07/09/2025
LADIES! STOP OR LIMIT YOUR USE OF TAMPONS..... After making it back home to Illinois, Kelci felt extremely sick. Originally, she thought her symptoms were signs of car sickness. It wasn’t until three days after the trip that Kelci woke up and immediately blacked out. She was rushed to the emergency room, where Kelci’s organs were starting to fail, and had to be transferred to the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit right away.
“One of my nurses got the call saying that I had to be transferred to PICU, and they had to put another IV in me before that, and I didn’t really know what it meant when I went to that section,” said Kelci.
Kelci had toxic shock syndrome.
“TSS, as its name applies, comes on suddenly and is usually a variety of dramatic symptoms, fever, chills, nausea, vomiting, and those are often associated with low blood pressure and rapid heart rate,” said Dr David Barbe with Springfield’s Mercy.
Anthony says her daughter’s decline stemmed from using tampons, not from misusing them, but from bacteria the tampon absorbed while Kelci was on the lake.
“That’s when they start questioning if she had been in any dirty water or any creeks,” the mom said.
Doctors also checked Kelci for any open wounds, another cause of toxic shock syndrome.
Although Kelci can’t ever wear tampons again, Anthony is thankful this is the only change her daughter will have to adapt.
Just because something is rare and not often talked about doesn’t mean it’s not going to happen to you. The doctor said most likely she would’ve died because if just any more time had passed.”
