My aggravating experience today has inspired me to write a blog about period products, an ever changing landscape as we head into 2021, finally. I don't know about you, but I grew up in a Conservative town where tampon explanation was not a part of our puberty talk. It was a this-is-how-you-stick-a-pad-in-your-giant-white-briefs kind of thing, showcased in a video tape from the 70's. Thus, penetration was a mystery to me at age 11 and just continued to be, really. I knew my mom wore tampons, but she never actually opened one up to show me how it worked, so when I started menstruating at 12 I would just cry holding the tampon in my hand trying to figure out where the hell it was supposed to go. I actually didn't know that the tampon itself was housed inside of a plastic applicator, so it's probably for the best I wasn't able to get an applicator inside myself. I would've just left it there, haha. :/ I purchased some cardboard organic tampons from CVS because I do have less skin irritation with the organice, 100% cotton products (regular tampons have chlorine in them, if you didn't know), but it turns out they all have holes in them from being crushed and thus don't work. I tried taking the tampon out of of the applicator and just pushing it in with my finger, like you would with the OB brand, but it got stuck and was really uncomfortable so I had to give up and remove it. :( This was the biggest tampon failure I've had in 3 years and was very disappointing to me.
I stuck with the tried and true pad into my mid 20's, until I started treating my Vaginismus. We all know maxi pads feel like diapers so I stuck to the "ultra thin" kind and often just wore pantiliners, the really small ones, since my period is typically light when I am on the pill (it just lasts forever). When I was young it would go on for 2 weeks straight, 14 days of bleeding that would leave me anemic and relying on Iron Kids' Bread to keep my iron levels up (because those little black iron pills are scary). Now it just takes an eternity to start so I have all of the other symptoms: dizziness, cramps, breast tenderness, crankiness, sleeplessness, bloating, and headaches, just no blood, for about a week before I officially start. That's all good and well for a PCOS person like me, but what about ladies with Endometriosis or Adenomyosis whose flows can't be tamed by an ultra thin pad? What's a girl to do?
Well, I've known many women with a heavy flow who can wear tampons and just change them every hour. That's a lot of time spent in the bathroom, if you ask me. Especially when you're sharing with other people or at your job, that's not exactly ideal. Thus, comes the invention of the menstrual cup! I believe the Diva Cup was the first of its kind and I remember my ex telling me his friend swore by hers back in 2015. I was so jealous (and still am) that I could never insert or remove one myself. The flexible material simply folds in a few different ways so it compresses and you can push it through the canal into place. Then you tug on the little part sticking out of the bottom to make sure it's snug and won't allow any leaks. This cup fills up throughout the day and can be worn for 12 hours without overflowing. The part I don't understand, though, is how do you know when it's almost full? That's not something you can "feel" is it? And how does the blood not come pouring out of you when you pull the cup out? Shouldn't it be like releasing a dam? How do you discreetly change one in public?
They clearly work as there is a growing market for these things. Now we have versions made by Intimina, Flex, and many others, in various shapes and sizes to fit every body. While they don't need to go all of the way against the cervix, it is important that they sit underneath it just so, to catch the blood and not surpass the cup altogether, so it's a but more complicated than a tampon which simply absorbs the blood by being there. Below is a diagram I found that showcases how this can happen with incorrect positioning.
A better option for those of us with Vaginismus is certainly another new invention: period panties! I believe Thinx was the first of its kind and still seem to reign superior. I just bought the HEB brand (a Texan grocery store) so they were cheap and don't hold much blood, but I love them. They're great at the beginning or end of the cycle, to wear all day to work or to sleep in. I actually forget I'm on my period because they just feel like regular underwear. They do NOT feel like a diaper, they are only double woven and they don't really expand when they fill up. I've even had outercourse with them on before and the pressure on them didn't cause any leakage! If you keep any amount of pubic hair then you've probably had that excruciating experience where the adhesive from a pad gets stuck to it and you move the wrong way and BOOM. You yelp out in pain. Well, period panties on their own prevent that from happening, but as an added bonus you can also wear them as back up under a pad or tampon so you don't have to worry about ruining a nice pair of undies.
Beyond menstrual products, what do you use for the pain? How do you balance your hormones? I've never been able to handle Midol because a single dose has as much caffeine as 2 cups of coffee, but once upon a time I bought some Pamprin to try something else. This one still makes me all floaty feeling so I use it like once a year. I generally stick to plain old aspirin but I just ran out. In addition to pain medication I've been really trying the past year or so to balance my hormones with the herbs used to make that work. Vitex fruit (chaste tree), black cohosh, maca, and milk thistle all help to balance your out of whack hormones so I've tried pill vitamins, gummy vitamins, and essential oils. My latest venture is called seed cycling, which I will definitely divulge in a future blog if I think it's truly working. For now, anyone have any tricks I should know? I can safely say I really miss eating chocolate as that's always given me the biggest sense of relief during those treacherous days.
