Menstrual Cups and Toxic Shock Syndrome

Any internally worn device in the vagina can have the bacteria on it that is linked to Toxic Shock Syndrome - this includes tampons, menstrual cups and diaphragms.

For the large majority of users this bacteria does not cause any problems. About 80 percent of people are thought to be immune to the bacteria all together.

Unfortunately though people who have suffered Toxic Shock Syndrom before are at high risk to respond to the bacteria again.

For that reason the MeLuna has always come with a warning that consumers considering the MeLuna that have had TSS before, should not use the MeLuna -or other menstrual cups.

None of this information is actually new but in recent weeks a study from France has drawn new attention to this important subject.

You can read a summary of the Lina study in this Consumer Report article

As previously known good hygiene is very important in preventing infection. This includes washing your hands before inserting or removing the cup.

In order to achieve FDA clearance MeLuna USA had the cleaning routine of the cups tested ina third party lab in California.

Based on these lab results we feel that our guidelines of cleaning the cups with Cetaphil and disinfecting them by boiling them is adequate.

The extremely low incident of known TSS cases in cup users seems to support this notion

The French study cautions that disinfection after each use is safer. That of course is only practical, if you have more than one cup. For consumers wanting to follow the guidelines set forth by Lina we will offer a 4-pack of cups for only $79.95 in the store starting May 15th. This would allow users to disinfect all 4 cups once a day and switch out to a new, disinfected cup every 6 hours.

Again, this is simply for users wishing to follow this routine.

Our initial instructions of washing hands, cleaning with Cetaphil every 8 hours and disinfecting before and after each cycle have worked well for us in the last 4 years. You are welcome to continue using this routine if it suits your needs.

The most interesting finding in this study was that the bacteria associated with TSS clings much more to silicone cups than to TPE. This is an important advantage of TPE cups over cups made from silicone. MeLuna menstrual cups are made with the safer TPE material. Good hygiene is still important.