How to tell the difference between cervical fluid and arousal fluid

Disclaimer: Any time I talk about specific fertility awareness technique I have to say this – It’s soooo important to learn the entire method before using it as birth control. Whether that is from a comprehensive book or two or from a class. You CAN NOT just learn this method with an app, googling, online blogs, and facebook groups. Every piece of the method is important to understand and you want to have the education from beginning to end. 

I have had this question BURNING in my head for weeks and I don’t know why I haven’t asked it yet. I have some Luna Beads that I used to use fairly often, and I really like them, but haven’t been using them since I started tracking cervical fluid. Do you think using luna beads or jade eggs would interfere with cervical fluid observations? Either by potentially increasing arousal fluid, or masking cervical fluid, or increasing cell slough? Thoughts? Or just general thoughts about eggs / beads? I’d LOVE to hear your input!

Great question. I think a lot of people worry about using the above type things because they are worried about deciphering cervical fluid they find on it and determining what is and is not cervical fluid, so I think this is something important for those who use fertility awareness to know.

The first thing that I want to talk about is how this might change cervical fluid checks. When you are using something like this internally there is a decent chance that if you do have cervical fluid that day it will come out on the egg/beads/whatever and that might be your only chance to see it. For that reason, it is good to pay attention to what you see even if you always do external cervical fluid checks, just know that your cervical fluid from inside might look different than what you usually collect externally.

While something like these beads/eggs would not increase cell slough, you definitely have the potential of observing a lot of cell slough and other vaginal fluids because… duh… it’s going into your vaginal canal and potentially collecting anything inside.

However, it certainly can increase/create arousal fluid, so it’s important to either feel confident in determining arousal fluid versus cervical fluid or be willing to consider that day a day of peak type fluid. In general, it’s best to just not check cervical fluid when you are aroused, but in this case that’s not really possible because of what I just talked about above.

Since that’s the case, you need to feel confident in telling arousal fluid from cervical fluid, which is very possible and honestly not that difficult. The reason that I recommend for many people to not check when aroused isn’t because it’s confusing to tell arousal fluid and cervical fluid apart, it’s because a lot of people have a hard time ignoring something that can be pretty similar to peak type fluid.

1.) Get familiar with your arousal fluid. As a matter of fact, I recommend you purposely check your arousal fluid when you are completely dry and infertile. Play with it. Notice it’s qualities, how it reacts when you play with it, how long it lasts, etc. If you are familiar with your arousal fluid you are more likely to be able to comfortably tell the difference between arousal and cervical fluid.

2.) Know the facts about arousal fluid. Arousal fluid tends to be lubricative and wet, but dissipate much more quickly or turn into a different quality when played with. A lot of people see tiny bubbles in their arousal fluid. It’s easily water soluble whereas cervical fluid is not. Think about this: With the friction of sex arousal fluid is helpful, but not nearly as great as cervical fluid as a lubricative device. That’s why a lot of people will use lube during non-fertile times, arousal fluid just doesn’t have the same “stick around” qualities as cervical fluid.

When you know what you are looking for it becomes a lot easier to tell what is and is not arousal fluid and then you don’t need to worry about whether you are making and/or increasing arousal fluid when you use the beads or eggs.

If you still can’t really tell or aren’t sure, I’d recommend not using them around when you are expecting your point of change (from dry or your infertile pattern to having cervical fluid) or right around your peak. Those are important transitions and definitely times you will want to assess your cervical fluid correctly.

Regarding my general thoughts on jade eggs and luna beads, I don’t have any problem with them and think they can be useful and fun, but I do think it’s great to make sure that with any pelvic floor exercise you are exercising the full breadth of your muscles and I think that Katy Bowman is a great resource when it comes to entire pelvic floor health. This article isn’t posted on her blog, but it’s from her and I find it to be a helpful resource when looking into this stuff.

xoHannah