The now 36-year-old contracted the deadly disease from a tampon.
A 24-year-old model who lost her legs to toxic shock syndrome (TSS) has issued a warning to people who use tampons.
Lauren Wasser, from Los Angeles, California, contracted a life-threatening illness from her tampons despite regularly changing her sanitary products.
She debunks the myth that people are only at risk if they leave a tampon in their body for more than eight hours, saying she changes her tampons regularly but still suffers from the condition.
lauren appears in Diary of a CEO Earlier this year, Steven Bartlett explained on her podcast how she was changing her tampons every four hours during one particular cycle in 2012, when she started experiencing fever-like symptoms.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NB4jZCxRkTw
Her worried mother applied for a welfare check for her daughter, and a police officer arrived at Lauren's home shortly after. The officer could clearly see that Lauren wasn't doing well, but didn't think her symptoms were severe enough to warrant a trip to the hospital.
Hours later, Lauren was found face down in her apartment, just minutes away from death.
She was rushed to hospital, where she suffered two heart attacks and fell into a coma as her organs began to fail.
Doctors told Lauren's parents to prepare for the worst because they thought she had only a 1% chance of surviving treatment.
A doctor who specializes in infectious diseases checked Lauren to see if she had a tampon, and shortly after the test, she was diagnosed with TSS.
Incredibly, Lauren survived, but the damage to her limbs from gangrene was irreparable, requiring doctors to amputate her right leg below the knee and some of the toes and heel of her left foot.
Although her left leg was initially saved, more than six years of pain led her to make the difficult decision to have it amputated at the age of 30.
Speaking about her life-changing ordeal, Vassell said: “We put it inside of us at such a delicate moment and it creates a perfect storm. One of these toxins gets into your body, and starts to act like the flu and shuts down your organs, which is fatal and dangerous.
“My goal and mission in life is to make sure that not only is this information out there, but that women are having these conversations and building dialogue and checking in with each other, because knowledge is key.”
Since the incident, Lauren has made it her mission to educate women around the world about the dangers of commercial hygiene products.
Lauren claimed that many tampons on the market are “laden with bleach, dioxins, chlorine” and that products labeled as 100% cotton “are still sprayed with pesticides.”
She wants women and menstruating people to have the right to choose and be fully informed about the menstrual products they want to use.
“I'm not here to say what anyone should do, but I will say that I've heard of women getting TSS from (menstrual cups) and other things,” she said.
“Nothing on the market is 100% safe and that's what I'm fighting for. The labels are vague. Thousands of women have died from using tampons correctly.”
TSS occurs when normally harmless Staphylococcus aureus or Streptococcus bacteria live on the skin, invade the bloodstream and produce dangerous toxins.
Symptoms include high fever, low blood pressure, vomiting, confusion and seizures.
It is most common in women who use tampons. Toxic shock syndrome affects approximately one in 100,000 women each year.
A warning for a fatal infection appears on the tampon box after it's been left out for more than eight hours, although Lauren said she changes her tampons regularly.
Related Links:
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