It's not all cramps and binge eating.

Toxic Shock Syndrome is something that seems to be making more and more appearances in the media of recent. First the story of Lauren Wasser, a Californian model who lost her leg to the illness, and then poor young Jemma Louise Roberts who sadly lost her life at the young age of thirteen to it.

Now at the ripe age of 23, you'd think I'd be well aware of the risks and the causes of this illness. But alas, I'm as uneducated as a young girl who's just got her first period when it comes to TSS.

I'm sat here puzzling over why something that is potentially fatal, isn't taught to girls whilst they're in school. It's not something that should be left to learning from the information leaflet on the inside of a vagina plug box.

Wanting to write something about this subject after hearing about these awful cases of the illness in it's extreme, I've learnt more about it in the half an hour I spent on just one website than I have in the last 12 years. For example, I didn't know that men could also contract it, or that's it is a bacteria that can be found in the nose, armpit, groin or vagina in ⅓ of people!

A common misconception of TSS is that tampons directly cause it, however, they just increase the risk of potentially getting it. The link between tampons and TSS has be proven to have something to do with the absorbancy of the tampon used as opposed to using tampons full stop. According to the aformentioned website using the correct absorbancy and switching regularly between tampons and pads have proven to be an effective way to lower the risk of contracting it.

Something I feel that will come in handy for anyone reading this is the symptoms of TSS, something I had no clue about until in undertook this research, is the symptoms of it. Not that I'm really sure what I thought they were before reading up on them, but at least now knowing that they are flu like symptoms and begin 2-3 days into your period is something I'm better for knowing.

Now I'm not going to sit here and list all the facts that I've learned from just one websites worth of research. But the point I am going to make here is that it's something I shouldn't be learning at 23, it's something I should be learning in sex education at school. I understand that previously there were only 20 cases per year within a population of 58 million, however now there is one case in America within every 100, 000 menstrauating women. When you take into consideration that that is 745 women per year in the US alone, it's something that should probably be revised in the education system.

So for anyone reading this, I strongly suggest reading the information I found on the Toxic Shock Syndrome Information Service Site for more information on this often uninformed subject.