A few folks asked me to post the photos I took of the uterine lining I got out of my diva cup from a period a few months ago.
WARNING: THESE ARE GRAPHIC
These photos show pretty clearly what my body wanted to get rid of. They're bloody, they're not for the squeamish. So, don't click the cut if you don't want to see them!!!
The first two I took with my cellphone. They're not really good, but I cleaned them up as best I could. The bigger one was with my camera which subsequently ran out of batteries.
On one side you can see the dark bloody clots that came with it. They were pretty solid, like jello. You can also see the greyish thing that was my lining. In the photo where I am holding it, that is the shape it was. Your uterus is pretty small when nothing is going on in it. It's about the size of an IUD. The shape was totally uterusy. The consistancy of the grey stuff was just like, hmm, how can I put it... I guess what you'd expect it to be. Body tissue. Not as tough as chicken skin, but similar? I can't really describe it. It was stretchy and it was strong. I couldn't have broken it without really pulling. I didn't want to break it anyways. It was like a cast of my uterus! Too cool!
This thing hurt like the dickens coming out. I'd never had cramps like this. When it was over and out, I felt millions of times better. I hope I don't get these very often because they suck. My period had been late, and I was having thyroid issues which can make your period heavier. I guess if you have any questions, just ask!
Edited to add: My doc friend checked the photos out, said it's real common. There's no way in heck I could have been pregnant which is why I was freaked out. My fiance has been snipped for about 2 years now, I'm on the ring, infertility runs rampant in my family, and I hadn't had sex in at least a few months. I was still healing from my vestibuletomy. It would have been an act of god if this thing even was a failed embryo.
The first two I took with my cellphone. They're not really good, but I cleaned them up as best I could. The bigger one was with my camera which subsequently ran out of batteries.
On one side you can see the dark bloody clots that came with it. They were pretty solid, like jello. You can also see the greyish thing that was my lining. In the photo where I am holding it, that is the shape it was. Your uterus is pretty small when nothing is going on in it. It's about the size of an IUD. The shape was totally uterusy. The consistancy of the grey stuff was just like, hmm, how can I put it... I guess what you'd expect it to be. Body tissue. Not as tough as chicken skin, but similar? I can't really describe it. It was stretchy and it was strong. I couldn't have broken it without really pulling. I didn't want to break it anyways. It was like a cast of my uterus! Too cool!
This thing hurt like the dickens coming out. I'd never had cramps like this. When it was over and out, I felt millions of times better. I hope I don't get these very often because they suck. My period had been late, and I was having thyroid issues which can make your period heavier. I guess if you have any questions, just ask!
Edited to add: My doc friend checked the photos out, said it's real common. There's no way in heck I could have been pregnant which is why I was freaked out. My fiance has been snipped for about 2 years now, I'm on the ring, infertility runs rampant in my family, and I hadn't had sex in at least a few months. I was still healing from my vestibuletomy. It would have been an act of god if this thing even was a failed embryo.
I'm also curious to see if you had them examined.
I hope everything is fine.
Your icon, is amazing.
Sorry, it has nothing to do with this.
I never saw the gray stuff before. Wowie to that too.
i used to get clots the size of half dollars and i was always in agony!
thank god that's stopped.
Edited at 2008-01-26 03:33 pm (UTC)
But again, thanks for sharing and I hope you don't get bad cramps like that again.
Now watch when I get my next period, I'm gonna pass a huge bit of lining cause I jinxed myself. :D
I get a lot of clumpy/stringy stuff in my DivaCup, but nothing like that. I'm tempted to take some pictures of mine anyway though.
It's nice to know I'm not the only one... but I'm still worried because this is on top of a bunch of other vaginal related problems.
I took pictures but do not know how to post them...
This one shows the relative size
and this one shows the color more accurately.
The darkest blobs are some separate clots that I get pretty frequently. I get fairly strong cramps with just those clots. The lining that came out today almost made me feel like I was going to faint. I felt like everything in my body was being drained out of me. So when I emptied my cup (I use a Mooncup) I was actually relieved to see something so large, because at least all those cramps had a good reason. The lining itself was very fleshy and fairly thick.
This mass came out of me today and I did not know what was going on. My first initial thought was that it could be my uterine lining but didn't know if I might have had a miscarriage. Now after reading all these posts I'm not so freaked out.