Rhiannon Ingle
Many of us grew up absolutely terrified of the perils of contracting toxic shock syndrome (TSS) after leaving a tampon in for even just an hour longer than the recommended amount of time.
While it's rare, TSS is a life-threatening condition which is caused by an infection and can have some pretty nasty symptoms including a high temperature, muscle aches, a raised skin rash that feels like sandpaper and flu-like symptoms.
However, one woman narrowly avoided contracting TSS despite accidentally keeping in a tampon for an entire month - something which she says ended up smelling like a 'rat crawled inside her' as she opened up about the 'traumatising' consequences of the major mishap.
The likes of Savannah Miller, who appeared on season seven of Netflix’s The Circle, recalled the 'truly humbling experience' in a new interview with the New York Post.
Advert
Now 24, the reality TV star was 22 when the ordeal took place.
Coming to the end of her period, Savannah went out with some mates and, in order to avoid any leaks or 'spillage', she popped a tampon in. By the next day, it was nowhere to be found.
"I forgot I put it in, and because there was no blood and the string had disappeared, I didn’t see it," she explained.
It didn't take long for Savannah to start noticing something was up as, just a few days later, she started experiencing a general sick feeling and began to notice a foul odour.
"It smelled like a rat crawled inside of me while I was sleeping and died," she continued, adding that she just assumed it was an 'old period smell'.
Not thinking anything more than that, Savannah continued to use new tampons - something which most likely pushed the original one in even further up into her vagina.
Still noticing issues, she visited a clinic multiple times but, bizarrely, initial examinations found no cause for concern - they even ran STD tests, which all came back normal.
"They thought it was just BV [bacterial vaginosis], but I knew there was no way people walked around with BV smelling like this," Savannah said.
It was only at her third doctor's appointment that medical staff discovered cotton particles in her urine sample, prompting them to ask the then-college student whether it was possible she had a tampon inside her.
"I didn’t think so, but I was like, possibly?!" Savannah recalled. "But I was desperate to make the smell go away."
Thankfully, they were finally able to locate the tampon which, she says, was 'so far up in my cervix there was no shot I was gonna see it'.
"The doctor had to fish it out of my ovaries," Savannah joked.
Fortunately, she had no symptoms of toxic shock syndrome but she was put on antibiotics just in case.
While 'traumatising' at the time, it's clear Savannah is now able to laugh at the whole thing after taking to TikTok last week to share a video with the caption: "Too toxic for toxic shock syndrome I guess. Hopefully this lands on my 85% girl following."
And, even though it may be quite a raw moment to rehash, Savannah hopes that sharing her story will remind others to be more vigilant and alert when it comes to their menstrual health and period care.
"I hope this isn’t embarrassing but if it helps someone then I’m glad!" she added.