that if you don’t have any severe health issues, and you aren’t trying to get pregnant, or even if you want a baby, but are just letting nature take its course, then there’s no point in tracking ovulation.
However, you should consider keeping track of your cycle for several reasons. Knowing when you are ovulating can be as helpful as knowing when to expect your period.
If you have irregular periods, identifying the signs of ovulation can help you predict ovulation. Either use protection or abstain from sex if you don’t want to get pregnant, or stop using protection and have more sex if you are trying to get pregnant.
Having the knowledge that cervical mucus varies during your cycle or that sore breasts, sore nipples, and general breast pain are not just signs of early pregnancy but of ovulation can help you to plan how to navigate your cycle best so that you don’t end up with any surprises.
Also, understanding that abdominal cramps can occur when women ovulate can help determine if the breast pain and cramping you feel is your period, ovulation, or even ectopic pregnancy.
An ectopic pregnancy can be life-threatening, and the symptoms are similar to ovulation or even your period.
Understanding your body and cycle can save your life in this dangerous condition that will never yield a viable pregnancy.
More than just predicting your next period
We put a lot of stock into period and pregnancy symptoms but rarely discuss or look for signs of ovulation. They are just as important, and not learning to recognize a process that our body goes through every single month for many years seems outrageous to many doctors and obstetricians.
Hopefully, this article has helped you to understand the various symptoms that can occur when you ovulate.
Learning about the processes and things your body can experience and go through regularly is the first step in knowing when something is wrong.
Keeping healthy means keeping informed and paying attention to what our bodies are trying to tell us.