Supplements I have tried so far - For shortening my cycle

Estrosmart Plus

This was the first product I tried. At this point, I hadn't really done much research, I had just gotten off the pill. I was out shopping and walked into a health food store just for the hell of it. I told the sales associate that I had just gotten off the pill, and we are currently trying to conceive. She recommended Estrosmart Plus. I took the pills every day for a month. The cycle after I completed the pills was actually "normal" at 28 days.


I didn't continue after the first bottle because I thought I was good to go. These supplements are also quite pricey at $36 a month.

Vitex

Vitex is an herb, that is also known as chasteberry. Vitex is meant to help regulate your hormones. I began taking it because it was one of the ingredients in Estrosmart Plus, and the salesperson at the health food store specifically talked about vitex while selling me the Estrosmart.

A lot of women seem to be taking quite high dosages of Vitex each day. I was only able to find 80mg capsules, as shown above. The directions on the bottle says two pills a day. So with my first bottle, I followed the directions. The only thing I noticed was that my ovulation was a lot later than when I was taking Estrosmart. So I decided to stop taking it all together.

After a few months of not taking any supplements, my ovulation was still after day 20. So I decided to give vitex another shot. Instead of following the directions, this time I followed what other women were doing. Instead of taking two pills a day, I upped it to 320mg per day. So four pills a day. Again, my body didn't change, nothing happened. My ovulation was still really late. In my last month of taking vitex, I started taking it the day my LH (Luteinizing Hormone) spiked. I checked this with a Clearblue OPK, and a dollar store OPK. But instead of ovulation within 48 hours, I didn't actually ovulate until two weeks later! I firmly believe that this was a result of taking vitex. While my cycles are long, they were never THIS delayed. The only thing that changed was the vitex. That cycle was 53 days! After that experience, I stopped taking vitex (again), and I vow to never take it again.

~m