Eco-warrior periods: Diva Cup review
In my last post, I talked about lady-part troubles and my healing journey. I want to open up conversations about somewhat-still-taboo-even-though-things-are-getting-better topics related to women, our vaginas, and the bloody mess they make one week out of the month, about 1/5 to 1/4 of our adult menstruating lives.
Side note: when we learned about periods in 5th grade I got a sense of utter despair. "We have to have these our WHOLE LIVES?" I asked. Lol!
I have been using a Diva Cup for the said bloody mess for 11 years and counting. 11 years ago I was searching the internet for travel tips. I was about to depart for Peru for 2 weeks of backpacking around and 3 weeks of a study abroad program in a rural part. I wanted to pack the smallest possible backpack and not carry a million tampons with me. In 2007 there weren't as many good blogs as there are now but somehow I still found a travel post somewhere about this cool new thing. No women I knew were talking about Diva Cups in 2007. I'd never heard of them.
What's a menstrual cup?
It turns out Diva Cups hit the shelves in 2001. You can read the story of this company here. Apparently, the first menstrual cup came out in 1937. You can read all about them on their Wikipedia page here. There are many other brands. I've only tried the Diva one.
A menstrual cup is bell-shaped and made of silicone. It creates a little suction inside the uterus and catches all the blood in the cup as it drains out, instead of a tampon which absorbs blood in a wad of rolled cotton attached to a string.
The cup needs to be emptied as it gets full. It is recommended to empty it every 12 hours, although, admittedly I've left it in longer some times.
Periods, vaginas and body shame
It was a fairly steep learning curve! At age 22 I was a little bit afraid of my vagina and reproductive organs. Body shame for women is very real and a lot of the best most healing books like Come As You Are, helping us feel okay about having sex or sexual organs at all, hadn't hit the shelves yet. Sex shame is prevalent in Judeo-Christian cultures but women carry more of the burden. And whereas men have a protruding sex organ, ours is tucked away where we can't easily see it. So I had difficulty reaching my finger in there and turning the cup a little to make sure it expanded fully and suctioned. The results were some leaking as I figured it out.
Eco warrior
But overall, traveling with one Diva Cup instead of the 50 or so tampons I would have needed (4 tampons x 6 days x 2 weeks within the 5 I was there = 48) was really great! It simplified things and reduced waste.
Positives and negatives
Positives:
- less waste! This is great for me as an environmentalist. Just think of all the trash I haven't thrown out in 11 years.
- No
needing to remember to pack tampons. If I'm on my period, I simply dump out the blood in the toilet and put the cup back in. - It saves money! Tampons are like $8-10 a pack. The Diva Cup is around $30 so it's more up front but I have saved $1300+ over the years.
- It's comfortable
- I don't pee on the string. This is real. If I pee and I don't have to change my tampon, the string gets wet with pee. Not the most terrible thing in life but a small inconvenience nonetheless.
- I don't have to carry around a bloody toilet-paper-wrapped tampon in my pocket or purse if there's no trash bin in the bathroom
Negatives (kindof):
- I am reading that a negative is not always having access to a sink in which to wash it out. It's true that it's best to dump the blood and rinse out the cup before re-inserting it. However, I have found that I can wipe it with toilet paper if I'm in a public restroom and rinse it out later. I have never experienced any negative smells and have always rinsed it at least once a day.
- After several years the silicone does take on a red color. Oh well! Blood is life. It's not gross.
- Yes, I do get blood on my hands when I take it out. So then I wash them. Have I ever been in a situation in which I couldn't wash my hands after? No. Do I sometimes walk out of a public bathroom stall with some blood on my fingers? Yes. Do people notice? Probably not.
Cup size
There are 2 sizes of Diva Cups. According to the website: "There is not a big difference between the two sizes (Model 1 is 1/8" (~0.3 cm) smaller), but it is important to use the recommended sizing to prevent leakage. We recommend Model 2 if you are 30 years old or older even if you have not had vaginal childbirth or a c-section because as we age, our hips naturally widen and the vaginal muscles lose elasticity. Because the vaginal muscles hold The DivaCup in place, it is important to use Model 2 if you are over 30, even if you have not had children."
At age 22 I bought a size 1. Low and behold around age 31 or so, the smaller size stopped staying in! I bought a size 2 and was back in business. (I've never given birth to children or been pregnant.) I remember texting a girl-friend of mine about my having to change sizes. "Why?" I remember her asking me. I felt a little embarrassed that my vagina had stretched out or something...but then I realized that was internalized misogyny popping up. "Just a natural change I guess!" I was able to respond instead of "I'm old and baggy now!" which is not only not the truth, but the false idea that women are only valuable if we're "tight" or "virginal" keeps us hating ourselves and our bodies. It has to stop. (So I'm talking about it.)
The oppression of women through the expectation that we be virginal and childlike aside, the obsession with the exact physical size of a human being's sexual anatomy and bodies as a whole can keep us from having strong, emotionally connected sex and relationships.
Blood flow
I have had super heavy periods as a result of getting the copper IUD. I had to dump out the cup contents more often. That copper IUD was a giant hassle and mistake so I got it removed after 3 years (way overdue for the amount of suffering it caused) and then had low blood flow periods again with the Mirena IUD (thank f*^k!). The 3 years I had heavy, heavy blood flow caused me to lose a lot of iron. I'm now taking a liquid iron supplement for my anemia.
So now, my periods are typically 6 days (I use app Spot On to track them), with 5 light days and 1 medium day. I typically take it out to pour out blood once when I wake up and once before I go to bed.
Conclusion
I love my Diva Cup and I hope more women try them out! I save money, I don't have to put bleached cotton up there, I don't have to pay luxury tax every month to buy tampons, I reduce a
But also, if you love using pads, tampons, or that new absorbable underwear, you do you. I'm just throwing this option out there and making it safe to talk about normal biological processes on the internet.