When I was 15 years old, I fell asleep with a tampon in, like how most women do and thought nothing of it. However, when I woke up, my body was covered in hives.

I went to the doctor a couple of times and she said I was probably allergic to something so I went back home. I went back the third time, to a different doctor, and he told me I needed to immediately go to the hospital.

I was then hospitalized for 2.5 weeks. I don’t remember much from that time… but as you can see in the pictures, I looked… scary.

I almost died and had to get multiple IVIg/blood infusions and was supposed to be in the ICU. But then miraculously, the doctors saved my life and I’m forever grateful for them.

After I recovered, I was told multiple stories of people losing someone to TSS. I never realized how serious it can be.

I recently came across these photos and felt inclined to share because I feel like too many women don’t realize that toxic shock syndrome can happen and the importance of taking this seriously. I hope no one has to go through what I went through and I hope by sharing this, people will take TSS more seriously and be more careful with wearing tampons.

All in all, it happened to me tho bc I was sick, my immune system was low, I wore a light tampon to sleep, and slept over 8 hours. So all big no-no’s.

I’m not too sure what’s best to do, but here’s some tips I found online to help prevent TSS:

* Use low absorbency tampons (so not super absorbent ones)
* Change your tampons often (every 4-8 hours or more frequently, depending on your flow)
* Use pads on light flow days
* Use a new tampon right before bed, but if you are willing to, I recommend wearing a pad to bed instead

Please be careful y’all. And please feel free to share this with any women in your life because TSS is a very rare, but serious thing. & I don’t want anyone to die, or almost die like I did.