uncomfortableI'm a 22 yo virgin who is trying to use a Diva Cup 1 for the first time this cycle. 5'3", not much more activity than walking the classroom while I student teach or standing upright all day at my weekend job. I'll admit I'm not super in touch with my body. I also didn't research the different varieties of cup before buying. Diva is the only one sold in stores around me, and I needed something quickly. After a minor plumbing emergency we realized that the pipes can't handle tampons, which I've worn comfortably for years, and my cycle is way too heavy to possibly get through the night with just pads. (I was using ultra tampons before this.) Throwing the tampons in the trash isn't an option, so a friend suggested the Diva Cup, which she loves.
I've only tried it for one day and night so far (first day of my cycle), but at this point I'm in tears.
So far as I could tell I was (eventually) getting it in correctly. I was using the push down fold because the c fold was too hard to get in, but I got to the point where I could run one finger fully around the cup and more or less rotate it that way, and I wasn't leaking as far as I could tell. (The longest I managed to sit with it in was about three hours, with a pad underneath and spotting free.)
The problem was it hurt the entire time.
I normally get mild to moderate cramps the first few days, so I thought that might be this, and I took a midol, which is normally enough to quickly get me feeling better. But the entire time I was wearing the cup, within 20-30 minutes of insertion I'd start feeling pain like a really intense kind of cramp-like feeling. I took it out and reinserted over and over and over, but repositioning never seemed to help. I ended up only sleeping about three hours last night, and now that I've given up and switched to just a pad, I actually feel really sore.
Again, I could run a finger all along the cup and no leaking, so I thought I had inserted it right, but is there a possibility I was doing something wrong to make this so utterly painful and miserable? I'm going to start birth control after this cycle and pray it makes things lighter, but in the meantime I don't know what I'm going to do overnight if I can't use a cup.