an ode to menstrual cups
(Period-victim allies: I will try to keep this post brief and bulleted enough to be useful and revelatory to you too, should you desire to bravely embark upon this gory reading -- may you more fully grok the woeful realities of periods, and feel empowered to spread the gospel of menstrual cups.
I know I usually talk about more gender-neutral stuff, but having periods has taken up 10% of my life for the last 15 years, and my periods are considered relatively light, so this is a big deal for a nontrivial percentage of the world.)
. . .
I had originally assumed that menstrual cups were some hippie bullshit, but am now berating myself for going the first 15 years of my period without them. Imagine you have had regular food poisoning for half a week, once every month, for 15 years. The cycle of pain approaches. You switch to a menstrual cup. THE HEAVENS OPEN AND BLUEBIRDS POUR OUT OF THEM, SINGING.
It would be more accurate to say that I hardly noticed my period at all, which is a physical change as striking from the norm as if bluebirds had actually rained upon my head at that moment. I did see a bluebird up close in Golden Gate Park right before my period, though.
via @ali_bakes_cakes
Why are menstrual cups so great
1. More directly stated, the traditional alternatives are terrible. As I did not actually realize until I switched to menstrual cups, your vagina temporarily transforming into a raw, chafed wasteland made of sandpaper every month has little to do with the miracles of your natural cycle, and is more a function of the miracle of the freakishly superabsorbent materials from which most disposable tampons and pads are constructed. Menstrual cups are made of medical-grade silicone, so while you use them, your body just feels...normal.
2. They're actually comfortable. I can barely feel my cup when it's in correctly. I don't really understand how this works because the cup is so much bigger than a tampon, but it is also flexible and sits farther back, so I guess it molds to your physiology better.
3. They hold 3-4 times more blood than a tampon, so even though they are slightly more effort to change, you don't need to change them as often (although still every 12 hours at minimum). Depending on how light your period is, you might not have to deal with it at all while you're out during the day.
4. You can SLEEP WITH A CUP IN. (As long as you sleep less than 12 hours.) No more leaky pads in the night!! This is deserving of more exclamation points: No! More! Leaky! Pads! In the night!!!
5. Not only did it feel almost normal to pee with a correctly-fitted menstrual cup in, there was...no blood leakage? Amazing. And I didn't have to deal with feeling a nasty damp tampon string. Again, even though the cup was more work to change than a tampon, it more than made up for it by letting me take my mind off my period for up to 12 hours at a time.
fully accurate clinical diagram via Put A Cup In It
6. YOU DON'T HAVE TO TAKE IT OUT TO POOP. If you have a correctly fitted cup, the suction holds it in place, unlike a tampon. Game changer.
7. Menstrual cups are anecdotally supposed to be better for cramps than tampons (probably because cups fit better). I don't really understand why, but switching to a cup has brought my period pain level down from a 5-7 on the pain scale (waddling around filled with intestinal gas, occasionally doubled over in searing pain, exercise rarely possible), to a 1-3 (very mild food poisoning).
8. You will always run out of tampons. You will not run out of menstrual cup. You will never use one more menstrual cup than planned and realize you did not pack additional menstrual cups and have to excuse yourself from a meeting and shamefully fashion an ineffective diaper out of single-ply toilet paper before going to get more menstrual cups from the drugstore. And even if you do have to change during the day: instead of the awkward dance where you stealthily reach into your bag and hide a tampon up your sleeve hoping that the adjacent coworkers in your male-dominated industry will not notice, you can just walk to the bathroom with empty hands because the cup is already conveniently stored inside you. IT'S A MAGIC TRICK.
Anyone sharing facilities with you can probably deal with walking in on you washing your menstrual cup in the sink. People poop in that bathroom, you know? Grosser things have happened.
9. The cup comes with measuring lines. Thankfully I have so far resisted the urge to data analyze my period, but it is insightful to see the blood level rising and falling again, like a bar chart of inconvenience levels throughout the week. To be honest I just think it's really fun to dump the concentrated period blood into the toilet all at once like a vivid cloud of biohazardous food coloring, but from a practical perspective, having a general tab of how much blood I am leaking at different points in my period timeline also helps me guesstimate if I should empty my cup earlier.
Ok, but how do I ___
A bunch of amazingly well researched (& hilariously written; is it just me or do people let all the stops out when they're talking about periods) resources I relied on that miraculously allowed me to buy a correctly fitting menstrual cup and also insert it correctly on the first try:
Thorough overview post on the acquisition, usage, and care of menstrual cups including: the different kinds of cups, 5 ways to fold a cup, 5 ways to sterilize a cup, and more.
Quick quiz: What cup should I get? | Put A Cup In It
More detailed guide to picking a cup, if the quiz didn't satisfy you
Once you've figured out the general parameters of the cup you want and are actually at the point where you're poking around to figure out how your cervix is positioned, this detailed comparison tool lets you filter by features and dimensions. Cups come in a dizzying variety of dimensions and material firmnesses, variously tailored to teens, people who have or haven't birthed kids, people with shallower or deeper set cervixes, et cetera.
More reviews and listicles, permeated with that unrelenting blend of humor and resignation familiar to uterus-sufferers:
fun facts
In most of the U.S. (currently, 39 states), menstrual products are not exempt from sales tax. However, Viagra, as a prescription drug, is exempt.
Menstrual cups cost around $15-30 -- only 2-4x as much as a monthly stock of disposable menstrual products. Users report replacing their cups after 2-4 years.
The average menstruating person uses about 17,000 disposable menstrual products in their lifetime.