Tampon Difficult to Remove / Odour to Follow

Hi Diane,

This is not fun and the reason I'm very careful with alternative pessaries. I had a sea sponge stuck in a similar manner and the best I could do was put a leg up on the john, bear strongly down, and reach all the way up with thumb and forefinger to pull the bloody (literally) thing out. It might be easier to gain the same position lying down with a pillow under your bottom. The KY was probably a good move - lube well before you begin. Tampons scare me for use as pessaries for several reasons not the least of which is their tendency to swell as they dry already thin and dry menopausal tissues.

Good luck and let us know how it went.

Christine

Hi Diane

I remember back in the days when I could still use tampons that sometimes on the last day my menses was very light, and my cycle was, of course, still in the dryness of the first week. It was sometimes very uncomfortable getting that last one out. I am thinking that these tampons are designed to suck up fluid, and probably sucked the olive oil and any other moisture right into itself. I think you would have to soak it in olive oil before you start, to ensure that it has a volume of oil in it when you insert it, and doesn't get too dry while it is in there, as Christine suggested.

If you try and remove it while standing, you have no choice but to get into slouching posture in order to grasp the string.Visualise yourself in slouching posture with your pelvis tipped back, your bladder sliding back over your vagina, and the uterus coming down on top of it, leaving a blind end of the vagina, with the tampon, above the uterus. This would mean that the tampon was literally around the corner. No wonder it was so difficult to pull out, particularly if it was stuck to the vaginal walls.

I am wondering if the discharge and odour resulted from the tampon squashing the uterus and forcing some discharge out of the uterus. Many women report a brownish discharge after menopause, self included, for a few months after menopause, and again in a minor way, since I have been taking red clover. I can't relate to the odour, though it could have something to do with the material that might have come out of your uterus, particularly in the presence of olive oil, which may have reacted with it.

As far as I understand the end of menses is not the end of hormone ups and downs. There has to still be some cycling going on, and I think FSH and LH levels do fall to very low eventually, perhaps by mid-70's or later. This tells me that there could conceivably be stuff in your uterus that has been there for a while and is periodically re-absorbed, in the same way as a second embryo develops into a non-viable lump of tissue alongside its viable twin, and is subsequently reabsorbed by the woman's body before full gestation. This happened to me in my second pregnancy, with no trace of the twin at birth.

Perhaps you just gave this material a 'shove out the door'? Perhaps it won't happen again if you repeat the tampon experiment as it has now been expelled? I know this is a weird possible explanation, but it seems logical to me.

Another slightly loony idea would be to tie an extra length of string onto it before you insert it, so that you can grasp the string in firebreathing stance (ie bent at the hips with spine horizontal and butt sticking out). This would ensure that your bladder and uterus were lying on the lower abdominal wall, and your vagina would be much straighter for the tampon's exit.

Sorry if this is all TMI, but they don't call me the Queen of Too Much Information for nothing! Somebody has to say these things.

Hopefully you will eventually be able to dispense with any pessary eventually, and be free of the worry of having a foreign object in your vagina.

Louise

Hi Diane,
A few things came to mind reading about your experience. Re removal without feeling like your organs are falling south as well, perhaps try child's pose (kneeling on ground with chest and head down) and thread an arm through your legs to your vagina to take out the tampon? I wholeheartedly agree with Christine, I think tampons are not really ideal when used for prolapse (though I understand that for many women the benefit outweighs the risk). Good suggestion from Louis about saturating the tampon too. As for the odor - again, Louise may be on to something, and I also think that the delicate flora of the vagina and the varying types of both beneficial and harmful bacteria that we all have can easily be knocked out of balance. This is not commonly accompanied by a change of odour, but seems the most plausible explanation in your case, I think.
Please don't be embarrassed about anything! This is how we all learn;)

i agree, they are a mixed bag. i do use them, but i'm still a good many years from menopause, and dryness isn't a problem so am lucky in that respect. i generally use them only if my rect isn't behaving, ie stools have moved down but not out, and i can feel sagging. but then i wear a little one, they generally sags low anyway and thus comes out easily. so maybe not pushing it up so high would help if that doesn't annoy you?
but, last day of my period, they don't like to come out and it is horrible i agree.
olive oil is lovely but absorbs very easily. i would agree you need something that isn't so absorbable. thought would also be that if you are wearing one for say 4 hours, could you reach in with your pinky and put a bit more lube in after a couple hours, and then again before removal? might help a bit--along with all the great positions for removal.
or might all just be too much trouble...

some women find sea sponges great. i tried them right at the beginning and it didn't really work but my POP were really really bad and nothing was comfortable, but haven't tried again as i am having yeast issues and am not convinced about cleaning them really well w/o damaging them. but that might be an option, though sounds like they can be tricky to get out too!

one thing though. my caution with anything holding us up is that we lose our warning system ie "you're doing too much!". so be aware of your boundaries and stick to them, even when it feels like you can do anything.

Hi everyone
Has anyone ever tried a blown up condom as a pessary? I mean don't tie a knot in the very end, but perhaps tie the knot to make it about the size of a sea sponge and about the thickness of a penis. Just wondering. I am not actually dashing off to the supermarket to buy condoms to try it myself. ;-)