Another Lost Tampon Story
Posted by Rachel on January 26, 2008
ER Stories notes that most of the time, when women come in to the emergency department thinking they have a lost tampon stuck in their vagina, they’ve actually just forgotten that they removed it.
Seriously, though, a vagina is not like a rectum. There is only so far those suckers can go. I assure you, you can probably remove it yourself without troubling your local overloaded emergency department. Just don’t try anything crazy, like kitchen tongs or plungers.
January 26, 2008 at 3:39 pm
Once in high school I went to remove my tampon only to find ANOTHER one in there. I had not replaced the other one, just added to it! These were those teeny junior tampons that are very small, but in my high school mind I was MORTIFIED.
February 4, 2008 at 2:53 pm
a few weeks ago i had horrific moment of clarity in which i ‘remembered’ i had not taken my tampax out! i swished around for a bit but couldnt find it. in the end i assumed i removed if but had forgotten but a few dat later i had the most foul smelling discharge. the two were not contected in my mind beacause you sometimes get this after a period. then i had sex and had the most horrific stabbibg pains in my abdomen. again after your period your prettys sensitive so t thought my bf was just performig really well. lol
this was like three weeks ago and i still have pain in my (period cramp area) but i dont wanna waste the docs time.
what to do……
February 7, 2008 at 10:52 pm
I went to the doctor today to figure out why I was having foul smelling discharge. Turns out I left behind a tampon at least a couple weeks ago. I was totally embarrassed, but surprised that I hadn’t known especially when my husband and I had sex at least a few times since my period! When the tampon came out, the room stunk so badly my doctor had to spray air freshener. My doctor said that TSS would be unlikely, that she hadn’t seen a case in years since they took super absorbency tampons off the market. But, how embarrassing!
February 23, 2008 at 1:27 pm
[...] that I can’t really wrap my mind around. I’ve previously mentioned stories of “lost” tampons and even a woman who forgot about a baggie of cocaine she forgot she was vaginally stashing. The [...]
March 29, 2008 at 5:18 pm
I had sex while on a period several times one night and on one occasion did not remember removing the tampon. I went to my GP who checked and comfirmed I must have as there was not one in me. I visited the Gu unit over the following 2 months. was treated for BV (not a sexually transmitted disease) expressed concerns that i felt my periods where more smelly and the bloody seemed different but still no tampon!! 8 months on and two days into a period I wake during the night feeling sickly, whilst in the toilet i wipe my self and in horror find a piece of tampon has been expelled. It stinks..! I rang the emergency doctor as its a saturday and they want to see me……….. will write the out come when i know.im scared to death……..tampons can get lost.
March 30, 2008 at 11:11 am
Unless your cervix was wide open in active labor or you have a fistula, I doubt it went anywhere.
March 30, 2008 at 9:07 pm
I can promise you, your tampon did not go anywhere. As a physician who has removed more than a few lost tampons, I can say that any doc that makes you feel embarrassed (like using the air freshener while you’re still in the room) or discusses the issue with implications of blame (as in saying something about not seeing “a case in years since they took super absorbency tampons off the market”
needs a big Wet Noodle Slap upside the head. Vaginas are not all alike, but many are full of folds and indents. “Losing” a tampon happens when one get truly forgotten, or when one gets tucked up into a fold (sometimes hard-to-reach, even with a light and speculum). When a tampon stays there for weeks, you body goes to work, doing its best to protect you–it coats the tampon with white blood cells (pus) and starts a heroic (heroine-ic?) effort to breakdown and budge this enormous object. The vagina’s soft mucosal cells that the tampon is flattened against get irritated and raw. Women tolerate this remarkably well–TSS is unheard-of in this setting, and once the tampon is removed, healing occurs quickly. The smell also tends to go away rapidly - it’s probably mostly the decayed blood in the tampon (however, a peanut up a kid’s nose also has that same hideous smell after a few days). A “lost” tampon tends to fall to pieces on removal. Self-care afterwards includes: 1) don’t douche–your body will flush whatever it needs to out and douching is not going to help your normal bacteria any; 2) consider helping your vagina’s normal germs re-populate by eating yogurt with live bacteria; and 3) use sanitary napkins for discharge/periods for the next few days. Obviously see your healthcare person right away for continuing discharge, fever or crampy pains. Also make sure the tampon issue doesn’t distract you or your provider from checking you out for other infections/STDs if it’s warranted.
March 31, 2008 at 6:16 am
Doc Gurley, thank you for this.
April 2, 2008 at 9:19 pm
Last week my boyfriend and i went out to dinner and had a lot to drink. The next day I could not remember if we had sex or not (I know this sounds bad). I was at the end of my period and I remember pulling my tampon out earlier that evening. However, we had sex the next day and there was this awful smell and it really started to hurt. I also just came down with a cold. I tried to ‘fish’ as they say for the tampoon but did not feel anything. My gyno can not see me until next week. I don’t know if I left a tampon in there or if these symptoms are part of a bacterial infection, especaily with it being right after my period. There is a bit of discharge everyday and a slight smell. Should I be worried that a tampon is still up there, or could this be a bacterial infection?
April 3, 2008 at 4:30 am
about 3 weeks ago i had quite a lot to drink and couldnt remember if i removed my tampon, when i went to the toilet the string wasn;t there and just persumed ide removed it. A week later i had sex with my boyfriend and there was an awful smell!! i didnt think 4 a second it could be a lost tampon. The smelly discharged continued and i started to think i had some sort of infection. This morning i went to the toilet and i saw something coming out of my vagina, it was a the tampon i lost weeks ago!! the smell was awful!!! Tampon’s can get lost but it did work its way out itself!
April 15, 2008 at 10:43 pm
Wow, after hearing all these horror stories, i wanted to share with all the women in the world, my greatest find in the world (well, one of them). I swear I am not involved in the company by any means.. I just love the diva cup though, it is a silicon-based flexible cup that you squeeze into your vagina, and then when its in, it pops open, to collect the menstrual waste. They have two sizes, for those that have had a baby already, and for those that have not given birth yet.
I have had my diva cup for two years now, without any problems. You can never forget it up there, because it is too big to forget (but it is not uncomfortable), also you never put more waste into the environment anymore, or give money to the huge corporations for creating all this waste. It is reusable for LIFE!!!!!! i think it has a warranty too… anyhow- i just rinse mine w/ soap and water, but i think you can boil it for sterilization too (check the instructions).
the best thing too.. if your on some sort of crazy long trip (I went hiking in a costa rican jungle for 8 hours), you don’t have to worry about overflow or changing the diva. (I still change it about three times a day when I can anyhow.. just to feel clean).
and if you are into gardening.. i heard the menstrual blood is great for growing things… for those that aren’t grossed out anyhow (im not).
please buy a diva cup, save the environment and your money!
http//:www.divacup.com/
any questions could probably be addressed there, like i said- im not involved in the company at all.. im just a very proud customer!
lots of feminine love!
April 17, 2008 at 9:19 am
“without troubling your local overloaded emergency department”
THIS STATEMENT IS ENTIRELY MISGUIDED. As a daughter of an Emergency Room Physician I have been told many times about women with tampons “lost” in their vagina and have been reminded each and every time that if something of the sort ever happens to me, I am to see the ER immediately. Yes, you will probably have to wait many an hour while people with more “urgent” problems go first, but implying that women who lost their tampons should not visit the ER is not only ignorant, but irresponsible. Next time I should hope you choose your words more carefully.
-Jenna
April 17, 2008 at 9:27 am
Jenna,
This post was in response to a piece at the blog of a practicing ED physician who stated, “Usually, it is one of those small ones and the string got pushed up inside somehow. Very often there is nothing there - the patient simply forgot that they had already taken it out.” If you forget that you’ve already removed a tampon or the string is simply a little bit hard to reach, that’s not really an emergency - now, if you leave one in for weeks, that might be a different story. Doc Gurley has some thoughts on this above.
April 19, 2008 at 9:04 pm
okay so this is really weird because now is the second time that i wake up and their is no string up there i really dont know what to do. Well i’ve been having a discharged and it has a smell that i cannot resist is embarassing because everytime me and my fiance have sex afterwards theirs a bad smell so im pretty sure i have a lost tampon even though i tryed to reach up there i cant find anything helppp..
April 21, 2008 at 12:04 am
I have a similar story….I had a really busy day with lots on my plate today being a Sunday. I went to take out my tampon and couldnt find the string. I got a little freaked out and asked my husband if he wanted to play doctor? he is a saint. he tried several times to find it with no luck. he said he felt as far up as my cervex but felt no tampon. could it be so far up that he could not feel it? can it go farther than the cervex? I asked him to do this because he has longer fingers than I do. I called the nurse in the ER and she said she could not give me advice over the phone. now in the mean time me and my husband have had sex because we thought there was nothing there. but I am still worried that there could be on up there. I honestly dont remember taking one out.
April 21, 2008 at 8:15 am
similar story….not sure i lost one but really am starting to think that i forgot to take it out. I just remember at the end of my period, it seemed like it went away but then a little blood here and there. It may have been after sex - can’t remember. I have had sex with my husband a handful of times since then and the first time I thought I might have lost a tampon was when there was pain during sex and i had to get on top. looked for it afterwards - nothing found - assumed I was crazy and i must have taken it out. Sex since that first time has been great - easy and multiple orgasms - could this little tampon be helping the cause pushing against my cervix? I’ve done my best at searching to no avail but it does feel a little swollen in there….could this be my body’s way of reacting and protecting? my husband is going to play doctor this afternoon…..really would like to take care of it before then! any advice? It does seem like there is some out-of-reach territory for me.
April 26, 2008 at 2:49 am
Oh my goodness, I am so relieved to see these messages. Last weekend my boyfriend and I were building up to having sex and after having his fingers inside me delicately told me that i ‘felt different up there’. I tried to see what he was referring to but as his fingers are longer than mine I couldn’t feel anything weird. I hadn’t had my period for over a week so didn’t even think it was a tampon.
I went for a smear test on Wednesday and mentioned it to the nurse who said that other than some white residue I looked normal, she asked if I was itchy, I said no and that was that. This morning I went to the toilet, felt something weird and a tampon popped out! It must have been in there for TWO WEEKS!
Not knowing what to do I thought I’d check online before running out to buy a douche but on Dr Gurley’s advice I won’t. Dr Gurley is so right - my body did ‘coat the tampon with white blood cells’.
I just feel so embarrassed, there’s white residue that smells awful, how long will it take for my body’s bacteria to get me back to normal? I’m not uncomfortable, sore or anything else - I honestly had no idea it was up there. Shocked!
April 29, 2008 at 4:49 pm
So my story is a little different than the ones above. So earlier that day i had put in a tampon and i had horrible cramps.I repeadtedly told my boyfriend that i was feeling horrible but I couldn’t resist him and we ended up having sex that night. Halfway through intercourse i remembered that my tampon was in, but i didn’t feel like it was hindering our sex so i just disregarded it. The next couple weeks roll by and im at work and we start getting this horrible scent around the office. Well the scent finally gets so bad that my boss calls a city worker to come down and investigate the lurking ordors. They scanned the premisis and eventually (after hours of texting plumbing) they were able to pin point the odor to my office. Once they were in my office talking about the smell it became so apparent! Mortified by the smell i ran to the bathroom about ready to throw up thinking there was a dead rat lurking in my office..only to find that the scent followed me. So i went to the bathroom to throw up but ended up going pee and out popped a 3 week old disgusting tampon in the toilet. I freaked out and fished it out and ended up passing out in the bathroom from the smell. A coworker later found me in the stall with the brown tampon in hand….lets just say they found what they were looking for.
May 1, 2008 at 9:13 pm
Well don’t feel bad. I have been to the ER last week for adominal pain, fever,Headache, vomiting and aches and pains… kinda like the flu symptoms. So they gave me a shot of morphine and something for nausea and sent me home. My liver blood test came back high. So these was thursday. I went the weekend with still nausea and headache until Monday morning I went to the Doctor and she admitted me to the Hospital for dehydration. I went home on tuesday, but I still had the adominal pain and nausea. I went back to the Doctor today thursday one week later from the ER visit and she decided to do a Pelvic Exam and when she started she said do you want to take your tampon out??? I was sooo embarrased. I said I’m off my period I don’t have one in she said yes you do here is the string. She had me pull it out and and it was really gross!! The smell was bad. I was just wondering if I was getting close to the Toxic Shock Syndrome. She gave me a shot of Rocephen and two antibiotics. I do feel better but still embarrassed by the whole thing…