Menstrual Cycle Tracking

getbased includes a full menstrual cycle tracking module for female profiles. Because hormones, iron, and inflammatory markers all shift across the cycle, knowing which phase you were in when blood was drawn makes your results far more meaningful.

WARNING

Cycle tracking is only available when your profile sex is set to Female. You can set this in Settings → Profile.

Setting Up Cycle Tracking

You can set up cycle tracking during the chat onboarding (new users) or from the Menstrual Cycle section on the dashboard. The editor includes:

• Cycle status — Active (regular), Perimenopause/irregular, Postmenopause, Pregnant, Breastfeeding, or Absent (other reason)
• Cycle length, period length, regularity, and typical flow — all auto-calculated from your period log (shown as read-only values)
• Contraceptive — grouped dropdown: hormonal (OCP, Mirena, implant, patch, ring, Depo) and non-hormonal (copper IUD, barrier, FAM)
• Conditions — e.g., PCOS, endometriosis, fibroids

When your cycle status is set to a non-cycling state (postmenopause, pregnant, breastfeeding, absent), the stats fields and period log are hidden since they don't apply.

Logging Periods

In the editor, use the period log to record individual periods. For each period you can add:

• Start and end date
• Flow level for that period
• Symptoms — multi-select from 17 options including Cramps, Mood swings, Fatigue, Bloating, Headache, Acne, Breast tenderness, Insomnia, Back pain, Nausea, Hot flashes, Night sweats, Anxiety, Food cravings, Spotting, Clots, and Dizziness
• Free-text notes

The more periods you log, the more accurate your auto-calculated stats become.

Auto-Calculated Stats

Once you have logged enough periods, getbased calculates cycle statistics automatically:

Stat	Requires
Cycle length	2+ periods
Period length	1+ periods with end dates
Regularity	3+ periods
Typical flow	1+ periods with flow set

Regularity is classified as regular (low variation), irregular (moderate), or very irregular (high). Typical flow is the most common flow level from your last 6 entries. All values update automatically as you add more period entries and are shown as read-only in the editor — there are no manual overrides.

Phase-Aware Reference Ranges

For estradiol, progesterone, LH, and FSH, getbased applies reference ranges specific to each cycle phase rather than a single flat range. Phase ranges are automatically disabled for users on hormonal contraception or with a non-cycling status. The phases are:

• Menstrual (days 1–5 approximately)
• Follicular (after menstrual, up to ovulation)
• Ovulatory (around day 14 ±1)
• Luteal (from ovulation to next period)

Each blood draw date is mapped to a phase based on your period log. The status color of that data point (normal/high/low) reflects the phase-appropriate range. This applies throughout the app: charts, the detail modal, the data table, trend alerts, and the AI chat.

Cycle Phase Bands on Charts

Open the Layers dropdown in the chart area and enable Cycle Phases to overlay color-coded phase bands on your charts:

• Menstrual — red shading
• Follicular — blue shading
• Ovulatory — purple shading
• Luteal — yellow shading

Each band shows a single-letter label at the top. This makes it easy to visually correlate hormone and iron readings with cycle phase.

Next Best Blood Draw Date

The dashboard shows a recommendation for your next optimal blood draw window — the early follicular phase (days 3–5), when hormone baselines are most consistent and comparable between cycles. This takes the guesswork out of scheduling lab appointments.

Alerts

Perimenopause Detection

If you are 35 or older and have logged 4 or more periods, getbased watches for patterns that may suggest perimenopause:

• Cycles gradually lengthening over time
• Increasing cycle-to-cycle variability
• Cycles frequently exceeding 38 days
• Predominantly heavy flow
• Vasomotor symptoms (hot flashes, night sweats)
• Possible skipped cycles (gaps > 1.5× average)

Two or more of these indicators triggers a perimenopause pattern alert on the dashboard. This is informational — not a diagnosis.

Heavy Flow and Iron Alerts

If you have logged recent heavy flow, getbased cross-references your ferritin, hemoglobin, and iron levels and alerts you if:

• Values are below the reference range (critical alert)
• Values are in the bottom 25% of the reference range (warning)
• You have heavy flow but no iron panel has been run (informational)

AI Context

The AI chat and per-marker explanations always consider your cycle phase. When you ask about a hormone result, the AI knows which phase that draw was in, applies the appropriate reference range, and flags if the draw timing was suboptimal for interpretation. Perimenopause and iron/flow alerts are also included in the AI's context.

Guided Tour

After you save your cycle profile for the first time, a guided tour automatically walks you through all the cycle features on the dashboard. You can replay the tour at any time using the ? button in the Menstrual Cycle section header.