Save for the string, an inserted tampon is out of sight and (hopefully) out of mind. After all, you shouldn’t feel a tampon doing its job. While that’s usually a great thing, it can become a problem if a tampon is so unnoticeable, you forget if you even put one in or can’t remember having taken your last one out.
Gynecologists recommend swapping out your tampon at least every four to eight hours to reduce your risk of irritation, infection, and a rare but dangerous condition called toxic shock syndrome (a complication of an infection, in which bacteria release toxins into the bloodstream). So if you suddenly can’t remember if you’ve put in a tampon or suspect you did but can’t see or access the string, it’s only natural to start worrying about whether that thing is festering inside you.
Well, here’s not just one but two pieces of good news: If you did put a tampon in, it will still be in your vaginal canal (where you can likely reach it with a finger), and it’s highly unlikely that a tampon will be forgotten forever because your body will give you some warning signs, Alyssa Dweck, MD, FACOG, a New York-based gynecologist, tells SELF.
Here, two ob-gyns share exactly what to do the next time you have tampon amnesia.
What to do if you can’t remember if you put a tampon in
Your first step is to really, truly not panic, Kameelah Phillips, MD, a New York-based ob-gyn and Organon health partner, tells SELF. This scenario happens often, according to the experts we spoke with, and isn’t typically a major health risk.
Once you take a deep breath, both Dr. Phillips and Dr. Dweck recommend a simple finger sweep: Trim any sharp nail edges on one of your index fingers and wash your hands thoroughly. Then, take a seat on the toilet, put a bit of lube on the opening of your vagina, and gently insert that finger, sweeping around to see if you feel anything spongy or mobile, or that you can hook your finger around and remove. Note that if you’re touching your cervix—which feels kinda like the tip of your nose (it’s also made of cartilage)—there’s probably no tampon in there, Dr. Dweck says.
If you’re at all squeamish about this, or you feel something in there but you can’t remove it, call the search off and schedule an appointment with your ob-gyn for that day or the next day (let them know what’s going on so they can try to squeeze you in). “A few extra hours are not going to impact your health to a detriment,” Dr. Phillips says. In the meantime, Dr. Dweck advises not putting anything else in your vagina or having penetrative sex.
Your ob-gyn can “use a little instrument to fish out a tampon if there is one, and it literally takes 10 seconds,” Dr. Dweck says.
So…can a tampon ever get lost inside you?
Stuck or tough to reach? Yes. But lost? Nope. At the top of your vaginal canal is your cervix, which has a pinpoint opening (a.k.a. the external cervical os) that dilates when you’re pregnant and your body is preparing to give birth, Dr. Dweck explains. But otherwise, the external os is only a couple of millimeters open—not nearly big enough to fit a tampon. (And there’s nowhere else inside you a tampon can go.)