Question for A&E Dr's or Ambulance drivers....

[Schmeeeee]

I've got a totally genuine and really random question that is often on my mind....

If a women happens to be on her period, is wearing a tampon and finds herself injured enough to be incapacitated or requires emergency attention so quickly she can't talk much, does anyone check down there to see if she's wearing a tampon? I'm just curious as to what the chances are that a woman could develop toxic shock syndrome due to a tampon being left in for too long or forgotten about. Is there some kind of rule that medical staff always check to see if a woman is on her period? And what happens if the woman goes into surgery or is placed in a coma? Does someone take responsibility for changing her sanitary protection?

Told you it was random!

Bemused at how many vaginal exams OP thinks drivers do.

Re contact lenses we would do a neuro exams/regular neuro obs on someone less than alert and oriented. This involves shining a torch in their eyes to see if pupils equal and reactive and we would see the outline and remove as appropriate. I once had to get a pair out of someone's eyes who had a delirium and became very aggressive when we came near..it felt so invasive.

Re tampons and menstrual cup. If someone of menstruating age is unresponsive then they are quite poorly so they would definitely have a top to toe plus a catheter put in. Most likely they would have a CT to aid diagnosis and I'm fairly sure both would show. Also bloods would be monitored fairly closely and would track any infection. Also tampons don't hold for a whole period so eventually there would be a brown d/c which would prompt a vaginal exam

Thanks @Beseen22 and @Clairey844 , you have put my mind at ease 😁

@Schmeeeee I have an alert card in my wallet and on my phone medical ID as I am on medications that drs need to know about asap even if I was unconscious. As I usually carry my phone everywhere it's better than a bracelet as I find them painful to wear .

Same !

I put some thought into this not so long ago, as I saw an episode of Chicago Med (I know, I know but it made me think)a teenager had soaked a tampon with vodka as she had an alcohol problem and didn't want her parents to notice the smell on her breath.

Dr Charles (the psychiatrist) called it (as usual) as he said he saw she was wearing a tampon on the xray. And all I could think was...... 'you can see a tampon on an xray'??

Maybe it was a scan, but anyway, this certainly got me thinking.

@isthismylifenow you can see a tampon on an x ray yes

I'm not sure how I got to 50 years of age and didn't know this.....

So I did suspect if someone was badly injured, they would know to remove it by seeing it.

At least one thing on Chicago Med is accurate 😊

I have anisocoria and often wonder what would happen when my larger pupil doesn't react to light if I'm unable to warn the staff beforehand.

Bit random but whilst we are talking about about seeing a tampon on an x-ray, I though how strange it was when watching some animal rescue thing today on telly and they had a rescue cat that they thought was pregnant so they x-rayed it to see how many kittens it was carrying. 'Ultrasound surely?' I shouted at the telly! But no, x-ray because of course little bones show up on x-ray, they could see 3 skulls inside the cats womb!

In terms of deaf patients, would it be on their medical records?

They used to X-ray women to see if they were pregnant, before they were realised how damaging radiation was .

If every paramedic in the country is offended by the op, they must have done a specialist module in how to be professionally offended. I though all people associated with the NHS were too busy to give stuff like this head space!

I was sedated and on a ventilator in ICU once and the nurse told me they'd checked for my contact lenses.

Not related but concerned me once! I was very very ill in hospital - pretty much for around a month either in a coma and very low awareness before I began to come to and around another 2 months in recovery. I had a moment as I couldn’t work out how did the nurses dealt with periods with a very ill patient - weirdly my body paused and for 5 months no periods until I was home again! No idea why or quite how the body works.

i have metal in me and I can’t have an MRI (some modern machines are ok) once nearly ended up in one with confusions! I have no idea how anyone would know if I was unconscious again!

Depending where you are there are Paramedics, Technicians, Associate Ambulance Practitioners (and Trainee Associate Ambulance Practitioners), Emergency Care Workers (many variants), Critical Care Paramedics, Paramedic Practitioners, Advanced Paramedics....Emergency Responders, Community First Responders...

But Paramedic or Ambulance Crew are acceptable generics for people who can both save your life and drive a Tesco delivery van on blue lights.

<misses point of thread>

It depends where the metal is and how long it's been in you.

I can answer this. I was in a bad accident and when I awoke my lenses were in storage tubes in my bedside cabinet!

As a pp says they see them when they look in your eyes.

This happened to me! I was take into A&E unresponsive after an accident and when I came round the next day, they had removed my tampon and given me a pad. No idea how they knew about the tampon though!

Are there not ambulance drivers anymore? I'm sure years ago there were with a paramedic in the back with the injured/sick person.

No. They ate both highly qualified medical practitioners.

They're EMTs or ECAs or similar. Not registered paramedics, but still amazing professionals who are highly trained.

They are not ambulance drivers.

No. Both people on a front line crew will have some degree of medical training. Paramedics are registered. EMTs are not but are still highly trained and cam work independently of Paramedics- so 2 EMTs on a vehicle, or an EMT and a care assistant- who is also well trained.

"Ambulance driver" could refer to patient transport- but again, they are highly trained in manual handling and, for want of a better term, customer service.

Calling someone who works on a front line Ambulance an ambulance driver is like calling a teacher a babysitter.

I think you'll find we all have time to give it headspace. We work really very hard and we deserve to have our skill and training recognised. You wouldn't call a qualified nurse a carer or a doctor a first aider, so please don't refer to highly skilled ambulance crew as "drivers".

The Ocado man does mine, is this not normal?