This Female Student Spent 3 Days In Intensive Care After Forgetting To Remove A Tampon

It states clearly on the back of every box of Tampons that you should change your tampon every four to eight hours, but thanks to busy schedules and plain old forgetfulness many of us are guilty of exceeding that.

That’s exactly what happened to UK student Emily Pankhurst, who thanks to the stress of her college exams managed to leave a tampon in for a nine whole days, causing her to suffer toxic shock syndrome and spend three days in intensive care fighting off the infection.

‘When I finally realised the tampon was in me and I pulled it out and it was pure black. It was obviously coated in bacteria,” Emily explained to The Mirror.

“I immediately chucked it in the loo, I felt sick,” she continues. “But just half-an-hour later my speech slurred and my skin became mottled. I started to feel faint and I was rushed to hospital by ambulance. I know now that was the poison entering my blood stream.”

At Maidstone Hosptial Emily was then transferred to the intensive care unit where she was given 12 types of antibiotics to help ward off the infection, fed through a tube and given help to walk.

Speaking of her experience Emily has said “It’s amazing a tampon could have such an impact. I will never ever wear a tampon again. Girls my age are not aware of the dangers of using tampons.”

• health
• menstruation
• Toxic Shock Syndrome
• TSS