I posted a bit back about looking for and purchasing my first cup. I settled on the Meluna, and took advantage of their slight deal that gave me one large (purple) and one medium (white) cup. I tried them out before my period and had to try a few different folds before I landed on the punchdown as my fold of choice. Now I'm on my period, and on a scale of 1 to 10 of easiness, 1 being the most challenging, I'd give my first round of using cups a 7. There are a few logistical questions I'm thinking you all can help me answer.
It's really not difficult for me to get the cup in, but ensuring that it's entirely open is seeming to be difficult. I can feel the bottom of the cup and sometimes it feels nice and round; once in a while it'll feel collapsed, so I turn it to try to get the suction to take. I haven't had leaks yet, so I guess I'm probably fine, but do you have any tips for ensuring that the cup has opened?
No leaks overnight yet, and last night was the heaviest night of my period, so I'm feeling confident :) I'll continue to wear the pads anyway just to be sure, but it's looking like I'm in the clear *fingers crossed*.
I've used the medium and the large now. Strangely, when I wear the large, it seems to ride up a lot more than the medium did. I have to bear down a LOT to get it to where I can take it out, but the medium just sort of stayed mostly in place, low. This seems counterintuitive, any insights?
And lastly, I did have an excruciating amount of pain on the first full day of my period. I always get medium to severe cramps on the first day, but these were so painful that I had to take heavy pain killers and go back to bed (and I have a really high pain threshold). What are the chances that this has to do with the cup, and what would you say the chances are that it's just a coincidence and it's just my regular cramps getting worse as I get older/some medical issue? Maybe I jostled the cup around too much to try to get the suction to stick and bumped my cervix... not sure. It's fine now, the pain subsided completely by 10 hours later, so it's strange to me.
Oh, forgot this question: I don't know if I'm removing correctly...?? Lol I mean, I pinch the bottom a little and then sort of rock it back and forth while pulling down until it comes out. It leads to a tiny bit of discomfort I guess when the rim comes out, but it's really really minimal and I just don't care. But if it's going to do something bad like scratch the walls of the the vagina or something, I'd just as soon be told about some better technique.
Anyway, there's my little update. Any kinds of insights you all might have on my questions would be great!