How to Know When to Mark a Questionable Temp as Disturbed
A big part of BBT charting is about collecting data. At Fertility Knowledge Collective, we teach our own multi-symptom method that includes basal body temperature (a progesterone sign) along with cervical mucus and hormone testing protocols.
With fertility charting robust enough for avoiding pregnancy, you need reliable, trustworthy data to be able to accurately interpret your chart. And we’re conscious that not everyone’s lives are lived in a vacuum. There are going to be times where temperatures are potentially unreliable. So how do we actually distinguish that from your true undisturbed baseline?
At FKC, we define a temp that is unreliable data by marking it as Disturbed on the chart. At FKC, we teach four ways to recognize a Disturbed temp: Unexplained Outlier, Shift Fallback, Missing, and Questionable.
In this article, we want to talk specifically about Questionable temps.
A Questionable temp is a temp with a known reason to suspect the data is unreliable. Basically, a temp where a known event or circumstance (alcohol, travel, illness, broken sleep, device issues, etc.) gives reason to suspect the recorded value may not reflect your true resting temperature.
It seems straightforward enough to just mark all Questionable temps as Disturbed, right? Yet, the tricky part is that not everyone's temps are affected the same way by the same events, and too many temps on your chart flagged as Disturbed can mean that you don’t have enough usable data to confirm ovulation. That’s not a functional chart.
So, how do you know if you should mark your Questionable temp as Disturbed or not?
Here's how we recommend teaching about Questionable temps to your students:
When cross checking, a Questionable temp is typically going to have BOTH a reason and be an outlier from both neighboring temps.
Here’s how to do it.
Marking Questionable Temps as Disturbed in Retrospect
In practice, when you suspect a Questionable temp, only make a note on the chart and then wait and see if the pattern shows that temp to be an outlier. Only mark a Questionable temp as Disturbed in retrospect, once you can see from the temp pattern that it is an outlier.
When You Have Consecutive Disturbed Days
If you have multiple consecutive days of a possible disturbance event, look for a pattern of the group of days being an outlier from the surrounding normal days. If there is no significant deviation from days within your normal temp range, then there is no need to mark it Disturbed, just add a note (drinking, traveling, etc) and keep it as a usable temp.
When Disturbed Temps Matter
Also, it’s really only necessary to mark temps as Disturbed during the fertile window, specifically the pre-shift days and the shift days. Temps outside of that window do not affect shift confirmation, so marking them Disturbed is not necessary. However, it is still good practice to note potential disturbances on any day so you can learn your own patterns over time (e.g., "alcohol consistently raises my temp" or "broken sleep throws me off").
For BBT only (no cross checks), we recommend all Questionable temps be marked as Disturbed. We understand this makes having a usable chart more difficult. However, with BBT-only charting, there is not a cross check, like your cervical mucus pattern, to catch false Temp Shifts ("Shifty Shifts") that look like a temp shift, but are not an ovulation event and could be under the outlier threshold. This is another reason why we’re fans of cross checks. Even though you are charting multiple things when doing cross checks, those things together can often simplify your overall charting experience. But mostly, we want to help you make an informed decision that’s right for you.
Overwhelmingly with charting, it's about learning your own, individual patterns and learning to trust yourself to manage your own chart. That's what we want you to help your students experience. We're here to support you in teaching that process.
