Hi. My name is Elaine Plummer and I am a Registered Nurse and one of the Tampax women's health experts. I came across this discussion and wanted to offer another option from Tampax. If you haven't tried Tampax Pearl, you may want to do that as the Pearl tampon with FormFit™ gently expands to fit your unique shape, and there’s a LeakGuard™ braid to help stop leaks before they happen. It may be a more comfortable option for you.
Sorry to hear about your experience but I hope you will give Tampax another try.

OP have your doctor check you for prolapse. I have prolapse and tampons no longer work for me.

I've ALWAYS hated Tampax. Always. I hate that Costco only carries that craptastic brand. I but OB and when I can't get those, I'll buy whatever applicator free version is available at Whole Foods. If I HAD to use an applicator tampon, it would be Playtex. I like that they stretch in width not length so they don't leak like Tampax. Plus the applicator is easier to insert. But I still prefer OB. My BFF couldn't use OB after giving birth and uses a diva cup now which she loves.

Was interested to hear so many women say they can't use same brand post baby. My internal geography totally changed, and tampons just don't fit right anymore - practically have to do calesthenics to get them in. And I love the diva cup, but it also doesn't fit right - that little stem is always irritating, even after I trimmed it like advised. Grrr.

To the German poster who revived this thread: I think US women use tampax because our mothers used tampax. At least that was what it was for me, until I could buy my own and realized that tampax never worked for me.

I have used playtex or OB for years (I started using OB 25 years ago when I was in college and wanted something disceet). I now use Kotex tampons (since OB stopped selling their most absorbant size).

I much preferred the Playtex ones for the applicator but found they weren't as absorbent at Tampax. I became a fan of the Target Up & Up tampons that are comparable to the Tampax Pearl.

Although I just had endometrial ablation a couple months ago so no more tampons or pads for me - yay!