Skip to main content
Skip to main navigation
Skip to talk navigation

Active discussions

Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Unflip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Saved Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

Unflip

1 2

Other subjects

Are you a Tampon Virgin?

32 replies

2mum · 22/05/2006 19:42

I seen the other thread and realised id never used a tampon ever only sanitary towels. Even my dh thought i was a bit weird when he started going out with me as his exes used tampons. I dont know if its weird or not. I know it sounds daft but ive always been scared to use them in case they got stuck or i got that toxic shock thing. I know thats stupid but im still to scared to!

OP posts:

Report

TheLadyVanishes · 22/05/2006 21:45

I distinctly remember getting my period and my mum giving me sanitary towel (it came up to my belly button and half way up my back, well not really but felt that way!) I had to walk to school with what felt like a brick between my legs and I hated it. One day not long after i think it was in sex ed class they gave out free tampon in the case and I never looked back, I felt clean and didn't feel like I was having a period, all has changed since I had dd last year and for some reason I can't face using a tampon (strange eh?)

LittleSarah · 22/05/2006 21:40

Nope, never liked pads me. I used them at first until I worked out where to put the tampon! And then... phew...

expatinscotland · 22/05/2006 20:58

Too right, GDG. Felt like I was wearing a soggy nappy. And the smell! Ugggh.

NO way.

GDG · 22/05/2006 20:55

Oh God, after just one period I thought 'sod this' and switched from towels to tampons - what a liberating day that was! With towels/pads you can feel it coming out and it's soooo uncomfortable. I can remember at school standing up after being sat in a lesson and feeling it run out while legging it to the toilet! Eewww, yuk!

Whatever suits you obviously but I just can't be doing with towels.

acnebride · 22/05/2006 20:47

even in the early 80s which really doesn't feel that long ago my mum put a pair of pants with kind of hooks on and a packet of really thick pads with corresponding hooks attached to them in my drawer... never mentioned them to me... I have no idea where she found them as even then they looked like something out of a museum. I had a go with her Lilets but could never get them to work (still can't) so for years I used ye olde wingless Vespre and am still furious to think how badly they were designed - tiny weeny double strip of useless adhesive so that they walked whenever I did, and I was constantly worried about them falling out of the back of my knickers (once or twice they actually did), so eventually I safetypinned them into my pants, which was much better, except that btch K once saw my pants when I was sitting crosslegged and asked me why I had a safetypin in there, and kept asking just to embarrass me. Btch.

Anyway, eventually I lost my virginity and started using tampons. I'm now on washables but that's long after the scars of using olde towels had faded.

niceglasses · 22/05/2006 20:38

Don't think it has much to do with the birth thing - I've had 3 so called normal deliveries, and I still don't feel comfortable with them. I dig why pple dislike the smell etc, but you know, horses for course. For me, its the dryness thing.........

hockeymum · 22/05/2006 20:36

Oooh I really thought I was the only one never to have used a tampon!! Glad I can join the club now (bit like an AA meeting this!). They make me feel really dry and sore too so I just opt for the Always thing.

You'd think that after 2 babies I wouldn't be at all bothered by a small tampon really, but they were 2 sections so maybe that makes a difference.

expatinscotland · 22/05/2006 20:29

Until I had a baby, I had never used a pad. Eeewww. Smelly, messy, gross!

DumbledoresGirl · 22/05/2006 20:27

God I remember not going to the loo at school too, when I was having a period. We had those awful old incinerators and ther was only one in a certain cubicle which was also used by the rough girls for smoking in - gruesome days.

I would get home and my nether regions would look like a war zone.......

bourneville · 22/05/2006 20:18

I use to hate using the toilets at secondary school, had a real thing about it so i used to go all day without using the loo even when i was on my period. were miserable days Seems so stupid now, what was i worried about??? i think it was a combination of cleanliness and worry about ppl hearing me pee. god knows what i did to my bladder/kidneys when i think about it !

2mum · 22/05/2006 20:04

My periods are not too heavy really anymore cos im on the pill. But i used to have really bad ones. That sounds a bit worrying about the drying out niceglasses that would def put me off.

OP posts:

gingernut · 22/05/2006 20:03

I only use them occasionally as I don't really find them comfortable (they always make me feel very dry but that might be because my periods are very light). As DG says, modern towels are so much better than the old ones anyway, so IMO there's no need for tampons (and yes, DG, I remember the looped ones!). I'd probably use them if my periods were heavier though. They are pretty easy to use, I just feel more comfortable with a towel.

2mum · 22/05/2006 20:02

Tampons are bound to feel more hygenic cos when its a heavy one with towels you just feel like getting a bath as you dont feel clean. But the wings on towels are good, you were saying about old wingless pads. I remember my mum talking about sanitary belts but ive never seen one.

OP posts:

notasheep · 22/05/2006 20:02

2mum-tampax have a cardboard tube too and they go all long and yuck and leak

PinkKerPlink · 22/05/2006 20:02

if you have heavy periods tampons do often leak unluckily:(

niceglasses · 22/05/2006 20:01

I think for me, sorry for tmi, a tampon makes me feel to dry......I feel like it really drys me out. But I have fairly light periods, am lucky, which only last 2-3 days and are very light towards the end so wearing a tampon just really does not feel right.
God sorry.....have never discussed this with ANYONE!!!!

DumbledoresGirl · 22/05/2006 20:00

reated should say treated

DumbledoresGirl · 22/05/2006 19:59

2mum, I was scared to use them to begin with (this is back in the dark ages when towels were thick and wingless and sometimes held in place with a sanitary belt - anyone else remember those?) but I felt as MissChief did, that towels were too much mess, discomfort and smelt, so I took a deep breath and went for the tampons. TSS wasn't known about then, at least, the information with the packets didn't mention it, but even if it had, it wouldn't have stopped me. Once you know the symptoms of TSS, you know what to look for and would probably get reated quickly

All that being said, there really is no prize for wearing tampons. I have towels which I tend to use at the end of the period, and they are so much better than the old ones I started with. I can imagine if I had not tried tampons, I might not see the need for them second time around.

2mum · 22/05/2006 19:55

I thought tampax was the name of tampons or are tampax bigger or something?

OP posts:

MissChief · 22/05/2006 19:55

but you've given birth haven't you? believe me, there's nothing scary about sth as small as a tampon after that!

Twinkie1 · 22/05/2006 19:55

Tried every type of pad and even the dreaded mooncup (still rotting in the bathroom cabinet I fear!!) and always revert to tampons although now with the old Mirena coil its only for 2 days!!

Funniest tampon story I have is working at a brokers in the city and one of our eastern european analysts was going scuba diving and asked for some advice on how to use a tampon - she was worried on where to stick it and what happened when it filled with wee - would the wee just go through it and would it still soak up any blood!!!! - we had to give her a quick biology lesson poor girl (although we had taken bets before and after it on her actually being a a man or a very gravelly voiced hirstute woman!!!)

notasheep · 22/05/2006 19:54

Tampax are ugh,i use tampons as i hate the smell of blood

Don’t want to miss threads like this?

Weekly

Sign up to our weekly round up and get all the best threads sent straight to your inbox!

Email address

Log in to update your newsletter preferences.

You've subscribed!

2mum · 22/05/2006 19:52

Im 26 and im still too scared to try them. Im just glad the sanitary towels are a lot thinner than they were years ago. It could be worse we could have to wash rags like our grannies probably did.

OP posts:

niceglasses · 22/05/2006 19:51

I have used them but only in emergency. Don't like them but like someone else said, my mum was always very anti-tampons so maybe thats it. Odd, I like the 'security' of a towel.

MissChief · 22/05/2006 19:50

really? I'm somehow impressedat yuor fortitude! I thought bugger this for a game of soldiers at about 15 or so (even tho mum scared the hell out of me with toxic shock stories) - just didn't want to have to feel like I had a nappy on, leakages etcl. Tampons were such a liberation (bring on that tampax ad!)

Unflip

1 2

Please create an account

To comment on this thread you need to create a Mumsnet account.