I experienced severe upper stomach pain in my back and shoulders severe dehydration, vomiting, restlessness. It is almost unbearable. I have found that drinking water will help to promote the vomiting and alleviate the stomach pain a little faster. I do get a headache and it generally takes three days after the episode to feel better. My advice to others is to stop using tampons. This is what brings on TSS. I also take an antibiotic for a few weeks to make sure I have no infections. I have to say this is the worst pain I have ever felt. I have had this quite a few times. Each time it seems to get a little worse even if I wait two years to use tampons again I always get TSS. No more tampons for me

My daughter died of TSS last June. She was only wearing a regular absorbency tampon and changed them like clockwork for fear of TSS. She started in the afternoon with vomiting, and a high temp, Ibuprofen took the temp to normal right away. The next day she had diarrhea and the next morning she woke up hurting all over her body. We went to the ER where her kidneys were already in failure. The next day she had Adult respiratory Distress syndrome and began having heart attacks. She died that night.

I also had sepsis along with the toxic shock syndrome my symptoms before the doctors knew what I had were low blood pressure, high temp, delirious and confusion. I ended up in the hospital for 4 weeks and a nursing home for 2 months. The total effects were I lost all of my hair, on a ventilator for 4 weeks, induced coma for 3 weeks, kidney failure, resp. failure, nerve damage, drop foot, a trachea for 4 weeks, feeding tube for 8 weeks. I feel I lost 2 months of my life, I don't remember a lot of it. I forgot things like my grandbabies and others it's been a really slow progress I been working at bettering myself for 18 months now and I still have a lot of problems. Please wear gloves in a working situation at work or at home and wash your hands all the time, mine started with a scratch around my right middle finger and it turned into this. I still cannot bend that finger. I also could not go up or down stairs for 9 months, drive for 10 months, walk for 6 months and etc. Please take care of yourselves. A few people told me that I'm their living miracle. I don't know this is a awful disease.