The Instead cup drives me crazy. No, I can’t exactly feel it, but something isn’t right down there. I can stand them for a few hours during the day, but at night they keep me awake. Very sad, it seemed like such a good idea at first…
Nope. I’m childless (and AFAIK intend to stay that way) and have no problem with them.
Tampons are great. When you finally get the hang of it (and you will!) then you’ll never go back.
My problem with tampons was figuring how where to insert them. My vagina was a big ole mystery to me–and I couldn’t quite figure out how it was an opening. On my first day of wearing one, I had it stuck God-knows-where it and HURT SO BAD. Plus, I kept having to pee. I thought I had freak anatomy or something.
When I got home, I locked myself in the bathroom and refused to leave until I figured out the “puzzle”. And boy, the moment I got the tampon in the right way I knew there was no way I would screw up again. It quickly becomes second nature.
Stay away from cardboard applicator tampons. They are tricky buggers because if they get the tiniest dent (as is wont to happen if you keep them at the bottom of your heavy-ass bookbag), the cotton will not push out easily and you will be reduced to tears getting it to work. Get a plastic applicator one, like Playtex or Kotex. Don’t be afraid to “waste” a few while you’re practicing.
Don’t be afraid, dragongirl! I know it seems like a scary thing to insert something into your body (no comments from the peanut gallery), but just remember that millions of women do it all the time. I have never lost a tampon or had the string snap off. Believe me, if these kinds of mishaps were the least bit common, they would have happened to me.
My problem was inserting it so that it sealed correctly, and pulling it out so that it didn’t slosh gallons of blood all over the floor. When that bad boy leaks, it really leaks.
I switched to the Instead cups last year, and I have no problems with them now, however, it took some trial and error before I found a happy medium. On heavier days, I will change them after 8-9 hours to make sure I don’t get the river-quantity spillage. I don’t feel them and love them for overnight. Toward the OP, however, I wouldn’t recommend these until you are really comfortable with your own body, since you have to have a feel for how your body is shaped in there to understand if something is right or wrong with the placement; start with tampons. Baby steps!
I also used ob for years, and won’t use anything else. They were my first type to try, and I loved them, and applicators mess me all up but I’ll use them in a pinch. I’ll echo most of the other ladies in this thread and say try out several different brands to learn what’s right for you. Only you will know.
I’ll also echo Indygrrl and Harimad-Sol, get to know your body, it’s not icky, and it’s a shame to go through life feeling weird/afraid/grossed out by something completely normal about yourself. Not just for pleasure, either, it helps you to know if something isn’t right down there. Take a good look at some anatomy charts, and try to understand where it is on your own body. It starts making sense when you know where things are, and not so “icky”. Learning more about this can also improve your sex life, learning what your tolerance for certain things are.
I know a few posts on the subject won’t magically help you overcome this overnight, but do give it a few tries, for your own sake.
Vaginas - not just for baby-making anymore!
Weird - I can’t even think of the last time I had to dispose of a plastic applicator and there wasn’t a trash can RIGHT THERE by the toilet. What I normally do is tear off the top of the plastic packaging, insert the tampon and then slide the used applicator inside the original packaging. Nothing gross or unsightly about that!
For your first time, try the plastic applicator brands or the applicatorless brands. I’m a Tampax gal now (love the flushable applicators), but they aren’t as “slippery” or easy to apply at first.
If you find it’s difficult to get the tampon in the first couple of times, it’s likely because you’re nervous and tensing up. Have a glass of wine (or herbal tea if you don’t drink) and relax.
I’ve never had a tampon string come unattached. However, since it is a fear of yours, let me reiterate the advice above that you can get it out pretty easily by using two fingers like tweezers. I tried it when someone told me a “friend of a friend” story about an unattached tampon string and how much trouble it was to remove it. I doubted that it would be so difficult, so I tried it. They come out pretty easily. You just have to get over your inhibitions about putting your fingers there (oh, and do wash your hands first).
Of course, if you want to avoid your period entirely and you’re on the pill, you can just skip the placebo pills that week and go straight to your next pack.
Yep. Also, tampons and pads should not be flushed, even if the box says that they can be. I’ve heard too many stories, including on the SDMB, about the plumber finding “nests of white rats” (or were those called cotton rats?) in the plumbing, to be really comfortable with the concept of flushing.
In addition to **MaddyStrut’s ** tampon-fishing advice – If you can’t quite reach a tampon or whatever, try different positions and try bearing down with your pelvic floor muscles, which pushes things down lower. I can’t remember how to explain how to figure out which muscles are your pelvic floor muscles, but they’re the same ones you use for giving birth with, IIRC.
Right! I’ve done it numerous times when I didn’t feel like pulling the tampon out with my fingers. It shoots out like a bullet.
Monstro, that cracks me up! I’ve got to try that. Not sure it will work though. You must have some hella muscles down there!
I’m not a big fan of tampons (I just have that TSS fear and I find putting them in a bit messy, especially in public places.) But I’ll use them with pads on heavy days.
I would advise using the cardboard applicators, because I personally have found that the plastic ones pinch. Everyone’s different, of course.
If you want to do this, it is very important that you are taking monophasic birth control pills (same amount of hormone everyday). Otherwise, you’ll have break through bleeding. It doesn’t have to be Seasonale, it can be any monophasic, and you don’t have to take the breaks every 3 months either. No need. Ask your doctor.
Dragongirl, I’m an OB gal as well (my mom used to have tampax at home and I hated how they grew longer instead of wider). I started using tampons at 14, but it took me quite a few tries to get the angle right. I second the suggestion for lubricant (at least the first time). Once you get it, it’s going to be so much easier than dealing with pads. I started using OB as soon as I saw them on the market and love them. They go exactly where you need them. You pull the string a bit to flare the base which makes a nice little area for your finger. Gently push it in as far as is comfortable. Voila! Also comes in a multi-pack with different sizes so you can figure out what’s the best size for you. And no, I haven’t had a baby (yet).
I’ve tried Instead cups and agree with the others that it’s probably something I’d wait to try. I preferred tampons. Sure, you can leave it in longer than a tampon, but I’m probably still going to go to the bathroom anyway, so that wasn’t a real benefit for me. I did still use it very occasionally though for non-messy sex (you still need birth control, it just holds back flow).
Good luck!
Another big fat hearty vote for the Diva cup or The Keeper.
Good stuff.
It took me a really long time to start using tampons. I couldn’t do it until after I started having sex.
I forced myself to start using them. I’m very active during the summer (I march drum corps), and tampons are just so much better to move in and are much more efficient to pack, so I only brought a box of Tampax Pearl with me. It took a little while to get used to, but I had no other choice. Now, I love them. I still use pads a lot of the time, only because I find them more comfortable when sitting in class, and at the beginning of my period I need to wear a pad, a tampon, and to change every hour and a half.
The thing about the cups that has always discouraged me from trying them is, how do you handle it in public bathrooms?
As I understand the process, you wash your hands, settle on the toilet, extract the cup, dump the accumulated blood into the toilet, wash/rinse the cup and your hands, reinsert the cup, do any needed toilet-paper-involved cleanup, flush, wash hands, and head off.
That is, you need to wash your hands a minimum of three times in the process – well, naturally you don’t want to risk introducing bacteria or whatever into your vagina.
Which is fine, in a private type bathroom, where the toilet and sink are in the same space and, ideally, you can reach the sink while still sitting on the toilet and not have to worry about ‘dripping’ while you are in the process of washing out the cup.
But in a multi-user bathroom, with the toilets in separate stalls and the washbasins grouped outside the stalls, likely at a non-insignificant distance away? Do you enter the stall, extract, exit the stall for a sink, reenter a stall, etc? What do you do about your clothes during that trip? Shuffle around with them around your ankles? Pull them up and risk getting them stained? If the washroom is busy, do you announce to those waiting that you’re ‘not done’ and are going back to the stall?
It just sounds like a huge hassle to me. I’ll stick to my ob’s.
Oh lord I’m the last person who thinks their body is impure. I’ve interned for the sex education department at my school for a number of years and I’ve taken countless courses on sexuality. I know that bodies are not vessels of sin and disease, yadda yadda. Although my mother raised me with the whole “your body is dirty and you shouldn’t mess with it” schpeal which should have messed me up, but that’s for another thread.
I’m terrified because during my periods, I have a very sore, achey feeling around my vagina, and my vulva becomes very sensitive. I’m the type of person who would rather take a painkiller and wish it away, not poke and prod around it to see what would happen. This is what it felt like when I tried putting in a tampon for the first time. I was so sore, and I didn’t put it in correctly and it felt very awkward until I pulled it out. And good lord when I pulled the tampon out, apparently I didn’t bleed enough so there was blinding pain when I pulled it out. That’s the main reason I’m terrified of tampons. I usually feel under the weather while on my period, but I’d rather not have to feel like that AND also feel like I’m wearing a diaper, so I’m trying my best to give tampons another chance.
I’ll try again with my next period, but that soreness and memory of pulling out the tampon still makes me wince. Sigh. Sometimes it sucks being a girl.
I spent some time over at DivaCup’s website last night (enthusiastically reading choice snippets out loud to my male co-worker - he’s now petitioning the boss to hire more men), and they said most women time things so they are home when changes are needed, but if you have to change it in a public restroom to just dump it, wipe it, and shove it back in.
I must say, I’m intrigued. I always use all my tampons in one month and then blissfully go into denial about buying any more until Aunt Flo arrives and kicks down my door and moves in, and then I have to stuff with toilet paper until my hubby gets back from the store; it would be nice to not have to worry about having supplies around. IF the thing works like they say it does.
Not exactly.
Wash hands and get a paper towel wet before you enter stall.
Sit down to bidness and dump out cup. Use paper towel for cup wiping if needed. Or one of those travel handy wipe thingies for your hands. Not the cup. They have rubbing alcohol in them and that would probably be bad in the long run.
Insert and exit back out to wash hands as normal, crushing your fingers into the paper towel to hide any possible blood staining ( miniminal) making you look like you’ve committed murder in a public restroom and toss the paper towel in. I have to say that I rarely encounter anyone in the john anyways and I’ve used mine for 5 years. So, no worries. w00t!
The cup is just the coolest thingie that makes men totally squeamish.
I like tampax. I always read threads like this and hear the OB lovin’ and tampax hatin’ so I finally tried OB. My god. I have what’s left of the pack in my bathroom for emergencies but those things do not work comfortably with my body. I’ve used tampax with cardboard applicators since forever and have no complaints.
Did try Instead, but again it didn’t seem too great with my anatomy, and to get into why would no doubt be TMI, but I had all kinds of problems with 'em and there’s no way I’d bother again, even though the idea is neat and I have no real problem fishing around down there to yank it out. I will say I get pretty heavy periods so it’s not a matter of a little blood when I have to empty the cup. It’s like the shower scene in psycho. Plus, my bathroom at work is definitely not low-traffic.
Girls, you all do realize that if a baby can come out, a tampon certainly can go in. I understand the hesitation, and Og knows I’m no expert, having put all that behind me at age 27 (I’m now in my 50s)
If you can feel the tampon, it might be too dry, but it isn’t likely the size.
Virgins might not be getting it past the hymen. That one would feel. Very few women have vaginas shorter than the average tampon. In fact I think one would only see that in girls with Turner’s syndrome. ( I could be wrong.)
You that are new to this please, please, remember to remove the last one at the end of your period.
Leaving one in can lead to serious medical problems, like toxic shock.