(no subject)

[aggymp387.livejournal.com]

how exactly do instead cups work? are they made of plastic? hard or soft, flexible or not? how do you insert them? do you have to actually reach into your vagina with your fingers to get it in? is it easy to dislodge? any chance of leakage? how do you remove them? is there a string, or do you have to reach in there (i'm squeamish about touching myself down there during my period...

i'm looking for graphic descriptions, because i'm completely clueless. thanks.

Comments

[puttysan.livejournal.com]

Not sure of the exact material. The cup part is very soft, the rim is more rigid, but still flexible. You squeeze the sides together, and insert into the vagina. It springs back into place, and fits over the cervix, collecting all the blood from the uterus. Yes, you have to reach into your vagina. It's not easy to dislodge, since it fits right above the pubic bone. Yes, there is a chance of leakage. You remove by hooking your finger under the rim, and pulling. Instructions for that are on the site. No string, but there's really nothing to be squeamish about.

When I wore them, I found them to be rather uncomfortable, but they are"one size fits all," and I have a rather small vagina. However, there was NO leakage, and I wore it to a theme park, going on roller coasters and all.

[puttysan.livejournal.com]

The website is here (http://www.softcup.com/)

[macabre-grrl.livejournal.com]

Wow, that this is HUGE! I use a keeper myself. The picture of the hand squeezing it is kind of surprising. I sorta want to try it just to see.

[puttysan.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it is pretty big. I think you can get a free sample of three; I did, a while ago. They didn't fit me well, but I don't have the money to put out for a Keeper.

[voidofher.livejournal.com]

hahaha
im sorry, that just made me laugh so much.

[tynkrxbell.livejournal.com]

I used them for four months and I don't really like them. Sure they feel ok and all but taking them out was kind of a pain. Once I was able to break the suction, blood was everywhere. It seemed to run out of the cup no matter how or in what position I was in. Kinda messy. Leakage was another problem for me. If i shifted in the wrong position, I would have Instead cup blowout and that wasn't pretty. All in all I would have to give it a 4 on a scale of one to ten. I wasn't too impressed although it did help me get over my fear of menstrual blood, and making the idea of the Keeper much more pleasant to me ( which I adore)

I never got them to work

[inchcafe.livejournal.com]

I tried using Instead several times (5 or 6, maybe more). I tried when they first came out, and then years later, but I could never get it to work. I couldn't get them to stay in. They didn't spring back like I expected them to. They're HUGE, and ALWAYS leaked. I'd wear a super thick pad when I wore one. One morning, I woke up in a puddle of blood and had blood pouring down my leg as I made my way to the bathroom. I liked teh idea of not having to change as frequently, and of being able to lose the pads, but it never worked for me. A while ago (going on a year I think) I bought my Keeper and I LOVE IT!! It's MUCH smaller than Instead, and mine doesn't leak. To compare size, Instead is like 1/3 of an orange peel (in tact, of course), while the Keeper is like a small shot glass, but flexible. Your vagina isn't shaped to hold an orange without keeping it bent, but it would hold a shot glass nicely. Either way, you're going to be touching your blood, and seeing it. You have to pour it out. And sometimes, it seems like a lot. And sometimes, the clots are plentiful. It's kind of interesting, if you can get past the gross-out-factor. I have noticed a decrease in the severity of my cramps and the length of my period since I stopped using tampons.

Good luck!

[everydayangel.livejournal.com]

I'm wearing one right now, and I LOVE them.

You have to squeeze it and put it inside you, it just kind of pops into place right behind your pubic bone, so you really don't have to reach all that far in. If you get it in correctly, you shouldn't feel it at all. The rim is soft plastic, the rest of it, is like a plasic bag material, for lack of a better description.

I find that there is only leakage issues when my flow is either really heavy or when I'm lazy about changing it. When I first got them, I had palcement issues, and that contributed to leaking.

When you take them out, chances are, if you are like me, blood will gush out of it, onto your hand. It should all land in the toilet, but it will get all over your hand, which makes things interesting or tricky when in public washrooms. However, becasue you can wear them for 12 hours, you should be able to manage without using a public washroom.

You basically stick your fingers in and tuck a finger under the outer rim to pull them out. The great thing about these is that you don't get that messy ness you get with tampons or pads, your inner thighs and everywhere around your vagina will stay nice and clean. A guy could go down on you and NOT EVEN KNOW you are on your period.

You can have sex with them in, however, my boyfriend says he can feel it and that it hurts. But be can finger me and go down on me, and there is zero for mess, so I rate it high in my books.

Once I started using Instead, I NEVER went back. I love them.

[ourika.livejournal.com]

The Instead cups are very soft plastic. They are shaped like a diaphram, and they are inserted in the same way. The round edge is very flexible, and it’s about, um, I’d guesstimate 1/2” thick. The part that catches the blood is sort of like the material of a condom, but much thinner. Oh, the “bag” part is all the way around one edge of the circle. The other end is the “open” end. . I’m not sure how to describe that bag part, actually, I’m sorry.

Ok, how to use it. If you are looking at an Instead sitting on a table, you’d look down and see a circle. If you picked it up (still holding it so that you’re looking down on a circle (I’m saying that so that you can sort of “see” the shape of what’s happening), you’d pinch the edges closed. That way your circle becomes a very long, thing oval with touching long sides. That is how it would be inserted. The item that you’d be inserting ends up being a long cylinder-type shape that is approximately 1/2” in diameter and, gosh, I’d guess about 3” long, maybe a touch longer.

When you insert it, the Instead “cylinder,” you’ll have the “bag” part facing down. When I insert one, I’m sitting on a toilet seat with my legs spread, down for the bag would be back towards my anus and down towards the toilet seat. I’m not sure if there is any difference for various women if their vaginal openings are angled slightly differently.

I push it in into the vaginal opening (which is on an angle that is both up and towards the anus – I’m not sure if every other woman would be at exactly this angle or not, but I would assume so). Then, for me, it opens where it’s supposed to, but I sort of “tuck” it under a ledge. I’m not actually sure what the ledge is. Now that I think about it, I wonder why it never occurred to me to want to know.

The Instead sits in the same place that a diaphram would sit (actually, I think that’s how the Instead was designed – someone copied a diaphram… My doctor told me that some women use their diaphragms as “blood catchers.” Oh, hey, if you look for information on how to insert diaphragms, that information would be the same.

Now, to get them out, the instructions say to reach up with your finger and hook the top edge and bear down while pulling that edge out. I can’t hook the top unless I’m bearing down. I also find that I cannot push out the Instead without making a bloody mess. It’s the angle that it sits at and how it pushes out. It gets to be very messy, but it does work well to hold blood in. I keep a couple of Instead in my desk and purse for emergencies, but I only use them when I haven’t got a Keeper with me or if I’m going to have intercourse.

There is a lot of touching yourself involved with the Instead, and if you’re not comfortable inserting your finger into your vagina, and if you dno’t feel like you would become comfortable inserting your finger into your vagina, a menstrual cup will not be a viable option for you.

However, if you think that you can become comfortable inserting a cup and your finger into your vagina, but you’re not comfortable about a mess on removal, you may want to consider a different kind of cup. The Keeper, Moon Cup, and DivaCup (see The Keeper community http://www.livejournal.com/userinfo.bml?user=the_keeper memories for info on these, with links to their pages) will involve inserting a finger inside you. And, until you’re used to them, they, too, will probably be messy. But once you’ve used them for a few months, you’ll probably learn how to not be messy with them.

I used Instead for several years (I started using them in 1997, and I used them regularly for a few years – now I use them sporadically), and I’ve never managed to not make a bloody mess if I was bleeding heavily. But with the Keeper, I found that after only about 3-6 months, as long as I emptied it regularly and it didn’t overflow, my fingers don’t come in contact with blood and the outside of the cup (where I’d be touching) is not bloody. There will be some blood on the inside of the cup that is turned and dumped out, and then the cup is washed.

Good luck. I hope that was as graphic as you were looking for?