Before I ask the question, here’s the standard disclaimer: I am not seeking medical advice, I am just curious about something weird.
What, short of eating aluminum, could make a person’s poo smell like aluminum?
IANAD and the following is a WAG:
I don’t think aluminum has an odour… which is why it’s used so commonly for food and beverage packaging. But if you mean a “metallic” smell, then perhaps blood, or garlicy or oniony foods (they both contain selenium compounds)?
Aluminum does have a very distinct smell to me – and this was most definitely an aluminum smell. I know I am one of the very few people who own but cannot eat off of actual silverware because I can taste it. Maybe I am a weirdo for being able to differentiate a smell for aluminum. It’s that smell when a can of pop has gotten left out – it’s very distinct to me.
FWIW, no other weirdness. Everything was normal, except the smell. I honestly do not like to talk about my poo, but this just freaked me right out. Diet has not changed, consistency was normal, colour normal, just the smell was very distinctly that of aluminum – and I say this emphatically – it didn’t smell like poo at all, but rather like hot aluminum.
IANAD. Blood in your stool. Can you differentiate between the smells of Aluminum and Iron? Are you willing to risk colon cancer over your confidence?
Get a steamy sample to a doctor and you’ll probably be set up for a colonoscopy (sp?) depending on the results.
I don’t know what you mean by aluminum*, but I, too, can taste the difference when eating or drinking from silver and do not like it.
*he says, looking at his array of empty mountain dew aluminum cans on his desk, some of which are half-empty, because he only drinks from aluminum cans rather than plastic because of the taste (but thinks that any metal [other than silver]) would do.)
I can actually differentiate between iron and aluminum – I take boatloads of iron, due to being a gastric bypass patient, and know how that affects the smell. Gods, this has devolved into a subject that makes me uncomfortable! At any rate, I am due for some bloodwork soon and shall talk to my doctor, I just wondered if any doctors/nurses/medical students had heard of this. Like how asparagus makes your pee have a very distinctive smell or how a diabetic’s pee is very sweet (and honestly, I would not want to know how the first doctor to figure that out did)? Eh, just a weird thing I wondered aloud.
Ludovic, I prefer pop (on the rare occasion I drink it) out of a glass bottle, myself. I don’t mind the taste of aluminum – I don’t mind the smell either – but just find that it has a very distinct smell.