have anyone used the menstrual cup

I heard you're not supposed to pull on the stem, since it can create suction? ...that you just use it as a guide to find the base and pinch it.

I really, really wanted to like it, I really did. First of all it was like trying to solve a Rubik's cube blindfolded to get it up in there and then get it to stay. I tried to fold it in a thousand different ways but it was fighting every step of the way and, in the off chance that I would finally be able to insert it, it would pop right back out and flop around in the toilet. If an inanimate object could have emotions that little *kitten* would have been laughing at me. Meanwhile blood is everywhere, I'm feeling pretty darn gross, my roommate is outside really needing to pee and I'm rethinking every life decision that led to me this moment. I finally, finally got it properly inserted and it was awesome until it came time to pop it out. Yeah, "slide a finger around it to break the seal"? No. Maybe the cup was too big for my delicate vagina but there was no room for my finger plus that sucker in there. It definitely had an airtight, vacuum-esque seal on it because no amount of cursing or tugging would pull it out. I want to say that I finally shoved a knitting needle up there to break the seal, and from there it promptly went into the garbage.

unless your vagina is as loose as a wizard's sleeve, there is no way a menstrual cup can just fall out......

Ya know, I was thinking of that too. The only way it would fall out was if it wasn't even slightly in the vagina...I mean, I could have the very top rim of the cup in and the rest still out and it STILL wouldn't fall out...I really don't understand how it fell out...

I heard you're not supposed to pull on the stem, since it can create suction? ...that you just use it as a guide to find the base and pinch it.

I always have to pull on the stem just a tiny bit to be able to reach the base but I'm not too sure how it's even POSSIBLE to pull the stem to get the cup out....

There is definitely a learning curve when it comes to cups- however,I love my Lunette menstrual cup! I didn't get it my first try, or even my first cycle. It was cycle 3 that my Lunette cup became my favorite way to handle my period! I agree with the PP- check out her links and yes, even the youtube videos. There are tons of information and support out there! The best part about the cup- no drying out. My last cycle I forgot to boil my cup and had to wear a tampon for a few hours...I was horribly uncomfortable. It's crazy how I was conditioned to believe that wearing a tampon was comfortable! But seriously, give it a couple of cycles and once you get the hang of it. You'll be comfortable and it will just take a few seconds to put in and take out.

I've used the softcup disposable ones, and while I do love that you can wear it for extended periods of time, I recommend using a panty liner with them, as they do sometimes leak a tiny, tiny bit. And by leak I mean its sort of residual fluid on the walls that normally gets absorbed by a tampon or sponge, but in this case because of how it's positioned does not. Otherwise, thumbs up!

I love mine.
LOVE LOVE LOVE.
Best thing I ever did.
It's not gross, it's your own body, no it doesn't hurt.
http://youtu.be/wJaRHOWfia4
My review on it.

Edit to add, I used to go through a couple super jump tampons, and heavy over night pads a day.

This thread, while amusing at times, also sadly points to the limited knowledge that many women have about our own anatomy. From not knowing the difference between a urethra and a vagina, to the complexing relationship between menstrual cup use and IUD failure (still scratching my head about that), to the squeamish "ooh, vaginas are gross" factor expressed by some, it just makes me want to shout: KNOW YOUR VAGINA, LOVE YOUR VAGINA (new mfp group?)
What other choice do you have? Even more so to those of us past adolescence who have had or plan to have sex, children, or both. You're going to thank your vagina some day. Or someone else will...

This. It's so shocking to me, that so many women, do not know their own bodies.

Love mine, I'd never go back. I'm not a heavy bleeder, so my problem was pads were just UNBELIEVABLY uncomfortable and tampons hurt me because they absorb all the fluids from your body, not just your menstruation, and would leave me dry and raw.
A lot of people get grossed out thinking that the blood will smell... it doesn't at all, the reason people find tampons and pads smell from what I've read has more to do with the chemical processing of the cotton/rayon they make tampons out of. Also all that chlorine they use gets into your body.
It does take a little time to learn to insert, place and take out , it may seem a little awkward at first but it really just took a couple tries, now it's easy-peasy, much easier than tampons ever were for me.

A menstrual cup?!?!?! Wow, guess I've been out of the loop for a while cuz I have never heard of that. I sure am thankful for my hysterectomy!!! lol :ohwell:

Yep! They rock. Got one recently just used it for the first time. Takes some trial and error but there's really no negatives.

"So one of the many new devices I purchased for this trip was a Diva "Moon Cup". Since feminine hygine supplies would be hard to come by and waste-producing, I opted instead to buy a thing like a Barbie Deluxe Toilet Plunger, and stuff it up my hooha.

The theory is that the cup catches your pan drippings, and you empty it a couple times a day, washing it with hippy soap, and reinserting. It presupposes you are enough of an Earth Mother to be OK not only with your monthly outpourings, but also with generally fossicking around in your flaps. Now, I am no stranger to gore. Nor am I squeamish about my delicate rose of delight, except that I have no such illusions about it and indeed am always reminded of nothing so much as stuffing an oddly-warm raw turkey. So, when after several weeks of teasing, the Period Fairy threatening to postpone the Communist Invasion until I was actually getting on the plane (I was about ready to scream and cry at some hapless unwary male just as a sacrifice to appease her) at last I greeted the rosy-fingered dawn and set about embarking on my new life as a eco-friendly Diva.

The Moon Cup comes in two sizes; Size A, for youthful nymphs under 30 who have never given birth and have silken tresses and tinkling laughs and are all size 0, and size B, for Big Ol' *****es like m'self, who have either spawned, or are so old (ie over 30) that they might as well have been poppin' them out like Duggar Donuts, because their sugar walls are now echoing corridors full of cobwebs and slackness. Of course the packaging phrases it more nicely, but I was miffed to see that despite having never replicated, I was still doomed to the Big Gulp size because of my age alone.

So, chalice in hand, fingers washed, and let's fold that thing like a taco (no, not THAT thing, the other thing!) and cram it up where only one man has gone before and even then not for a damn long time even when he WAS still around. I'm sure I imagined the rusty creaking sounds as I tried to shove something which was larger than anything previous (with the exception of various medical speculums which, I believe, were constructed by the same person who designed the Montlake Drawbridge)into the Gaping Maw.

Now, you're supposed to roll the cup up, smuggle it past the border, let it expand, then turn it clockwise (or counter clockwise, or then one way and another, stopping when you hear the click, or something...) anyway, you're supposed to be able to turn this thing like a dial in there."If the cup does not turn easily, you did it wrong" Oh, of course, I'll just grasp hold of a thing about the size, shape, and slipperyness of the pointy end of a peeled hard-boiled egg, which is now buried in the meaty folds of my innermost femininity, which, I may add, are well-sluiced with the special effects from a Quentin Tarantino film, and spin that sucker like a dredel.

There is, also, a small stem at the base of this cup, which, being made of the same slippery silicon and about a centimeter long, is about as helpful as providing a live, untrained earthworm for a handle. More on this later.

So, rotate this thing in situ, to ensure a good 'seal' and a comfortable fit.

Does. Not. Happen.

Ladies (and gentlemen, although I hope for your sake none of you gentlemen are reading this), I tried. I hauled that thing in and out of there more times, and with much less joy, than Eeyore with his birthday present, and not once could I get that thing to "turn easily". I finally gave up, since it seemed, at one point, to be "fully inflated" and more or less in the right place. Frankly I think that having left my furrow unplowed for so long, I'm not exactly the proper degree of hotdog-hallway that the instruction-writer was intending to address, but so be it. Let's give this thing a whirl, if we can't give it a twist.

Fast forward a few hours in which I've done nothing much. To its credit, I don't feel the presence of THE CUP at all, no discomfort, not even a vague sense of "eugh" as I sometimes have when knowing all that stands between me and my khakis is a small cottony Dutch boy. In fact, I'm getting rather concerned that the Diva Cup has wormed its way in like some form of parasitic jellyfish and is now eagerly migrating up my fallopian tubes, with me all unknowing. Time to go fishing.

And that is where I discover that, while it's difficult to try and 'turn' a Diva Cup newly lodged in your sanctum sanctorum, it's a freakin' log-fall compared to trying to recover said Cup after it has gotten comfortably settled in the downy folds of your blood-engorged tissues. Yes, indeed, if cram my fingers up there to the point of pain, I can just, tantilizingly, tickle the end of that goddamn silicone 'stem'. Grasp it? Not in hell.

Of course the instructions say, if this happens, DO NOT PANIC. Well, thank god for that, because I was already running through the list of people I'd trust with a flashlight, a set of forceps, and an experience that would scar both of us for the rest of our lives. There were instructions for different positions, and "bearing down" and so forth, which I tried, to no avail, and I was pretty sure that my ham-fisted efforts (ahem) were just making things worse on the "swollen" front, so Diva and I took a break, and retired to our respective corners for an hour or so.

Now I brought out my secret weapon: Beer. If, gods help me, I ever have to have a baby, I intend to be drunk off my *kitten* for the delivery, and I surely hope that the Fairy Prince Unicorn Elvis who is my chosen Babydaddy will provide a bedside IV of godly ambrosia, or at least Jim Beam. But anyway, two beers and I'm good to go spelunking in quest of the Holy Grail once more.

Either the beer, or the break, or the combination of all of these and squatting on the bathmat like a Neanderthal crapping, finally, produced enough of that goddamn 'stem' to grab (which was good, because I was dreading having use the kitchen tongs Up There or something) and, with a surprising amount of horrible suctioning "discomfort", the invader was routed! And, wonder of wonders, it was indeed partially filled. Not filled with DELICIOUS CANDY, no, but it did seem to have been, you know... -working-, before I so rudely dislodged it from its parasitic feeding. I felt a combination of grudging respect and intrigue, as one might upon meeting a foe worthy of their steel. Provided we could agree to disagree on the whole "turn 360 degrees in place" aspect, perhaps this could indeed be a workable partnership. Better than bleeding into the Rupununi and attracting every caiman, pirahna, and candiru fish for fifty miles.

But not without some boundaries first. I tied a ROPE to that stupid stem this time."

Did you miss the part where she eventually DID get it in? Assuming she was inserting into the right place every time... then yes, it was being inserted in the right area and was STILL somehow popping out. Just because it works perfectly for you doesn't mean everyone is going to have such an easy time.

I must respectfully disagree. I did not say that it is easy to insert, there definitely is a learning curve for insertion and removal. I think that she *thought* that she initially had it in the right place but it is very unlikely that menstrual cups, tampons, babies, etc would just "fall out" of one's vagina, unless she was doing some serious pushing. Once it's in there, it's pretty much in there. Unless, it isn't.

I will refer back to the oft quoted post by turtlehurdle about just how "in there" it can get.

I've never heard of a menstrual cup, I had to google what it was.. After reading the description and seeing pictures of it, it looks very painful!

Not at all. It's fleixble, and smaller than any "toy" or man that would be inserted.

I ordered two samples of a disposable variety of a cup. My fiance is more skeeved by the cup than by tampons. Baffles me. Oh well....

By the way....I can totally sympathize with this. I do not understand it. The husband didn't even want to see the box :-P

can you sleep in it

yes you can, you can keep one in for 8 hr so make sure its a fresh one before you go to bed.

I love it, doesn't hurt and it doesn't smell.
As far as being gross grow up, your vagina isn't gross and your blood isn't gross, its apart of life and I am sure you have gotten blood on your self form your time of the month one time or another.