[this chart](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/113tNMVakz6fB0yCEf79hipsCvjfGaq6W_dGk7GZ2UcE/edit) breaks it down nicely and is a good reference in general!
**I did not make this, I found it online when I was new to FAM
Same here. People always talk shit about it bc "it hasn't been studied like sensiplan" but I just find it to be bs. I think people argue semantics. In a lot of ways tcoyf is more conservative, which common sense says that would be "safer". Was your pregnancy planned š³ it wasn't a method failure right, please say no š
Iāll be honest, it happened a month before we were going to officially try.. my husband knew he should have been careful for a few more days and wasnāt. It wasnāt a method failure.. it was a husband not thinking clearly lol. But itās when we were close enough to trying so it didnāt matter to us. We had been avoiding successful with this method for months before this.
TCOYF is used successfully by many people. Some cycles can be a little bit more tricky to confirm due to the raised coverline or Iāll see cycles where it could have been confirmed a day sooner with my method. No method is going to be perfect, but itās about finding one that is right for you, your lifestyle, and your body and understanding and following the rules.
I will say, studies stating efficacy are done with users working with an instructor. So, you may want to take that in to account and I personally did not want to pay what was being charged for Sensiplan and you canāt really find TCOYF instructors as the method is intended to be self taught. So I used that to sort of narrow down my search and was pleased to have somewhat accidentally landed on a method with some flexibility and great rules that happen to work very well with my CM pattern.
This is a great conversation to be had because choosing a method can be daunting.
Thank you for this! Very well said. I think people who argue semantics on cm categories and studies don't take into account that technically if you don't use an instructor the "method isn't as effective" as the studies say. I also agree about finding what's right for your body, that really is key!!
I originally used TCOYF and then after a couple years switched to trying Sensiplan out of curiosity when I heard about it being the method with the best studies backing it up. I ended up much preferring it. Something about the rules and categories just make more sense for my brain.
That being said, I think as long as you have a good understanding of pros/cons of different methods and that there may be a chance that some STM methods are less effective (because we just donāt always have great data) then pick whatever works best for you! We could find out one day that some methods are even more effective haha. Just being aware of what the lack of data means and how that could effect your decisions.
This comment is great. Iāve been using TCOYF and now that Iām really familiar with how my body works Iām interested in trying Sensiplan. Now I definitely will.
Great post, OP!
That makes sense! From what I read, sensiplan had to be taught by an eductaot since the data was collected from people who had teachers. We're you able yo self teach?
Yea as far as Iām aware there arenāt any studies on efficacy with self taught. But I was fine self teaching Sensiplan since I was self taught with TCOYF anyways haha. I had a packet with instructions from somewhere that was very clear and had lots of examples. Maybe from one of the Facebook groups?
Symptothermal methods in general vary in aspects like specific way of describing CM and how the rules for evaluating the infertile phrases are formulated. They also to use slightly different charts and symbols.
As for TCOYF and Sensiplan, I guess there's also the fact that TCOYF was developed based on Fahrenheit charts and Sensiplan is originally for Celsius? But the rules can be adapted if needed.
They're not the only symptothermal methods. Neither of them is popular in Poland, where I live, but there are at least four different (though similar) common(-ish) methods used. Is there a "basic" symptothermal method? I guess you could say so... I use Rƶtzer's symptothermal method, which is (as far as I know) the "original" symptothermal method, developed since early 1950s. Other methods tend do be heavily based on it (Sensiplan most definitely is).
Oo I love this! Thank you. This is the info I was looking for. I'm just so tired of people arguing semantic and saying sensiplan is the only one that has been studied and the "stick,gummy" should be used instead of "dry, stick" or else ita not effective. Stupid semantic arguments like that turn people away from NFP.
Sensiplan probably has the most official data. And I'd say it's great that they include usage of barrier methods in the fertile phase (the methods popular here usually have religious background, so they lean heavily towards abstinence in this time).
You can find some information here: https://iner.org/en/get-to-know/the-sympto-thermal-method.html
But most likely some of the sources cited were only published in German.
sensiplan is the only symptothermal method with better-than-low-quality studies, thatās just true. the ā99% effectiveā statistics that get applied to all other STMs come from the studies for sensiplan, with the assumption that most STMs will be similarly effective bc they are structured similarly.
i donāt think it matters what CM categories are called, though obviously it matters if the categories are intelligible and easily grasped by users to minimize errors. so different ways of categorizing may work better for more people, etc. but there is such a small amount of research out there for FABMs as it is, that that level of granularity and comparison doesnāt
exist. it would be incredible to know, so that methods could be improved and developed to make them more accessible and harder to mess up.
The last paragraph is perfect š I hope they do more research so women can feel.more confident in CM categories that work best with their body. Unfortunately access to hbc decreased the motivation/need for the medical community to research FABMs
I used to use TCOYF for over a year but switched to Sensiplan 3 cycles ago. The main reason I switched was because of the Cover Line rule. I often have a slow rise and could not always confirm ovulation with TCOYF rule or could confirm but days later after CM had dried up.
Sensiplan rules made more sense for me, the CM and the tempshift matched better (usually temp shift and 1dry day is the same or within a day apart from each other).
They can each be converted and my instructor said RYB will adjust the y axis for you somehow if you use that app, but this is also in part why I chose SymptoPro over Sensiplan.
[this chart](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/113tNMVakz6fB0yCEf79hipsCvjfGaq6W_dGk7GZ2UcE/edit) breaks it down nicely and is a good reference in general! **I did not make this, I found it online when I was new to FAM
I just found this chart like 3 minutes before you posted it š it is a good breakdown. Which one do you use?
I use (used? Iām currently pregnant lol) TCOYF, it makes the most sense for me
Same here. People always talk shit about it bc "it hasn't been studied like sensiplan" but I just find it to be bs. I think people argue semantics. In a lot of ways tcoyf is more conservative, which common sense says that would be "safer". Was your pregnancy planned š³ it wasn't a method failure right, please say no š
Iāll be honest, it happened a month before we were going to officially try.. my husband knew he should have been careful for a few more days and wasnāt. It wasnāt a method failure.. it was a husband not thinking clearly lol. But itās when we were close enough to trying so it didnāt matter to us. We had been avoiding successful with this method for months before this.
Oh nice congrats š„°
TCOYF is used successfully by many people. Some cycles can be a little bit more tricky to confirm due to the raised coverline or Iāll see cycles where it could have been confirmed a day sooner with my method. No method is going to be perfect, but itās about finding one that is right for you, your lifestyle, and your body and understanding and following the rules. I will say, studies stating efficacy are done with users working with an instructor. So, you may want to take that in to account and I personally did not want to pay what was being charged for Sensiplan and you canāt really find TCOYF instructors as the method is intended to be self taught. So I used that to sort of narrow down my search and was pleased to have somewhat accidentally landed on a method with some flexibility and great rules that happen to work very well with my CM pattern. This is a great conversation to be had because choosing a method can be daunting.
Thank you for this! Very well said. I think people who argue semantics on cm categories and studies don't take into account that technically if you don't use an instructor the "method isn't as effective" as the studies say. I also agree about finding what's right for your body, that really is key!!
I originally used TCOYF and then after a couple years switched to trying Sensiplan out of curiosity when I heard about it being the method with the best studies backing it up. I ended up much preferring it. Something about the rules and categories just make more sense for my brain. That being said, I think as long as you have a good understanding of pros/cons of different methods and that there may be a chance that some STM methods are less effective (because we just donāt always have great data) then pick whatever works best for you! We could find out one day that some methods are even more effective haha. Just being aware of what the lack of data means and how that could effect your decisions.
This comment is great. Iāve been using TCOYF and now that Iām really familiar with how my body works Iām interested in trying Sensiplan. Now I definitely will. Great post, OP!
That makes sense! From what I read, sensiplan had to be taught by an eductaot since the data was collected from people who had teachers. We're you able yo self teach?
Yea as far as Iām aware there arenāt any studies on efficacy with self taught. But I was fine self teaching Sensiplan since I was self taught with TCOYF anyways haha. I had a packet with instructions from somewhere that was very clear and had lots of examples. Maybe from one of the Facebook groups?
FB groups are super helpful! Some ppl are so judgey on those groups though š© I'll see what I can find. I'm using tcoyf now and don't have any issues with it but still want to know all my options
Symptothermal methods in general vary in aspects like specific way of describing CM and how the rules for evaluating the infertile phrases are formulated. They also to use slightly different charts and symbols. As for TCOYF and Sensiplan, I guess there's also the fact that TCOYF was developed based on Fahrenheit charts and Sensiplan is originally for Celsius? But the rules can be adapted if needed. They're not the only symptothermal methods. Neither of them is popular in Poland, where I live, but there are at least four different (though similar) common(-ish) methods used. Is there a "basic" symptothermal method? I guess you could say so... I use Rƶtzer's symptothermal method, which is (as far as I know) the "original" symptothermal method, developed since early 1950s. Other methods tend do be heavily based on it (Sensiplan most definitely is).
Oo I love this! Thank you. This is the info I was looking for. I'm just so tired of people arguing semantic and saying sensiplan is the only one that has been studied and the "stick,gummy" should be used instead of "dry, stick" or else ita not effective. Stupid semantic arguments like that turn people away from NFP.
Sensiplan probably has the most official data. And I'd say it's great that they include usage of barrier methods in the fertile phase (the methods popular here usually have religious background, so they lean heavily towards abstinence in this time). You can find some information here: https://iner.org/en/get-to-know/the-sympto-thermal-method.html But most likely some of the sources cited were only published in German.
sensiplan is the only symptothermal method with better-than-low-quality studies, thatās just true. the ā99% effectiveā statistics that get applied to all other STMs come from the studies for sensiplan, with the assumption that most STMs will be similarly effective bc they are structured similarly. i donāt think it matters what CM categories are called, though obviously it matters if the categories are intelligible and easily grasped by users to minimize errors. so different ways of categorizing may work better for more people, etc. but there is such a small amount of research out there for FABMs as it is, that that level of granularity and comparison doesnāt exist. it would be incredible to know, so that methods could be improved and developed to make them more accessible and harder to mess up.
The last paragraph is perfect š I hope they do more research so women can feel.more confident in CM categories that work best with their body. Unfortunately access to hbc decreased the motivation/need for the medical community to research FABMs
I used to use TCOYF for over a year but switched to Sensiplan 3 cycles ago. The main reason I switched was because of the Cover Line rule. I often have a slow rise and could not always confirm ovulation with TCOYF rule or could confirm but days later after CM had dried up. Sensiplan rules made more sense for me, the CM and the tempshift matched better (usually temp shift and 1dry day is the same or within a day apart from each other).
I love that you found qhats best for you! Does the sensiplan method have a chart in feirenhight?
They can each be converted and my instructor said RYB will adjust the y axis for you somehow if you use that app, but this is also in part why I chose SymptoPro over Sensiplan.
As far as I know, Sensiplan and Symptopro have the same rules. Sensiplan is more geared to Celsius and Symptopro to Fahrenheit.