Lauren Wasser was 24 and thriving as a model when an ordinary day turned catastrophic. What felt like the flu — fever, aches, exhaustion — turned out to be menstrual toxic shock syndrome (mTSS), a rare but fast-moving infection caused by bacterial toxins, likely from a tampon she’d used correctly. Within hours, Lauren was in septic shock. She suffered two heart attacks and fell into a weeklong coma. When she woke, doctors told her they had amputated her right leg to save her life. “I had a one-percent chance of survival,” she said later.
Years afterward, complications forced her to lose her left leg as well. Instead of retreating, Lauren became a force for awareness. She sued the tampon manufacturer and began advocating for transparency about menstrual health. “The vagina is the most absorbent part of a woman’s body,” she wrote. “Consumers deserve to know the reality of what can happen.”