The Flex Fit Menstrual Disc (Do NOT Recommend)
Hey, Y'all! Sorry, it took me so long to write this post. School has been busy. Anyway, this is something I tried pretty recently and my plan was to start from the very beginning of my menstrual journey, but this has been on my mind because it's pretty serious.
So August 2018 I tried the Flex Fit Menstrual Disc for the first time. If you’re a weirdo who loves experimenting with period stuff like me, you probably see advertisements for this company all over Instagram and Facebook. I had been seeing the ads for a while, and then they released a promo where you could try two cycle’s worth of discs for only $15! Considering the normal price of a box of three cycle’s worth of discs is $45, this seemed like an amazing deal.
My first impression of the discs wasn’t terrible. They were on the expensive side. I currently use a menstrual cup which cost me $20 and lasts for 3 years, so $45 for three cycles seemed steep. They’re also disposable which seems like a lot of waste to me. Not as much as tampons or pads, but more than my cup. However, they had a lot of pros.
1) They held a lot more blood than my cup can. (I have a low sitting cervix, so I have to get the shorter cups)
2) YOU CAN HAVE SEX WITH THEM IN (My selling point).
3) They have almost no risk of TSS.
4) You only have to replace them every 12 hours.
Overall, I figured why not give them a try, and, when I’m rich, maybe I can buy them regularly.
This is what they look like :
For my first cycle, they worked great. The removal process and emptying process were a bit messy, but that really doesn’t bother me. They stayed in all day with no leaks even when I was working out, teaching, or chasing after my puppy. I was excited to tell everyone about this new product I had found.
My next cycle wasn’t as fun. Day 1, I put it in the morning and left to go student teach. Halfway through the day, I felt a little leak which told me the disc needed to be emptied. This is common for people with heavy periods who use the disc, and it is super easy to empty. All you have to do is bear down like you’re pushing out a baby (or a poop) and the disc pops out of place and funnels the blood it has been holding out of your vagina. Once it is empty, you can just pop that sucker back into place and continue on with your day.
I went to the bathroom, bore down, and nothing happened. The disc didn’t budge. I know the worst thing you can do is panic because your muscles will tense up, so I calmed down and reached a finger up my vagina to see if I could pull it out. But I couldn’t reach it. I tried for another ten minutes but that puppy was stuck. I got up, washed my hands, and figured I could try again later when maybe my muscles had shifted. I tried every other hour for the rest of the day, but nothing happened.
At about 9 o’clock at night, I finally admitted that something was wrong. My cramps had gotten so bad that I couldn’t stand, and I felt super nauseous. I called my mom and she drove me to the ER. After 30 minutes of multiple nurses and doctors having no idea what a menstrual disc was or what I meant by it was “stuck inside me”, a doctor finally came in with a whole team of nurses. He smiles at my mom and tells her “this happens all the time”. He pulled out his vagina spreading tool and starts (roughly) examining my vagina. He sees the culprit and gives it a good tug. I felt like he was literally ripping out my uterus and told him that it hurt (understatement). He says “Well it’s going to hurt sweetie, you’re the one who put something in there that doesn’t belong.” Now I don’t like this guy AND he’s playing tug-of-war with my cervix, and no one is winning. Finally, he walks out of the room, gets a new thingy to stick in my vagina (I am not a medical person), and reaches in there to cut the disc out.
He explained to me that the disc had “vacuum sealed around my cervix, and every time we pulled at it, it squeezed tighter.” Ouch. I tried to find an example or warning of this happening on the Flex Website (or anywhere on the internet), but I couldn’t find a single thing. I wonder now how many women have tried this product and have had this happen to them. When I got home, I threw my remaining discs in the trash.
TLDR; I tried the Flex Menstrual Disc and it painfully vacuum sealed around my cervix making me have to go the ER to get it cut out. I do not recommend it.
