Your IUD Made Your Period Lighter — Your Tampon Didn't Get the Memo
Your IUD Made Your Period Lighter. Your Tampon Didn't Get the Memo.
The dryness. The itch. That sandpaper drag on the way out. Most women blame the hormones. The documented cause is a tampon pulling moisture out of the vaginal wall, and it gets worse the lighter your flow gets.
Quilla Reusable Menstrual Disc
Collects your flow. Never absorbs it.
Medical-grade silicone • 12-hour wear • One disc, up to 10 years
Choose Your Size
Small (30ml) or Large (50ml) — also available in Purple or Red. $29.99.
Tracked shipping, ships in 1–2 business days · Unopened? Full refund within 30 days · Works with an IUD (read our honest answer below)
First, the Part Nobody Says Out Loud
You have googled this at eleven at night with the phone face-down on your chest.
Maybe you typed "IUD dryness." Maybe "tampon hurts to remove." Maybe you got most of the way through and deleted it, because the whole thing felt like something you were supposed to keep to yourself.
So let's name it plainly. Since your IUD, taking a tampon out has started to feel like dragging cotton across a carpet burn. There's an itch afterward that lasts into the next day. Sometimes you sit on the toilet and take three runs at it before you can get it out, and you wonder, quietly, whether something is wrong with you.
Nothing is wrong with you.
What you're feeling has a name, a measurable mechanism, and a clinical record going back to 1980. It has also been sitting inside the patent filings of the companies that make your tampons since the mid-nineties.
Nobody put it on the box.
What Your IUD Actually Changed
If you have a hormonal IUD, Mirena or Kyleena or Liletta or Skyla, it did exactly what it was supposed to do. Levonorgestrel thins the uterine lining. Your periods got lighter. For a lot of women they get dramatically lighter, and some stop almost entirely.
Good news for your laundry. Bad news for the tampon you kept buying.
Because here's what the clinical literature found, and it's the opposite of what you'd assume: the less blood there is for a tampon to absorb, the more it dries you out.
Raudrant and colleagues ran a controlled trial in 1994. Forty-one women, 123 cycles, examined by colposcopy with biopsies. When the vaginal wall looked normal, the tampon had absorbed 4.2 grams of blood. When the drying was severe, the tampon had absorbed 1.8 grams.
Less flow. More damage.
A tampon is built to hold a set volume. When your period doesn't fill it, it doesn't just sit there politely. It goes looking.
And if you have a copper IUD instead, Paragard, the same trap catches you from the other direction. Copper IUDs tend to make periods heavier and longer, and they cause more spotting between cycles. So you buy supers. Then you're still wearing supers on day five when the flow has dropped off a cliff, or you're wearing one on a Tuesday for a bit of mid-cycle spotting.
Friedrich and Siegesmund flagged that exact scenario in 1980, in Obstetrics and Gynecology. Superabsorbent tampons were significantly more likely to produce microulcerations when worn at times other than during active menstruation.
Your IUD didn't make you dry. It changed how much flow was available, and it never occurred to anyone to tell you that your tampon was now the wrong size for your period.
It's Not Your Body. It's the Absorbing.
A tampon does not distinguish between menstrual blood and the moisture your vaginal wall needs to function. It cannot. It is a compressed fiber cylinder, and it works by capillary suction, which is a real, measurable physical force with a number attached to it.
That number appears in a patent filed by McNeil-PPC, the Johnson & Johnson division that makes o.b. tampons. US 5,817,077. They specify keeping capillary suction pressure below roughly 40 mm Hg, preferably under 30, ideally under 25, in order to "substantially reduce vaginal epithelial drying."
The same patent notes that when the wall dries out, it starts to "resist withdrawal," which risks "epithelial abrasions."
That's the drag you feel. In their words, not ours.
A second McNeil patent, US 6,743,212, spells out the sequence on light-flow days even more directly. A conventional tampon will "absorb too much fluid, desiccating the vaginal wall," so the surface cells "become attached" to the tampon and peel away when you pull it out. The technical term is desquamation.
When Raudrant's team looked at tampon users under colposcopy in 1989, they found drying in 89% of cases and peeling in 47%.
Eighty-nine percent. The thing you assumed was your body being unusually sensitive turned out to be nearly universal.
If You Already Switched to Organic Cotton, You Weren't Being Naive
It's the obvious move. The marketing says gentler, cleaner, no synthetics, and you're a person who reads labels. Switching was a reasonable bet.
It may even have helped with a couple of things. Fragrance reactions, fiber shedding, the general ick of not knowing what's in there.
It did not touch the dryness, and now you know why.
That same McNeil patent, written by the people who manufacture tampons, states that increased drying "appears to be independent of the type of fiber currently used in tampon manufacture."
Fiber isn't the variable. Absorption is.
And it gets worse. Garnuu, an organic tampon brand, says this on its own blog: "Organic cotton is known to be more absorbent than conventional cotton… organic cotton tampons can absorb more menstrual fluid than conventional tampons."
Read that again with your light IUD flow in mind.
The wellness industry sold you a more absorbent product as the fix for a problem caused by absorbency.
They've Known Since 1980. They Patented Around It in the Nineties. They Shipped It in 2003.
This is the part that tends to make people angry, so we want to be precise about it. No conspiracy. Just a paper trail.
1980. Friedrich and Siegesmund publish colposcopic findings of mucosal drying, epithelial layering and microulceration in tampon users.
1989 and 1994. Raudrant's team confirms it independently, twice, with biopsies and electron microscopy.
1994. McNeil-PPC, maker of o.b., files US 5,817,077. The stated goal is reducing vaginal drying caused by capillary suction.
1997. Tambrands, maker of Tampax, now owned by Procter & Gamble, files US 6,315,763. It describes a barrier layer to slow the initial wicking that "draw[s] too much of the natural moisture from the squamous epithelium."
2003. o.b. launches ProComfort with its SilkTouch cover. Tampax Pearl ships a Smooth Removal Layer, still on shelves today.
The engineering made it to market. The explanation never did.
Both products were sold on the words "smooth" and "comfortable." Not one box, not one insert, not one ad in thirty years has told you that drying was the problem being engineered against.
Your tampon box carries a federally mandated warning about toxic shock. Nothing about drying. There's no requirement to disclose it, and no manufacturer has volunteered.
You weren't imagining it. You just weren't told.
A Disc Doesn't Absorb. So There's Nothing Pulling You Dry.
Picture a dry sponge on a wet countertop. It doesn't only take the spill. It takes whatever moisture it can reach, because that's the entire physics of a sponge.
A disc isn't a sponge. It's a bowl.
Left: a tampon drawing in moisture from every direction. Right: a disc holding flow in a reservoir, nothing pulled from you.
Quilla is one piece of medical-grade silicone. No fibers. No wicking. No capillary suction, because there's no absorbent material anywhere in it. It sits in the posterior fornix, the recess behind your cervix, with the front rim tucked up behind your pubic bone. It collects your flow in a reservoir for up to 12 hours.
Your natural moisture is never engaged by the product. There is nothing in a disc that can pull on it.
Which means the mechanism that caused your symptom isn't reduced or minimized or buffered by a smoother cover. It's absent.
It also means the light-flow trap disappears completely. A disc has no "too absorbent for today" setting. Day one and day five work the same way, because it's collecting whatever arrives and doing nothing else.
"But I Have an IUD. Is This Even Safe?"
We're going to answer this more honestly than we probably have to.
Why a disc is structurally different from a cup. A disc doesn't seal against the canal the way a cup does. The back of it rests in the fornix behind your cervix, the front rim tucks behind your pubic bone, and it's held there by your anatomy rather than by suction. There is no vacuum to release on removal. That's a real, checkable mechanical difference — a cup's fit and removal depend on breaking a suction seal; a disc's don't.
What we won't tell you. We won't tell you it's zero-risk. Nobody has run a disc-specific study on IUD outcomes. Any brand that promises you a guarantee here is promising something the evidence doesn't support yet, and after everything above, we're not going to be another company that tells you a comfortable story instead of the real one.
What to actually do.
- Talk to your provider before your first cycle with it. Ask how long your strings are and whether they've been trimmed short.
- Give your IUD time to settle after insertion. Follow your provider's timeline, not ours.
- Learn the removal properly. Hook the rim with a finger and bring it straight down. Never pull on anything you feel that is stringy or thin.
- Check your strings after your first two or three cycles, the same way you were told to at the start.
Most IUD users get on with a disc without incident. We'd rather you go in knowing the actual state of the evidence than find out later that we skipped it.
1. It Collects. It Never Absorbs.
No fibers, no wicking, no capillary suction. The physical mechanism behind tampon dryness isn't present in the product.
2. Built for Light Flow Days
There's no absorbency rating to get wrong. Day five feels the same as day one, and spotting days stop being a reason to wear something that dries you out.
3. Not a Cup
A cup seals inside the vaginal canal. A disc sits back in the fornix with the front rim behind your pubic bone. No suction seal, so no suction release.
4. 12 Hours, Then Rinse
Wear it overnight. Wear it through a work day. Rinse it, put it back in, and sterilize it between cycles.
5. One Disc, Up to Ten Years
Medical-grade silicone. You'll stop buying a box every month, and you can stop buying the lubricant you've been using to make the box tolerable.
Unopened? Full Refund, 30 Days. Arrived Wrong? We Fix It, No Return Needed.
There's a learning curve. Two or three cycles, usually. Anyone who tells you otherwise has never inserted one.
Haven't opened it? Change your mind within 30 days of delivery and we'll refund you in full. Arrived damaged, defective, or not what you ordered? Tell us within 30 days and we'll replace it or refund you — you don't need to send anything back.
Once it's been used, we can't take it back for a change of mind — that's true of any personal-use product for hygiene reasons. If the dryness or the drag hasn't changed after a fair try, email us first — most of what feels like a fit problem is a placement fix.
Frequently Asked Questions
Will it leak if it doesn't absorb?
It holds flow in a reservoir behind your pubic bone. Rated for 12 hours. Most leaking in the first cycle or two comes from placement, and the insert walks you through it.
How is this different from a menstrual cup?
Placement and seal. A cup sits lower in the vaginal canal and holds itself with suction. A disc sits in the posterior fornix and is held by your anatomy. That's why cup users often describe a painful removal and disc users generally don't.
I have an IUD. Can I use this?
See our full answer above. Short version: discs don't create the suction seal a cup relies on, but a disc-specific safety study hasn't been done. Talk to your provider first.
Isn't the dryness just my hormones?
Hormonal status can contribute. But the mechanism documented since 1980 is absorption-driven and shows up in women with completely normal cycles. If your IUD lightened your flow, your tampon is now absorbing more than your period is producing, and that's the condition the research identifies as the worst case.
How do I remove it in a public bathroom?
Over the toilet, hook the rim, bring it straight down and tip it in. Rinse in the sink if you have a private stall, or wipe it with toilet paper and reinsert. A travel case makes this easier.
Can I use it on light days?
Yes, and this is the point. There's no absorbency to mismatch.
How do I clean it?
Rinse with water between wears. Boil between cycles per the care instructions that ship with every order.
How long does it last?
Up to 10 years with proper care.
These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. The information here does not constitute medical advice and should not replace consulting a physician. If you have an IUD, are postpartum, or have any condition affecting your reproductive health, speak with your healthcare provider before use.