I can probably say that someone comes in about once every month or so with a supposedly lost tampon. Usually, it is one of those small ones and the string got pushed up inside somehow. Very often there is nothing there – the patient simply forgot that they had already taken it out. This particular case was a bit more bizarre. The young woman came in saying that the night before she had been very drunk – and when she came home, could not find any tampons in her stumbling , slurring state. Instead, she decided it was a good idea to wad up a bunch of toilet paper and stuff it into her vagina. Well, as you can imagine, she was shocked to discover what she had done the next morning. She then told me that she spent several hours squatting over a toilet “with her FAMILY” trying to get it all out! She said this is as if vaginal spelunking was a normal family activity! Once I got past this ghastly statement, I then had to do a speculum exam to look for offending Charmin. As I expected, there was nothing more in there. I tried to tell her this but she insisted something was still left inside. I performed a bi-manual exam and could still not find anything. She replied “I am sure there is something there – here!” and grabbing my hand, tried to shove it up inside to where she thought the paper was! “Whoa!” I said and pulled my hand back. This is the reason you should always have a chaperone in the room with you when you do any sort of pelvic or rectal exam. I calmly told her that it was not worth further exploration – that she would likely expel any small amount of paper that could have been up there. I went back and documented the actions of the patient and made sure the tech that was in there with me wrote something to back me up! Anyone who would have their family help fish things out of the vagina is someone who could say anything!
“vaginal spelunking” had me chortling. A game for all the family, indeed.
Ah, lovely!
…and the world gets weirder and weirder….
I recently heard a story from our ER about a young female who lost her grip on her vibrator and had it travel up her rectum out of reach. By the time the doctor saw her the batteries had died, though i hear sometimes they’re still going, but they could not reach it by hand or with tongs. I think they finally ended running a line up and using pressure to push it back out. I didn’t realize how common foreign bodies were. At least this girl had the sense to be embarrassed.
That particular CC happens in my office from time to time too, although it’s more often the diagnosis when the presenting complaint is of an incredibly foul vaginal odor in the absence of discharge.
One time my nurse recorded it as “Tampon MIA”; cracked me up!
Always do a speculum exam first because once I almost cut the glove on a crack pipe.
That’s hilarious. Reminds of the time one of my patients inserted a vaginal suppository without removing the wrapper!
Oh My Mercy! That’s a good one! Luv your blog by the way!
And sometimes they don’t know it’s even there! I had a pt come in w/ abd pain and a “lump” in her vagina… which she said, “she knows isn’t supposed to be there and had no idea what it is unless ’someone put something inside her’”… Right, you’d think you’d know… Anyways, turned out to be a long lost tampon. Gross. Abd pain surprisingly decreased
Sadly, we get that sort of thing in L&D as well. You’d think they already have enough “all up in the there” already, but I guess not…