A GP has opened up about how a strong vaginal odour could signal a fairly common tampon error.
In an Instagram post, Dr Nada Hassan spoke of “the smell every GP recognises instantly” – the strong odour emitted from a retained tampon.
A retained tampon is pretty much what you’d expect it to be: a tampon which isn’t removed from the body and either gets stuck or seemingly gets forgotten about. Per the Women’s Health Practice, retained tampons are “fairly common”.
Dr Hassan noted that sometimes she can tell if a patient has a retained tampon as soon as they’ve walked into the consulting room.
“It’s more common to forget it than people think. Tampons shrink down with moisture, they migrate higher than expected, and it’s genuinely easy to forget one is there,” she said.
“I’ve had to remove one (sometimes multiple)...
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