A woman has revealed that she left a tampon inside herself for two years, saying she thought she had Lyme disease until she finally saw a gynecologist.
Melanie Galeaz, 22, from Massachusetts, first shared her shocking story in a now-viral TikTok video, which shows her lip-syncing the lyrics to Lana Del Rey’s ‘Mariners Apartment Complex.’
‘When I accidentally left a tampon in for two years, but I was literally just a teenage girl,’ the ‘Just for Tonight’ author wrote in the on-screen text.
‘Not my proudest moment,’ she added in the caption.
Melanie Galeaz, 22, from Massachusetts, revealed in a now-viral TikTok video that she accidentally left a tampon inside herself for two years when she was a teenager
The short clip has earned more than 16.2 million views and 28,000 comments since it was posted on December 8.
Many TikTok users were baffled by her confession and questioned how she didn’t get toxic shock syndrome (TSS) — a highly dangerous bacterial infection.
‘YOU’RE MEANT TO CHANGE THEM EVERY 2 HOURS NOT EVERY 2 YEARS,’ one person commented, while another asked, ‘How DIDN’T you get toxic shock.’
Galeaz shared the full story in a follow-up video, admitting that she spent years thinking her gynecological issues were related to Lyme disease.
‘When I was little, I got bit by a deer tick and had all the symptoms of Lyme disease,’ she explained. ‘But the tests were kind of confusing if I had it or not.’
Galeaz explained in a follow-up video that she spent years thinking her gynecological issues were related to Lyme disease because she was bitten by a deer tick as a child
Galeaz said the doctors gave her medicine to treat her symptoms, and she was ‘fine’ up until her sophomore year of high school.
‘I started getting all these pains in my body and some really gross stuff was happening down south,’ she recalled. ‘I went to the doctor, but I didn’t really mention the issues happening down south, which I know was my fault.
‘But the doctor was really disregarding me, and he was being mean. It was really embarrassed. I was like 14, and this was really disgusting and embarrassing, so I just didn’t want to deal with it,’ she continued.
‘I kind of just hoped that maybe it was something related to Lyme disease and that I could just ignore it with the meds and it would go away.’
Galeaz said the medicine she was given helped with the pain, but there wasn’t any improvement in her gynecological symptoms.
Galeaz said she started experiencing pain and ‘issues happening down south’ at age 14, but she was embarrassed and never disclosed all of her symptoms to her doctor
Galeaz ignored the symptoms for another two years until she finally went to see a gynecologist. She recalled how the doctor gasped after finding the stuck tampon inside her
‘When I get stressed about something, I ignore it, so I don’t have to deal with it until it goes away,’ she explained. ‘[That] never works, especially in this case.’
Two years later, she was a senior in college, and still having problems. This time, she opted to see a gynecologist.
She added that there was a period in which she had a total of three tampons inside herself as a teen
‘She cranks me open, looks in, and she gasps,’ she recalled. ‘I’m like, “Well, that’s not what you want to hear.” You don’t want to hear someone gasp when they’re looking inside you.
‘And then she says, “You have a tampon stuck horizontally under your cervix.” And I go, “What? What did you just say?”
‘Let’s just say taking it out hurt because it was dissolving inside me, so it kept breaking apart and it was such an unpleasant experience.’
Galeaz noted that the gynecologist didn’t believe her when she said the tampon had been inside her for two years.
‘She was like, “This was not stuck inside you for two years.” I’m like, “Well, I’ve been having these issues for two years, so I don’t know what to tell you,”‘ she explained.
‘Not believing me is fair. Honestly, I have no proof. Me and the tampon have since parted ways,’ she continued. ‘All the pains in my body, it was not Lyme disease. I don’t even think I have Lyme disease…
Many TikTok users were baffled by her confession and questioned how she didn’t get toxic shock syndrome (TSS) – a highly dangerous bacterial infection.
‘The doctors think I had some sort of infection in my body from the tampon, which makes sense. That was just my body’s reaction.
‘For everyone asking about the smell… I [come] from a family that absolutely would have destroyed me for the smell if it had smelled. It didn’t,’ she insisted.
‘At times it did smell very bad, and I was very sad thinking I smelled like that naturally, so I figured out ways to mask it and it did work.’
If the story wasn’t shocking enough, she shared that there was a period in which she had a total of three tampons inside herself as a teen.
‘During that two-year period, I took one out and another came out with it, and I have no idea that one was in for,’ she said. ‘So I had one in me for two years, one in me for an unknown amount of time, and one in me for like eight hours.
‘That’s the story. Please be nice to me. It was stupid, but I am sensitive. Don’t be mean,’ she pleaded at the end of the video.