# What medical condition might this guy have had? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 26, 2008, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-medical-condition-might-this-guy-have-had/478766 "2008-12-26T19:53:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![TGWATY](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b5e925/32.png) [@TGWATY](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TGWATY)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2008, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-medical-condition-might-this-guy-have-had/478766/1 "2008-12-26T19:53:45Z")
I have wondered about this for years. When I was in navy boot camp there was a fellow recruit who had a horrible odor. It was not the usual BO odor nor urine or feces. Secondly, since our laundry was done in one big pile and had to be sorted in the barracks, we knew from his stained skivvies that he was bleeding from the rectum. The poor guy made it through seven weeks of boot camp before they sent him home for medical reasons. But we never knew what his problem was. Only the two visible symptoms. ---
**Author:** ![Jenaroph](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e8c25b/32.png) [@Jenaroph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jenaroph)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2008, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-medical-condition-might-this-guy-have-had/478766/2 "2008-12-26T20:01:45Z")
> [@TGWATY](#): > > When I was in navy boot camp there was a fellow recruit who had a horrible odor. It was not the usual BO odor nor urine or feces. > Secondly, since our laundry was done in one big pile and had to be sorted in the barracks, we knew from his stained skivvies that he was bleeding from the rectum. > > […]Only the two **visible symptoms.** I don’t have an answer for you, but I have to say that’s some powerful odor, if you could _see_ it. ---
**Author:** ![TGWATY](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b5e925/32.png) [@TGWATY](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TGWATY)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2008, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-medical-condition-might-this-guy-have-had/478766/3 "2008-12-26T20:08:29Z")
I hesitated on that but I could not come up with the olfactory analog to “visible”. ---
**Author:** ![ArmenE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e9bcb4/32.png) [@ArmenE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ArmenE)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2008, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-medical-condition-might-this-guy-have-had/478766/4 "2008-12-26T20:25:38Z")
> [@TGWATY](#): > > I hesitated on that but I could not come up with the olfactory analog to “visible”. Olfactible though ‘smellable’ would do in a pinch. ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2008, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-medical-condition-might-this-guy-have-had/478766/5 "2008-12-26T20:57:50Z")
> [@TGWATY](#): > > I hesitated on that but I could not come up with the olfactory analog to “visible”. Call those findings ‘perceptible’. Could have been a number of things. I’m thinking infected anal fistula leaking blood and pus along with stool as a likely candidate. Mix those 3 substances for a memorably ‘perceptible’ sign. BTW, a ‘symptom’ is what the patient complains of. Pain, dizziness, bleeding, and so forth. A ‘sign’ is what you perceive when evaluating the patient. Low blood pressure, pallor, knife sticking in the flank, blood leaking from an orifice, etc. ---
**Author:** ![TGWATY](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b5e925/32.png) [@TGWATY](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TGWATY)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2008, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-medical-condition-might-this-guy-have-had/478766/6 "2008-12-26T21:23:28Z")
> [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](#): > > Could have been a number of things. I’m thinking infected anal fistula leaking blood and pus along with stool as a likely candidate. Mix those 3 substances for a memorably ‘perceptible’ sign. Thanks. Another clue is that he was kicked out of the service for it. If it was something which could be treated and heal in a relatively short time, they probably would have let him stay. but then, you never can tell with the military. Their actions often do not make sense to the outsider. ---
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2008, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-medical-condition-might-this-guy-have-had/478766/7 "2008-12-26T21:39:02Z")
Too much anal sex? With a smelly guy ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2008, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-medical-condition-might-this-guy-have-had/478766/8 "2008-12-26T21:58:37Z")
Rectal bleeding can also be a sign of colon cancer. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2008, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-medical-condition-might-this-guy-have-had/478766/9 "2008-12-26T22:04:30Z")
It can also be a sign of fistula (as Qadgop mentioned), bleeding hemorrhoids, and probably a bunch o’ other things. Everyone thinks “cancer” first, but it’s far from the only reason to leak from the nether regions. ---
**Author:** ![Markxxx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5daacb/32.png) [@Markxxx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Markxxx)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2008, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-medical-condition-might-this-guy-have-had/478766/10 "2008-12-26T22:15:30Z")
Hemorrhoid blood is usually very bright red. What about when you go by certain homeless people and the stench is unbelievable. It makes you want to vomit. It smells like a dead body rotting. What 'causes that? Maybe it’s the same thing ---
**Author:** ![Stan\_Shmenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/94ad74/32.png) [@Stan\_Shmenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stan_Shmenge)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2008, 7:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-medical-condition-might-this-guy-have-had/478766/11 "2008-12-27T07:06:07Z")
There is a fairly rare disorder that causes a person to give off a very strong odor, some have compared it to rotting fish. I forget the name of the disease, but I met a person once with it. You don’t want to be that person, or be around them. It was truly horrid. ---
**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2008, 7:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-medical-condition-might-this-guy-have-had/478766/12 "2008-12-27T07:25:38Z")
Trimethylaminuria (TMAU). I think the smell of many cancers is quite distinctive. ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2008, 7:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-medical-condition-might-this-guy-have-had/478766/13 "2008-12-27T07:43:24Z")
> [@Markxxx](#): > > Hemorrhoid blood is usually very bright red. What about when you go by certain homeless people and the stench is unbelievable. It makes you want to vomit. It smells like a dead body rotting. > > What 'causes that? Maybe it’s the same thing Mainly that body odor x 10 and urine where they’ve pissed themsleves and it’s allowed to get funky over time. [Here’s some sweetness](http://www.salon.com/books/feature/1999/08/10/delany/print.html) > [@](#): > > Bread & Wine" recounts the beginnings, a decade back, of Delany’s relationship with his current lover, Dennis (we never learn his last name), when Dennis was a homeless man selling books from a blanket on West 72nd Street. Delany’s abstractions about interclass contact come sharply into focus here – and so does the fetishization behind them. It wasn’t just democratic idealism that made Times Square one of the centers of his sex life. Looking Dennis up and down when they first begin to discuss the possibility of sleeping together, Delany admits to the reader, “I found him attractive, underneath (and, hell, just a bit because of) all the dirt.” The dirt is, in fact, epic. When Delany rents a motel room for the two of them, Dennis has his first real bath in six years, and the scene is – well, it’s amazing: > The high laced workboots and the three layers of socks beneath them came off – and out of them came a stench that, frankly, beats anything I’ve ever smelled before! The inner pair of socks had simply decayed around his feet … I’ve seen people take baths where the water turned grey from the dirt. But five minutes after he got started I looked in to see how he was doing. He could have been sitting in a tub of India Ink! > > I’m fastidious, I know, but – yucch. The “shit-and-vinegar” stink of Dennis’ feet was so pervasive, Delany tells us, that the room was going to be “unrentable for the next few days.” And yet, and yet � there’s something almost fairy-tale-like about the occasion. It’s as though we’re seeing Dennis emerge from the misery of a long and terrible spell. Delany tells their story simply and heartbreakingly, sequinning the text with glittering nocturnal quotations from “Brod und Wein,” an early 19th century elegy by the German poet Friedrich H�lderlin. (At the time of the events, he was studying Paul de Man’s reading of the poem.) They make a haunting overlay. ---
**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2008, 8:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-medical-condition-might-this-guy-have-had/478766/14 "2008-12-27T08:04:25Z")
Yes, it is well known to any devotee of Delany that he has a fetish for stinky feet. You can’t hardly get through a chapter of _Dahlgren_ without some man stomping round with one boot and one dirty bare foot. ---
**Author:** ![Apricot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/bcef8e/32.png) [@Apricot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apricot)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2008, 8:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-medical-condition-might-this-guy-have-had/478766/15 "2008-12-27T08:15:18Z")
I’m thinking of Rush Limbaugh’s deferral for a pilonidal cyst - a variation in anatomy leaves a pit near/in the ass crack, which can get some record, retched stink going and sometimes lead to fistulas, etc. ala Qadgop the Mercotan’s answer. I would think boot camp would be one of the places on earth where you could honestly ask, “Dude, what’s up with the skivvies? You seem to be leaking blood! You have that looked at?” ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2008, 9:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-medical-condition-might-this-guy-have-had/478766/16 "2008-12-27T09:26:20Z")
I had a teacher like this. He fucking _stank_, and it wasn’t just BO or shit or piss. It was an astonishing wall of stench that seemed to combine all three, plus something else, and overpowered anyone unfortunate enough to be called into his office. It made me retch. Though a bachelor, he _looked_ clean. I think his mother did his laundry too. But even first thing in the morning, the odor surrounded him, like Pig Pen, only worse. The strange thing was, it didn’t hamper his career: he was a much-loved departmental head, and when he died (of a heart condition, presumably nothing to do with the smell) the funeral overflowed into the churchyard. But man, he stank. Poor guy. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2008, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-medical-condition-might-this-guy-have-had/478766/17 "2008-12-27T15:02:47Z")
I used to work for a guy who had truly world-class BO. He was clean, he just stank. No whiff of urine or feces, just BO turned up to the max. A very faint whiff of a skunk is OK. Some skunk smell floating around is bad and a real shot of skunk is waay waaaay too much. Not because it smells any worse than the faint whiff, but because it smells so strongly. If ordinary human post-workout BO is a faint whiff of skunk, this guy just out of the shower smelled like a full shot of skunk. I always felt sorry for the guy. ---
**Author:** ![rekkah](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ee59a6/32.png) [@rekkah](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rekkah)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2008, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-medical-condition-might-this-guy-have-had/478766/18 "2008-12-27T17:54:56Z")
> [@susan](#): > > Trimethylaminuria (TMAU). Trimethylaminuria makes the sufferer’s sweat & urine smell very unpleasantly of fish, but is otherwise harmless - it wouldn’t cause rectal bleeding. It’s possible he had TMAU and another unrelated problem but it seems more likely the two were related in some way. ---
**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2008, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-medical-condition-might-this-guy-have-had/478766/19 "2008-12-27T17:58:43Z")
I don’t disagree. I was responding to > [@](#): > > There is a fairly rare disorder that causes a person to give off a very strong odor, some have compared it to rotting fish. I forget the name of the disease, but I met a person once with it. You don’t want to be that person, or be around them. It was truly horrid. ---
**Author:** ![rekkah](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ee59a6/32.png) [@rekkah](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rekkah)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2008, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-medical-condition-might-this-guy-have-had/478766/20 "2008-12-27T21:40:50Z")
> [@susan](#): > > I don’t disagree. I was responding to Sorry, I should have been clearer - I assumed you would know that since you knew about the disorder, I was just mentioning it as part of the ogoing discussion since I thought not all other posters would know that. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-medical-condition-might-this-guy-have-had/478766.md?page=2)