One of the symptoms of my PCOS is a very irregular period—we’re talking like three times a year max. So when my doctor suggested I start taking birth control to regularize my period, I put it off for quite some time because I wasn’t comfortable taking medication every day at such a young age.

I started back up on taking the pill around my last year of high school and seeing as I wasn’t used to getting my period, I was also pretty clueless to the types of pads and tampons there are out there.

One thing was for sure though, I hated them both with a passion. Pads were gross and it always felt like I was an infant wearing a diaper and tampons were never a healthy option (plus the thought of Toxic Shock Syndrome (TSS) was just very off-putting). I had to use them though, seeing as I thought they were the only option until I found out about menstrual cups.

Ladies, I can’t stress it enough just how great menstrual cups are. Gone are the days of fretting about your pad shifting in odd directions, and gone are the days of fear when pulling on that little white string. I first found out about menstrual cups my freshman year of college but was very hesitant because nobody I knew had used one before. When I finally got myself to order one though, I wondered why I hadn’t done it sooner.

I can still remember the day I got my Lena Cup in the mail and when I took it out of the box my first thought was,

“How the f*** am I supposed to get this inside there?”

Cups are larger than tampons, which seems very daunting at first. But with some help from YouTube and the small book of directions provided with the cup, it was a whole lot easier than I thought.

There is definitely a bit of a learning curve when it comes to cups and figuring out what works best for you in terms of placement, but it’s nothing otherworldly. Once you get the hang of it you’ll come to realize what you’ve been missing out on.

With menstrual cups you’ll learn if you have a high or low cervix, and that your cervix shifts throughout the day, pulling your cup higher and lower. But this isn’t something you feel, just something you’ll notice when putting in and taking out the cup. You’ll learn that the cup can’t get lost and travel to other parts of your body, and most importantly you’ll learn just how amazing the female body is. You’ll also see just how LITTLE blood your body is actually releasing. Am I the only one who thought she was losing tons of blood while on her period?

Just thinking about how much less waste is being thrown back into the earth by not using tampons and pads is also a great factor. I, for one, always thought about the little plastic part of tampons that would just end up in landfills and take YEARS to break apart — it’s disgusting.

Menstrual cups offer a cleaner, easier, and a more environmentally friendly alternative to the pads and tampons that I always regarded with disdain. Not to mention that they are also a WHOLE lot cheaper than pads and tampons combined. There are days where I completely forget I even have my period because that’s how great my cup is. You can put it in and go about your day and take it out after a couple of hours, and yes you can also sleep with it in! Once I started using my cup for a couple of months I also realized I had significantly fewer cramps—score!

What’s not to love about them? Take my advice and do your own research if you need to, but next time you’re at the cash register buying that pack of tampons, think about how much easier it would have been if you had your cup handy and just had to pop it in and go about your day. Once you get the hang of it, it only takes a whole minute!

There are tons of different brands out there, with varying prices and colors and sizes—all you need to do is find the one that works best for you. There is tons of great information about menstrual cups online and YouTube is a great source of information.

Throw those colorful, scented, expensive, bad for the environment pads and tampons into the dark crevice of your closet and get yourself a cup, you’ll thank yourself later.