A Very Personal Review of the DivaCup

So, I started hearing about the DivaCup recently and I have had so much trouble with tampons that I thought I would look into the alternative.  If you don’t know what a DivaCup is, I would describe it as a rubbery cup that fits in the palm of your hand and is used to collect your menstrual blood.  A lot of women are switching to this mainly because it is cheaper in the long run than tampons and pads and it is much more eco-friendly, but I wanted to try it out for a couple other reasons. 

I recently found out that I have a tilted uterus and for that reason, tampons can be very painful when inserted because they are so long.  Carrying tampons around in my purse never worked and I prefer not to use pads because they are too uncomfortable and bulky, so I thought the cup might be a good fit.  Turns out I was right!  The DivaCup doesn’t hurt at all when I use it, but at first it was very awkward and a little uncomfortable.  After I got used to the feeling, I began to forget I was even wearing one!  After I started using this cup, I realized that another thing that usually bothered me about tampons was the string and with this, there are no strings to worry about.

The instructions that come with the DivaCup say not to wear it when you aren’t on your period, but I have such a large amount of discharge I wanted to try it anyways and it ended up helping a lot with that too.  However, because the instructions say not to do that, I wouldn’t recommend it.  There are a few things that made this cup sort of difficult to deal with.  The first time you remove the cup, it’s a little jarring to see the blood, but you get used to that very quickly.  It can also be tricky to actually get it out and if you have a nail on it can be REALLY tricky.  I was also a little freaked out about boiling this thing to sanitize it, but that is an extremely important step because you don’t want anything inside of you that could be carrying bacteria.  The last thing that worries me about this is how comfortable it is.  When you’re in the bathroom using tampons or pads, you can very easily see or feel them, so you won’t forget to change them every time.  But with the DivaCup, I rarely leaked and couldn’t really feel it, so it was sometimes hard to remember to change it, which scared me a bit. 

Any product is going to have some issues, but this DivaCup really seems like the benefits outweigh the downfalls.  I think it’s worth the investment and I will definitely continue to use this cup.

• diva cup
• menstrual
• menstrual cup
• period