Tampons in Bullet Holes (Again)

Marauder06 said:
I'll be honest when I first heard this it made total sense to me. "It helps with blood that comes out of a body, a gunshot wound involves blood leaving the body, so... "

But then listening to actual med professionals, like the Ranger Reg PA who wrote the below article, I came to think otherwise.

I wonder if this started off as a myth that everyone just believes, like "you can't shoot a .50 at troops" or "you can't shoot paratroopers until they hit the ground," etc.

Your "Tactical Tampon" is Useless for Life-Threatening Hemorrhage • The Havok Journal

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L O L… That meme explained more to me in a three second glance than paragraph after paragraphs of reading I have done.
 
Marauder06 said:
The general consensus seems to be that tampons are good for what they are designed for, they are not well suited for use in treating gunshot wounds.

If they were carrying them because a woman might need to ask for one, great. If they were carrying them to jam in bullet holes...
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I mean.. we've learned a lot from over 20 years in constant conflict. The difference between me doing combat lifesaver in the early 2000s and a more modern TCCC is pretty significant. Doing "formerly alive" tissue training taught me the brutal reality of a piece of metal blasting its way through tissue and bone.. bone shards are sharp.

I'm sure most of us remember the transition to tourniquet and GTFO, whereas it was a last resort from my earlier training. Remember when we weren't allowed to goto to sleep after a concussion. things change and we get better. All the new stuff is great, but we didn't have any of it in 2003.
 
Florida173 said:
For sure. I feel like there was some significant restructuring of the education sometime between the 91B switch to 68W.
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Maybe, I never attended either course. I think that a lot of good idea fairies went to work. Guys saw how we would make a power ball of gauze and stick it on a bleed, and thought “gee that looks like a tampon…” the issue is that a tampon holds very little blood, and also blindly sticking it in a hole does not address the bleeding. Rather it would give a momentary false sense of hemcon while it absorbs the blood that has already left circulation.

Stopping a real arterial hemorrhage is hard work. Anyone who has done it will tell you it is not easy.

A tampon is an absorbent, it is not made to stop menstrual flow, just to absorb what has already left.

Seriously a tampon has zero benefit, but people keep perpetuating it and it is very annoying. Some arguments include “what if that is all I have?” Why? Why would that ever be all you have? There is no reason for it to be on your kit. Other anecdotal evidence is presented as well, such as “my senior told me he used them and had no issues…” all trash.
 
Devildoc said:
Emerging data is showing that TQs don't even work most of the time.... THIS is the way medicine is supposed to change, looking at both lab studies plus retrospective data. The whole tampon thing was definitely a "my medic told me..." thing. @Grunt , tampons were never NSN-numbered issued kit, a Good Idea Fairy thing.
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My very limited use of TQ in the field falls under the same coverage as one of my favorite quotes from my time in the Marines..... 2 is 1 and 1 is none. More than likely you will need that second one. My .02 and worth what you paid for it... which is naught.
 

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