snooki tamponsSnooki's ex-boyfriend Jeff Miranda is laying some super-gross accusations against her on a popular website. She's dirty and mean, for starters. But worst of all, and deserving of three exclamation points, is the revelation that Snooki has been known to extend the use of a tampon for an extraordinarily long time.

My ex gf the snookster doesnt believe in showers and likes to wear the same cloth for days. While we were together during the filming of jersey shore season 3, she barely changed her underwear. And left the same tampon in for days!!!

Dude. DUDE!!! I do not believe you!!! At all!!! How would he even know this? Was she in the habit of inviting him to watch every time she changed her feminine hygiene products? No, of course not. He's just being a jerk and trying to come up with the most ridiculous, made-up slander his filthy, feeble little mind can come up with. But guess what? Been there, done that! I left a tampon in for days!!! and lived. Let me explain.

When I first came to New York City as a starry-eyed young graduate student, I was just a little bit distracted. I was trying new foods, reading new books, meeting new people, jogging through Central Park without getting raped, riding the subway without getting mugged -- let's just say I had a lot on my mind. So when the end of my period came along that autumn (OMG, the leaves, so beautiful, LOOK AT THEM!), I plum forgot to remove that last tampon. Seriously. I forgot that it was there.

I did not get Toxic Shock Syndrome. I did get an infection, though. And that's how I found out about Little Miss Left-Behind. It had been there for about a week or so. I'll spare you the rest of the details, but it was actually a relief for me to find out that I wasn't dying of TSS. Awesome! Maybe I should just leave one in every month! Just kidding -- I never fucking made that mistake ever, ever again.

But you should know that reports of tampon-related Toxic Shock Syndrome have been greatly exaggerated. There was an epidemic in the 1980s, and since then tampon production has gotten safer and the rates have gone way down (one or two cases out of 100,000 women, as of 1987). It isn't caused by tampons. It's just that if certain bacterial toxins happen to get on your tampon, the longer you keep it in, the longer you're exposing yourself, and the longer the bacteria has to multiply in that nice, warm, squishy environment. And you can get TSS from other things like contraception and surgery.

So it's not like we can all relax now and just leave tampons in for days!!! Still, be careful with whatever you shove up your lovebox. If you do happen to leave a tampon in for kind of a long time, don't panic. Just take it out, check to see if you have a high fever or other dramatic symptoms you would definitely notice anyway, and then if you don't, you can go on with your life. Your busy, distracting, crazy life.

Have you ever accidentally left a tampon in for too long?

 

Image via ecastro/Flickr and MTV