Chemo - the smell - yuck!

With every chemo cycle (3 x FEC and now 1 x T&H) I have had a horrible smell coming from my body.

 

Sorry if TMI!!  

 

I starts after each infusion when I smell it in my wee and then moves to my sweat and other areas as time goes on. It takes 2-3 weeks to get better.

 

Obviously, our taste buds and smell “buds” are affected by the Chemo and this affects how I smell things but in addition to this does anyone else feel like their body smells? Has anyone else been told by those close to them that they have a funny smell. My cleaner noticed in the downstairs loo and my partner commented on it.

 

(I am aware of the whole area of a cancer smell and that some people and dogs can smell cancer. I think I am one of these but this is a different smell and I would like to ask specifially about this please)

 

Hi Flopsy,

 

It is not something I have noticed, have checked with my family and they say I don’t smell as it was something I worried about (I once worked with someine who had lost his sense of smell and I think the conversations I had with him about his fears of being smelly had been playing on my mind).  I did struggle with smells, other people’s and cooking etc during FEC but not so much since I started T so maybe it is related to your ongoing nausea etc? Take care xxx

 

 

 

 

My Mum got the weird chemo smell alot during hers 2 years ago. I hardly got it when i had my chemo last year but there were brief times when i noticed it. It’s like a weird chemically type smell , reminded me of the smell of those school plimsoles used to wear when iIwas about 5. It will go away though.

Mine never really hung around (or I got used to it) but I did notice I smelt like chemicals for a day or 2 after each EC infusion I had. Never noticed wee etc just me a kind of overall from the pores smell like when you have too much garlic but I thought I smelt like work (I work in a hospital) that kind of non descript chemical smell