Love mine. Used it for 6 years now (and should probably look at replacing it). I’ve noticed I have a little trouble inserting it on the first day of my period. Sometimes I can’t get it to unfold until I’ve walked around a bit. After that it seems fine.
Also (TMI! TMI!) if I have a rectum full of poop, it has a much harder time unfolding. Poop, clean up, then insert.
I just fold it, insert it in as far as I can, then twist it around a bit to let it unfold. Then I give it a few gentle tugs. You can tell it’s in properly - you’ll feel resistance if the seal has formed. If not if wiggle it back and forth a bit until it sits properly.
It took a bit of trial and error, but I’ve been using it for years now and I love it.
I used to have trouble getting mine to pop open fully after insertion. What helped immensely was, instead of trying to twist/turn it (which when it is flattened is very hard) to essentially roll it between the fingers.
I’ve been skimming, so I don’t know if anyone has mentioned that it helps with insertion to run it under warm water after washing it out and before (re)inserting. I often change mine before a bath, and I just slosh it around (clean!) in the bathwater as the tub is filling.
Mine doesn’t go anywhere near my cervix.
I cut the little handle pretty much completely off. It poked me no matter how short it was, and I can still grip the cup just fine.
I love my DivaCup! Hated the whole routine of maintaining a tampon supply.
I use the LadyCup (a purple one!) after trying the DivaCup and the Keeper Mooncup. The Diva and Mooncup hurt like motherfuckers coming out. They were too stiff. The LadyCup is squishier and shorter. I use the ‘punchdown’ fold (the c-fold was too big and the origami fold I couldn’t get to pop open) and once I put it up my hoohah it pops open pretty easily. Learning to take it out is a learning curve; I think it’s different for each user. One time my cup was more full than usual,–unfortunately I didn’t know it because my uterus is not telepathic. I took it out my usual way and the cup sort of exploded. Looked like I had slaughtered something in the bathroom. Since then I’ve been more careful in how I take it out. I angle a little differently.
Here is my Diva cup story. I love mine and will never go back, but for me it doesn’t matter how low I put it, it always shifts higher. The higher it migrates the harder it is for me to get it out. But aside from the first few disasters it has been smooth sailing.
One piece of advice I’d give is don’t try a practice insertion before your period starts. Your body’s not suited to it then, not as much as it will be when you have your period anyway, so it could put you off.
I tried using a DivaCup, but it just didn’t fit. I asked the SD what the smallest cups on the market were, and they directed me to the LunaCup. It’s still a bit uncomfortable going in (I guess I’m just small, not to mention virginal), but once it’s there I hardly notice it.
In my bathroom, the toilet and bath are a seperate room from the sink. What I do for cleaning is I wet a wad of tissues and bring it in with me. Anything left over afterwards I can just use regular tissues for. It seems to work just fine for me.
Wait wait wait…you wear it during sex? Ah, how does that work exactly?
The disposable softcups are supposed to sit higher up - around your cervix - and theoretically this means you should be able to have sex with them in. Never worked for me though - tried several times, but my boyfriend said he could feel it in there and it wasn’t comfortable.
It bears repeating that the DivaCup/Mooncup/Keeper are not like Instead, and they don’t go in, seat, or come out the same way. Instead is designed to sit high up, wrapped around the cervix, like a diaphragm. Being as I can’t find my cervix, I couldn’t use it. It just sort of hung vertically like a friggin’ tampon, only of course closed up so it couldn’t catch anything. Bummer…I wanted it for period sex.
The D/M/K sit lower in the vaginal canal. It’s a bit variable as different people with differently shaped vaginas and different muscles move it to different places, but it’s not meant to be up at the cervix, and you don’t have to find the cervix to get it in the right place. But it’s not good for period sex, unless you are *very *tall and your partner, uh, not well-endowed.
I use babywipes in the bathroom stall when I need to empty it and I’m in a place where there are a lot of people and I don’t feel like walking out with bloody fingers! I found the “punch down” fold best when I started, but now I just sorta cram it up there any ol’ way.
I do wear a pad with mine on my heaviest days, because I do get some leakage (didn’t used to, but now I do), but I can wear one pad ALL DAY and ALL NIGHT, so I’m still cutting way down on the landfill load.
One silly thing: it won’t come out while you’re standing up. As in, you can’t remove the damn thing. For most people, this probably won’t ever come up, but if you go camping a lot, you may discover that when you’re trying to empty the thing in your tent and you can’t get it out. And you try again and OMG it’s stuck you’re going to die of backed up menstrual fluid and then you grab the pliers from your beading kit and try to grab the end of the cup with the pliers and you end up pinching your labia minora, which freaking hurts more than you ever dreamed possible and you realize that women who pierce their labia minoras are freaking HARDCORE (at least if they do it more than once) and you’re still stumbling around your tent, crying, 10 minutes later when your husband comes back to the tent and hears you swearing to yourself and says, very hesitantly, “Honey? Are you okay?”) and you realize how ridiculous this all is, but you’re about to die of blood blockage and get eaten by a bear.
Yeah. Just squat instead. Comes right out.
This blew my mind. I think I may have to get one now.
Although I shuddered when you said you…pinched yourself, I would have done the same thing. 
Complete with “OMG going to die and then get eaten by a bear or have it all happen at the same”.
Or you try it for the very first time, and you are having trouble fishing it out because you have never used one before, and you put it in too far so you have to ask your husband to fish it out [because you are not silly enough to try and use pliers, mainly because there aren’t any in the bathroom] but luckily you have chubbs left from when you were having your husband do post op wound management … so you go into the bedroom and get comfy while he sort of spelunks in and gets it out for you:smack: