hey everyone it's Lucie Fink welcome back to my YouTube channel before we get started give
this video a thumbs up to let me know that you want to see more videos about periods
and if you haven't yet subscribed click on the red subscribe box down below I do not know how
this happened but I am so close to hitting 250 000 subscribers I am absolutely blown away and
I just don't know how this happened but I'm so grateful and I'm thankful to each and every one
of you today's video is about my new best friend the menstrual cup this is she perhaps you had a
different experience and I hope that you did but for me my doctors or my teachers never taught me
about a menstrual cup no one told me what it was I actually didn't even know that they existed
until 10 years after I first got my period when I got my period the two options that I was presented
with were either pads or tampons so I didn't even know that using a cup was an option until recently
and now that I have used it I am obsessed with it and I had to share with YouTube
the first thing that nobody tells you in addition to the fact that this exists is how to insert it
really every single person's body is going to be different and for everyone they're going
to get into a different groove of inserting it differently but for me I basically fold it in half
and then I fold it in half again and I try to make it as small as possible on the top ultimately it
looks something like this and essentially I'm trying to get this top portion to be as tiny as
a tampon head once it's small like this I just put it at the opening of my vagina and I push gently
at first it might not feel like you're getting anywhere but if you truly relax your muscles down
there and you just take a deep breath and you push slowly but firmly I'm telling you it will break
the seal and you will get inside and once you do break the seal it will sound something like this
but you probably won't be able to hear it because it's inside of your vagina but it pops open
creates a suction cup and it's inserted the bottom line is relax your muscles and chill one tip that
I can pass on to you that works for me is to sort of push out a little bit almost like I'm peeing
but don't pee it's like using those pelvic floor muscles to push out just to create a little bit
of relaxation that allows me to push this in the next thing nobody tells you when you first start
using a cup is that it can be slightly painful to pull it out I actually think putting it in is way
easier when you're pulling it out that's when you really got to get your hands deep so I basically
reach my fingers in there and I try to fold it in half one direction and the other direction so that
when I'm pulling it out it's as small as possible if you don't do that you might just start pulling
it out like a tampon you know using the string at the bottom and once you get to the bottom it
can be kind of a big thing that you're pulling out this is nowhere near as large as a baby but
this is pretty big to pull out of your vagina so I would recommend folding it squeezing it making
it as small as possible and pulling it out slowly you also want to make sure that you're keeping it
upright if you do have a heavy flow this could be filled with period blood and if you pull it out
really fast or tip it to the side you could make a little bit of a mess so I'd recommend reaching
your fingers in there getting a good grip on the cup squeezing it to break the seal and then trying
your best to maneuver your fingers to fold it again in another direction sometimes you might
need two hands in there and that's okay and then slowly pull it out and once you realize that it's
getting to the tip pull even slower but just you know take a deep breath and it'll come out the
next thing I never learned about menstrual cups until Lauren singer from trash's for tossers share
this with me is that they're not only good for the environment but they're also good for our wallets
a typical menstrual cup costs around $40 and some say they can last for up to 10 years but if we're
being conservative and we say it's gonna last for five years then over the course of 10 years
you're paying 80 for menstrual cups on the flip side if you use organic cotton tampons
those are usually around seven dollars a box and you'll need two boxes a month so that's fourteen
dollars a month across ten years you're paying sixteen hundred and eighty dollars for tampons so
by using a menstrual cup you are saving sixteen hundred dollars across ten years and of course
it's good for the environment because these are reusable after a good clean the next thing that
nobody told me and that I discovered for myself on my own is that using a menstrual cup has helped
reduce the amount of yeast infections I get I used to be incredibly prone to yeast infections I would
get at least four a year and they always happened around my period I went to multiple gynecologists
I was always just given monostat to take to clear up the infection but no one ever really told me
what might be causing it and at the end of the day I'm not saying the tampons were causing it but I
do not think they were helping once I switched over to a menstrual cup my yeast infections got
way less frequent and I started to not have them at all around my period I would guess it's because
using a menstrual cup doesn't disturb the natural moisture balance but I'm not sure why and I'm not
a doctor so I don't know if that's 100% true the next thing nobody mentioned to me is that these
are incredibly comfortable to wear when I first heard of a cup and I envisioned an actual cup
being inserted into my vagina while I was running or swimming or even just walking it really
stressed me out the idea of putting anything in there is a little bit scary and let alone a cup
something that is sitting and collecting blood it all just sounds kind of scary and
you don't know if it's gonna feel okay until you try it for yourself but I'm telling you if
you insert this properly the moment you slip it in and you release it and it creates the suction cup
it's firmly in place and you do not feel a thing the only time I can sort of feel like it's in
there is if it's not deep enough in which case i'll just give it a little extra push but once
it's in place I don't feel it at all and then I can do all the activities I love from dancing
to yoga and I just have no idea that it's in me which leads me to my next point that you should
try to remember when it is in you because nobody told me that I was supposed to keep this in for
max 12 hours I think the first person that told me about a menstrual cup told me that because
it was not absorbing your blood it's actually safe to leave in there for the whole day 24 hours and
personally I have a pretty light flow so even if I did leave this in for 24 hours by the time I
take it out it's not even filled to the top but I think the best practice is to while you're on your
period clean this out at least every 12 hours and the last thing I wasn't taught was how to properly
clean the menstrual cup so between periods I always make sure to clean it in a pot of boiling
water I just boil water on the stove drop it in and let it boil for 10 minutes or so but I don't
do that between every use when I'm actually on my period so when I'm on my period I pull it out
I dump it into the toilet and then I move over to the sink and I use organic Castile soap and water
to just wash it off before reinserting it and then I usually do the boiling thing once or twice
during my actual period as well and that's another thing when you're using this you are getting very
handsy up inside of you and it's very important to make sure your hands are clean
so every time before you take it out or before you put it in just make sure you're giving your hands
a nice good wash before filming this video I did a little google search to see if there was anything
about a menstrual cup that was potentially dangerous or harmful and I did find that it
causes irritation for some people and there are a couple of other issues that might apply to you
so maybe check with your doctor if you're feeling like you can't put one in or it's not working
or it's not feeling right but at the end of the day I would highly recommend a menstrual cup for
anyone who has a period I think they're incredible they're obviously great for the environment
they feel great and it just makes me feel more connected to my body and my cycle when I was using
tampons I just felt like I was popping this thing in there and then pulling it out and flushing it
but now I've been very hands-on with my period so I can see what color my period blood is and that's
really exciting because it tells you a lot about your hormones I recently read a book called In the
Flow by Alisa Vitti who is a Johns Hopkins fellow alum the book is all about balancing hormones and
it inspired me to get off of my synthetic birth control pill which I did recently so I've been
really into my hormones making sure things are balanced taking supplements to help do that and
using this is a great way to see in my cycle what my hormone levels are like if you're scared to use
one I would just highly recommend that you give it a go I was personally really afraid I didn't think
I would be able to do it but once I did it and I got used to it now I just can't imagine using
anything but this during my period I'm here for you drop your questions down below in the
comment section and I will be more than happy to answer them and give this video a thumbs up to let
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some more regular daily updates and that's it say goodbye bye see ya all right I gotta clean this