Exclusive | I accidentally kept a tampon in for a month — it smelled like a rat crawled inside of me and died

Talk about opening Pandora’s box.

One reality TV star is holding herself up as a cautionary tale after she accidentally forgot she’d used a tampon — and walked around for a month with it still inside her.

Savannah Miller, who appeared on season 7 of Netflix’s The Circle, discussed the “truly humbling experience” with The Post, from the symptoms it set off to how doctors finally figured it out.

And though she confessed it was “actually traumatizing,” she’s lucky it didn’t turn into a deadly infection that can be caused by wearing tampons for too long.

Now 24, Miller was a 22-year-old college student when, at the tail end of her period, she went out to a bar with friends. Wanting to avoid any “spillage,” she used a tampon — but by the next day, it was gone.

“I forgot I put it in, and because there was no blood and the string had disappeared, I didn’t see it,” she said.

Within a few days, though, she started experiencing symptoms, including a general sick feeling, itchiness and a bad smell.

“It smelled like a rat crawled inside of me while I was sleeping and died,” she admitted, adding that she was self-conscious about it in every class.

Guessing that it was an “old period” smell, she kept using new tampons, likely pushing the original one up even further into her vagina.

(Hidden) string of bad luck

Miller went to the on-campus clinic several times, but initial examinations found nothing wrong. They ran STD tests, which all came back normal.

“They thought it was just BV [bacterial vaginosis], but I knew there was no way people walked around with BV smelling like this,” she said.

Finally, at her third doctor’s appointment, they noted that she had some cotton particles in her urine sample and asked whether it was possible she had a tampon inside her.

“I didn’t think so, but I was like, possibly?!” she recalled. “But I was desperate to make the smell go away.”

They did end up finding the tampon, which she quipped was “so far up in my cervix there was no shot I was gonna see it.”

“The doctor had to fish it out of my ovaries,” she joked.

A very close call

Though she fortunately had no symptoms of toxic shock syndrome, a dangerous bacterial infection, she was put on antibiotics just in case.

In toxic shock syndrome (TSS), bacteria produce toxins that enter the bloodstream, which can cause extreme complications like organ failure and even death.

It’s quite rare, affecting 1 in 100,000 people, but became associated with tampon use in the ’90s. Tampon packaging now comes with warnings about TSS, with advice to change tampons every eight hours.

Model Lauren Wasser became well-known for having suffered TSS in 2012, costing her both of her legs to amputation. Meanwhile, one mother nearly lost two of her daughters to tampon-induced TSS, and others who’ve recovered are still battling the health effects.

Symptoms of toxic shock syndrome include:

Lesson learned

A couple of years later, Savannah has a sense of humor about the ordeal, even going viral on TikTok for telling her story — with some very appropriate Taylor Swift audio.

“Too toxic for toxic shock syndrome I guess,” she captioned the clip.

And even if it’s a touchy subject, she’s hoping that sharing what happened to her will be a reminder to others to be vigilant about period care.

“I hope this isn’t embarrassing but if it helps someone then I’m glad!” she said.