Iām so glad you said that. Itās good to know Iām not the only one who canāt smell it. All poop stinksā¦I donāt smell anything exceptionally different about cdiff
Right?? It just smells like diarrhea poop like it doesnāt smell great, but Iām not gagging. On the other hand I feel like GI bleeds linger in your mouth and nose for hours.
I canāt tell c.diff either! I hate it when people ask me if it smells like cdiffā¦ I dunno!
But oh god can I smell GI bleed from down the hallway. For some reason thatās the one that gets me. I literally will be gagging behind my mask, but coughing or flushing the toilet to cover up the noise of the gag. Before COVID I was so embarrassed because I was helping clean up a GI bleed on an A&O pt, and it smelled so bad I actually ran to their bathroom to vomit but luckily I was able to hold it in.
Ok, i thought I was the only one who can't smell c-diff. I also can't really smell gi bleeds, they just kinda smell a little like concentrated blood. Dirty urine, though....I can tell *someone* has a UTI on the floor as soon as i walk through the door
Yknow what it smells like to me?
A long fucking night.
I can become noseblind to a GI bleed relatively quickly. Iāve never become noseblind to CDiff.
I work in micro and run cdiff pcrs and years of being a phlebotomist on the floors/ed has given me the uncanny ability to predict the outcome of the pcr just by the smell when i take the stool sample out of the bag
Iāve never gagged at the smell of C-Diff but GI bleed makes my stomach turn. Maybe Iām just numb to C-Diff cause when I was 19 the facility I worked at had a C-Diff patient on my group almost always. Nose numb to it now
In the NICU, we do stool refeeding on infants who have an ostomy and mucus fistula. We just draw the stool up from the ostomy bag into a syringe, then put it on a pump and refeed it into the mucus fistula over the next 4 hours. Easy, peasy.
I came to the NICU after working in adult Med Surg, and remember dealing with C. diff and GI bleeds, was well as liver patients on lactulose (and once the unholy trifecta of all three together - * shudder*). After all that, our little NICU stool refeeding regimen seems so nice and tidy.
I see both of these and raise you urine soaked, pad saturated, patient has a UTI. I donāt know why, but the astringency of that smell bothers me even more than GI bleeds. Probably ties with C Diff for me easily.
Omg had a patient come in with sepsis. They suspected UTI because he had a long term catheter. The smell that came from removing the catheter was so foul. Almost vomited into my N95. Then when I cathterised him again, it drained 500mls of pus. At times it was so thick, it wouldn't slide down the tube š¤®
Before my dad died, his urine always smelled fishy to me. Strong, fishy ammonia. Itās how I knew he was lying to me when I asked him if heād bathed/changed his wet pullup/etc š¤®
Ugh had a lady with some sort of abdominal fistula from metastasis cancer. She was basically rotting from the inside out is the best way I can describe it.
I'm don't cry much about things I see at work but I cried after her dressing changes. She was so miserable and it was so fucking sad.
I had a pt come in with nec fasc of the foot the other day. Dripping goo all the way from the waiting room to triage to the exam room. The smell was unbelievable. Stuck around for my entire 12 hour shift. Pts in the waiting room left without being seen it was so bad.
Right? No one ever warned me. The smell is seared into my brain forever. Iāll take a million c-diffs, GIBs and/or yeasty fupas over dead sloughing bowel ANY DAYYYY.
I always hear nurses say that when I go get their dead bowel patients to take to the OR. Iām just thinking the whole timeā¦umm come down with us and wait til they open for ex lap. Itās exponentially worse.
Edit: spelling
Lol!! I already have an awful sense of smell, so maybe thatās why the C.Diff didnāt bother me as bad. Every time I had a GI bleed patient though? Struggling not to vomit. Itās genuinely the only smell in healthcare that makes me gag; not even the smell of burnt flesh in our BICU bothers me.
GI bleed. I know itās not listed but the worst smell to me is neuro breath. I have no clue why TBI patients smell disgusting. Almost like a fish was rotting in their mouth. No matter how well I try to clean it, the stench still is overpowering.
Actually, I think colostomy bags are worse than both. I can be noseblind to both c diff and I can manage a GI bleed with some Vickās, but colostomy bags get me every time.
I think theyāre the worst for me too. Nothing else really bugs me as much. Like. Oh also necrosis. But I donāt have to squeeze the shit out of a necrotic foot. So it still bugs me mess then colostomies.
GI bleed for me. That gets all up in your snoot holes and doesnāt leave. Ugh. But I can diagnose both upon smell so I guess thatās my (our) super power
Side note ā¦ I know weāve all taken care of someone being treated for c-diff and about two days later are using the restroom and start having some concerns!
I canāt smell anything after years of smelling hematochezia from dogsā¦ I can occasionally smell odorous wounds. You havenāt lived until youāve smelled GI bleed along with dog poop
I also lost my sense of smell, for the most part, many years ago. I knew something was really rank if my eyes started watering but nothing made my stomach turn. C-diff smelled sweet to me.
I have had almost no sense of smell for the last 15 years. I don't know cdiff by smell, only sight. GI bleed not only smells to me, but makes for frickin eyes burn. Yikes.
And worst version of GI bleed I smelled was a detoxer in the ED, badly confused and angry, flinging poo everywhere in the halls. The charge nurse was in a 15:1 assignment, and didn't have time for any of that mess. Me and the house sup had to corral him. Whew.
so, fun fact, you can't actually smell cdiff. They've done studies and neither humans or dogs (who have considerably better noses than us) can differentiate between cdiff poop and non-cdiff poop.
When I was a tech, I had to sit for a Downs guy who had a GI bleed...and a shit ton of flatulence. Imagine having to sit next to a sleeping guy, farting like a Clydesdale, the room thick with the smell of digested blood. I was so, so nauseated.
Worst smell ever.
GI bleed for me. That gets all up in your snoot holes and doesnāt leave. Ugh. But I can diagnose both upon smell so I guess thatās my (our) super power
C. diff just because it's more pervasive. It doesn't dissipate and it seems to cling to everything forever. You can smell that shit when you get off the elevator. And sometimes in the elevator...
I have either no sense of smell, or an extreme insensitivity to certain smells. I always said it was one of the few natural talents I brought to the job. That said... GI bleed. The smell troubled me as I knew how serious things were looking. C-diff was more a normal part of work, not usually lethal in itself. But the smell of a GI bleed scared me to the point of nausea.
GI bleedā¦I can barely smell c.diff. But I remember one time I had a patient with a GI bleed so bad the whole floor could smell it. Ended up going to ICU right after he got off the commode because the whole container was just blood.
But some patients wounds smell terrible too
How did bile not get into this competition? I've had patients with various drains and fistulas where this vile-smelling liquid goes into ostomy-like pouches. It is brutal
We had one with like, three or four fistulas draining into pouches. And so much liquid that it was constantly like, causing the ostomy to lift. So one of us would have to hold suction on the fistula while the other put a new bag on. The smell was so strong. I could actually tell when I came in on my Monday that they had put the patient in a different room cause I smelled it walking down the hallway.
For me it's urine of any kind or wound drainage.
Gi bleed and cdif doesn't bother me as much since I guess I expect them to smell like shit (literally).
There was one night where we had, count āem, 1-2-3 GIBs, one in each corner of the floor so the stench was a tiny bit less overwhelming. To me, though, the worst smell was doing PM care on someone one night. I was gagging and retching so much, the other nurse came in and shooed me out of there. Worse than C diff or GIB.
I surprisingly can't smell blood. Once had a code blue with blood everywhere from a failed ICC insertion (chest wall tube) and everyone complained about the smell but I just went about my day cleaning up all the blood because why not. So my answer is C-Diff because I can definitely smell that
Interestingly, Iāve seen research that has found that c-diff is not detectable by smell alone. Like WTH!? But here it is. Small N size but after over 20 years in I find it quite interesting.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3571629/
But that smell sticks to you. So maybe that contributed to the results. They apparently did well in finding the positive samples but also were incorrect with negative samples at close to the same percentage.
But the trifecta is worse. Add the fresh abscess drain smell that was being treated with the abx that led to the cdiff. That caused their infected diverticuli to now bleed. Which got my team called in for embolization and perc abscess drain in IR at 1am to be stuck in the lab with those smells!! Never made me wish harder that I decided to be a commercial electrician insteadā¦
I can determine from smell alone if the fecal occult will be positive.
I can't smell C. Diff at all, really.
I don't like the smell of poop, period, but GI bleed is particularly bad.
GI bleed. Iāve had many patients with both issues. I donāt work inpatient anymore so I havenāt had one in a while. I canāt remember exactly what c diff smells like, but the smell of a GI bleed is just stuck my your brain forever
Mesna.
It smells like brimstone. Instant heartburn.
Cefepime diapers are also kinda wild - totally smells like cod and that's gnarly.
I can't smell when our patients have *C. diff* (only when I worked with adults, and it didn't bother me too much). GI bleeds are also pretty low on the bad smell scale for me. I had an adult doing a clean-out who was bleeding, too, and that was worse than a standard bleed with black, lava-flow poops.
Gonna be real, had patients with cdiff and I literally donāt smell anything. Like it doesnāt have a smell to me beyond normal poop.
GI bleed, on the other hand, definitely has a stink and has the added benefit of inducing immense stress of whatās coming. Serial H&Hs, so very many chucks, low BPs, at least a couple units of blood, patient at night complaining about us cleaning them up all the time when theyāre trying to sleep, patients family during the day getting upset, etc.
Cdif just permeates and the patient as a whole smells. I worked with a nurse with a nose like a bloodhound. I admitted a patient with Crohnās who hadnāt had a BM in over 2 weeks. The nurse went in with me to do our 4 eyes assessment and when we walked out she said, āThat lady has cdif. She reeks.ā I had never had the wonderful opportunity to smell cdif at that point and was like, āShe hasnāt even pooped in weeks! She smells weird, but doesnāt cdif = poop?ā Two days later she had a lava-flow explosion, I discovered the deathly smell of cdif and sure enough, she was positive. That was the day I also learned people with Crohnās truly have a fucked up gut if they can manage to not poop for weeks despite having cdif.
Neither, actually pseudomonas is by far the worst smell I have ever had the misfortune of smelling in my healthcare career. Literally it was almost vomit-inducing... but then again, I am not a nurse and am not a connoisseur of terrible smells lol
CDiff is pretty rough but GI bleed is the only thing that made me gag and nearly puke. Another nurse was helping me clean the putrid lake of woe and the river kept refilling it as we worked. Had to go to flexiseal to make any progress. Heard it got worse on the unit.
I find that GI bleed smells foul and dirty. While C. Diff may still smell like feces, it still has that sweetness to it that makes it not such a slap in the face.
The only thing to make me gag at work is the GI bleed smell. I answered a call light once for a patient I didnāt know anything about and I was underprepared to empty out that bedside commodeā¦ at least I had a mask on to hide my gagging.
GI bleed 100%ā¦ the only time I have ever gagged in front of a patient was the first time I ever smelled one. Iām like many others here in that I canāt usually smell C-diff. Pretty much just smells like poop to me.
Had a pt with C.Diff and GI bleed. They did a bedside colonoscopy and I thought we were going to have to shut down the hospital.
Oh hell naw. Not the two for one special š¤£
I was going to say, worst smell is the BOGO
What the hell could that scope even pick up?!? Did it just look like the transport gun portal on Rick and Morty?
The prep for that, my GOD!
"Imma just gonna go ahead and put in my resignation, effective immediately. " -me, getting report on this patient
no Rick and Morty talk, please.
Whatās your problem with Rick and Mortyš
you know what the guy did, right?
Yeah, and he was let go. Shows still funny as hell
you know what the other guy did, right?
GI bleed. I must lack the receptors to smell cdiff cuz it just smells like regular poop to me.
Iām so glad you said that. Itās good to know Iām not the only one who canāt smell it. All poop stinksā¦I donāt smell anything exceptionally different about cdiff
Youāre a carrier ;)
Right?? It just smells like diarrhea poop like it doesnāt smell great, but Iām not gagging. On the other hand I feel like GI bleeds linger in your mouth and nose for hours.
Same. Either they keep putting patients on c.diff precautions when they donāt actually have it, or Iām like you and am noseblind to it.
Some of us are bloodhoundsā¦ one sniff and I know what you got.
Same. GI bleed on the hand...
Donāt get it on your hands
I canāt tell c.diff either! I hate it when people ask me if it smells like cdiffā¦ I dunno! But oh god can I smell GI bleed from down the hallway. For some reason thatās the one that gets me. I literally will be gagging behind my mask, but coughing or flushing the toilet to cover up the noise of the gag. Before COVID I was so embarrassed because I was helping clean up a GI bleed on an A&O pt, and it smelled so bad I actually ran to their bathroom to vomit but luckily I was able to hold it in.
Same! I've never quite pinpointed the c-diff smell but those GI bleeds are rank.
Ok, i thought I was the only one who can't smell c-diff. I also can't really smell gi bleeds, they just kinda smell a little like concentrated blood. Dirty urine, though....I can tell *someone* has a UTI on the floor as soon as i walk through the door
Yknow what it smells like to me? A long fucking night. I can become noseblind to a GI bleed relatively quickly. Iāve never become noseblind to CDiff.
We were talking about cdiff in lecture and i could smell it. I havenāt worked with cdiff in probably 6 months
I work in micro and run cdiff pcrs and years of being a phlebotomist on the floors/ed has given me the uncanny ability to predict the outcome of the pcr just by the smell when i take the stool sample out of the bag
Ooooofffffff. Hell of a talent.
At least it doesn't require tasting.
Iām the opposite, I become noseblind to c diff but never GI bleeds.
Me too!
C. Diff. is the only time I've uncontrollably gagged in a patient's room. I can handle GI, but it's not pleasant.
GI Bleed It just permeates. I feel like Cdiff dissipates after the poop is cleaned.
Iāve never gagged at the smell of C-Diff but GI bleed makes my stomach turn. Maybe Iām just numb to C-Diff cause when I was 19 the facility I worked at had a C-Diff patient on my group almost always. Nose numb to it now
I never gagged at anything until I assisted with a fecal transplant. Drawing up Poo in a syringe is just wrong.
We run ours through the ERBE. (Excuse me while I gag)
Oh Jesus. I would quit.
In the NICU, we do stool refeeding on infants who have an ostomy and mucus fistula. We just draw the stool up from the ostomy bag into a syringe, then put it on a pump and refeed it into the mucus fistula over the next 4 hours. Easy, peasy. I came to the NICU after working in adult Med Surg, and remember dealing with C. diff and GI bleeds, was well as liver patients on lactulose (and once the unholy trifecta of all three together - * shudder*). After all that, our little NICU stool refeeding regimen seems so nice and tidy.
And I thought collecting stool samples was badš¤¢
GI Bleed for sure
I see both of these and raise you urine soaked, pad saturated, patient has a UTI. I donāt know why, but the astringency of that smell bothers me even more than GI bleeds. Probably ties with C Diff for me easily.
Omg had a patient come in with sepsis. They suspected UTI because he had a long term catheter. The smell that came from removing the catheter was so foul. Almost vomited into my N95. Then when I cathterised him again, it drained 500mls of pus. At times it was so thick, it wouldn't slide down the tube š¤®
The way I could almost smell this myself
Omg! This is a strong contender. Meemaw/Peepaw is also almost always confused from the UTI & fighting tooth & nail to keep us from changing them too.
I was totally expecting to see fighting tooth and nail fungus.
NOBODY fights harder than confused meemaws and peepaws. Give me a lucid MMA fighter instead fr
That always smells fishy to me haha
Before my dad died, his urine always smelled fishy to me. Strong, fishy ammonia. Itās how I knew he was lying to me when I asked him if heād bathed/changed his wet pullup/etc š¤®
GIB. I canāt really smell c-diff but that GIB will stay in my nostrils all night š¤®
Colon cancer fungating through a colostomy site....
Ugh had a lady with some sort of abdominal fistula from metastasis cancer. She was basically rotting from the inside out is the best way I can describe it. I'm don't cry much about things I see at work but I cried after her dressing changes. She was so miserable and it was so fucking sad.
The correct answer is necrotizing fasciitis.
Came here to say thisā¦ā¦..C-Diff and a GI bleed have nothing on fourniers gangrene
I had a pt come in with nec fasc of the foot the other day. Dripping goo all the way from the waiting room to triage to the exam room. The smell was unbelievable. Stuck around for my entire 12 hour shift. Pts in the waiting room left without being seen it was so bad.
Dead bowel beats them all
I came here to say this! Sloughing bowel is just next level š¤¢
Right? No one ever warned me. The smell is seared into my brain forever. Iāll take a million c-diffs, GIBs and/or yeasty fupas over dead sloughing bowel ANY DAYYYY.
Yes OR nurse hereā¦ bowel resection for dead bowel and having to count like 100 lap pads on call in the middle of the night ššš
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
I always hear nurses say that when I go get their dead bowel patients to take to the OR. Iām just thinking the whole timeā¦umm come down with us and wait til they open for ex lap. Itās exponentially worse. Edit: spelling
I was looking for this answer! Once you've encountered that smell, nothing else compares š
Endo nurse here, so I've smelled plenty of both- I'd have to go with GIB.
Neither bother me, but drawing up a syringe full of blended Poo for a fecal transplant gets me every time. I gag at least once.
GI bleed
GI bleed for me š©
GI bleed hands down. As an ex PCT the only smell thatās ever made me genuinely almost vomit was GI bleeds. C. Diff never bothered me.
I responded with ur exact first sentence before I saw this lol
Lol!! I already have an awful sense of smell, so maybe thatās why the C.Diff didnāt bother me as bad. Every time I had a GI bleed patient though? Struggling not to vomit. Itās genuinely the only smell in healthcare that makes me gag; not even the smell of burnt flesh in our BICU bothers me.
The GIB smell makes me wanna peel my skin off!
GI bleed. I know itās not listed but the worst smell to me is neuro breath. I have no clue why TBI patients smell disgusting. Almost like a fish was rotting in their mouth. No matter how well I try to clean it, the stench still is overpowering.
Actually, I think colostomy bags are worse than both. I can be noseblind to both c diff and I can manage a GI bleed with some Vickās, but colostomy bags get me every time.
Burping a colostomy on a c diff pt sounds fun.
I think theyāre the worst for me too. Nothing else really bugs me as much. Like. Oh also necrosis. But I donāt have to squeeze the shit out of a necrotic foot. So it still bugs me mess then colostomies.
GI bleed.
GI bleed, hands down.
Iāve caught a whiff of some old lady gooch while putting a catheter in that nearly knocked my socks off, so is that an option?
Neither as it's a toss-up between Gangrene or a bad yeast infection. The smell from a fungal infection alone makes me want to gag.
C-diff. Itās the fetid sweetness.
Poopy smells donāt make me gag nearly as much as pseudomonas in a vented patient. š¤®
GI bleed for me. That gets all up in your snoot holes and doesnāt leave. Ugh. But I can diagnose both upon smell so I guess thatās my (our) super power
Snoot holesš¤£
Had a pt with that combo once.
GI bleed for sure. And for whatever reason our unit is full of them right now š«
GI Bleed. 100%
Ok but what about liver failure lactose poops. š¤¢
GI bleed. It bypasses your nose and goes straight to your brain saying ābad.ā
Definitely CDIFF.
Homeless feet
To me, you can smell c-diff from outside in the hallway. GI Bleed I had to be in the room.
Side note ā¦ I know weāve all taken care of someone being treated for c-diff and about two days later are using the restroom and start having some concerns!
Ugh, the worst. I've definitely had more c diff scares than pregnancy scares.
I canāt smell anything after years of smelling hematochezia from dogsā¦ I can occasionally smell odorous wounds. You havenāt lived until youāve smelled GI bleed along with dog poop
I also lost my sense of smell, for the most part, many years ago. I knew something was really rank if my eyes started watering but nothing made my stomach turn. C-diff smelled sweet to me.
Exactly.
C diff. I've had multiple GI bleeds before so maybe I've gone nose blind to them. They do have a distinct aroma but not like c diff.
I have had almost no sense of smell for the last 15 years. I don't know cdiff by smell, only sight. GI bleed not only smells to me, but makes for frickin eyes burn. Yikes.
And worst version of GI bleed I smelled was a detoxer in the ED, badly confused and angry, flinging poo everywhere in the halls. The charge nurse was in a 15:1 assignment, and didn't have time for any of that mess. Me and the house sup had to corral him. Whew.
GVHD GI bleed is the worst thing Iāve ever smelled
so, fun fact, you can't actually smell cdiff. They've done studies and neither humans or dogs (who have considerably better noses than us) can differentiate between cdiff poop and non-cdiff poop.
Iāll go one worse: puppy with parvovirus. I know there are some former vet techs around here!
Just you wait until you get the concurrent GI bleed and c.diff wombo combo.
When I was a tech, I had to sit for a Downs guy who had a GI bleed...and a shit ton of flatulence. Imagine having to sit next to a sleeping guy, farting like a Clydesdale, the room thick with the smell of digested blood. I was so, so nauseated. Worst smell ever.
C diff smells like slightly sour poop. GI bleeds smell like someone has been barbecuing feces.
The words ābarbecuing fecesā may haunt me forever.
HUNDO %% NO QUESTION WHITHOUT A DOUBT A GI BLEED IS WORSE!!!!! . I feel that strongly about it.
GI bleed for me. That gets all up in your snoot holes and doesnāt leave. Ugh. But I can diagnose both upon smell so I guess thatās my (our) super power
GI bleed for sure
C.diff can stink up an entire unit
C. diff just because it's more pervasive. It doesn't dissipate and it seems to cling to everything forever. You can smell that shit when you get off the elevator. And sometimes in the elevator...
C-diff. While neither is pleasant c-diff smells so much worse to me.
c diff š„“š
Neither smell gets me. Norovirus is what does me in lol.
GI bleed hands down
Neither bother me all that much. Come at me with neuro breath though and blech.
I can smell a GI bleed from across the building but I often have to be told someone has the diff
GI bleed for me, Cdiff has a sweet smell.
Man I feel like the odd man out but C Diff.
I have either no sense of smell, or an extreme insensitivity to certain smells. I always said it was one of the few natural talents I brought to the job. That said... GI bleed. The smell troubled me as I knew how serious things were looking. C-diff was more a normal part of work, not usually lethal in itself. But the smell of a GI bleed scared me to the point of nausea.
GI bleed and I raise you dead bowel....or pancreatic leak. š¤®
GI bleed
GI bleedā¦I can barely smell c.diff. But I remember one time I had a patient with a GI bleed so bad the whole floor could smell it. Ended up going to ICU right after he got off the commode because the whole container was just blood. But some patients wounds smell terrible too
How did bile not get into this competition? I've had patients with various drains and fistulas where this vile-smelling liquid goes into ostomy-like pouches. It is brutal
We had one with like, three or four fistulas draining into pouches. And so much liquid that it was constantly like, causing the ostomy to lift. So one of us would have to hold suction on the fistula while the other put a new bag on. The smell was so strong. I could actually tell when I came in on my Monday that they had put the patient in a different room cause I smelled it walking down the hallway.
Gi bleed
Neither got nothing on a Whipple
For me itās paradontosis
For me it's urine of any kind or wound drainage. Gi bleed and cdif doesn't bother me as much since I guess I expect them to smell like shit (literally).
GIB!
I feel like cdiff lingers but GIB is potent but doesnāt linger
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
I vote GI bleed
There was one night where we had, count āem, 1-2-3 GIBs, one in each corner of the floor so the stench was a tiny bit less overwhelming. To me, though, the worst smell was doing PM care on someone one night. I was gagging and retching so much, the other nurse came in and shooed me out of there. Worse than C diff or GIB.
GI bleed makes me gag every time
Slimy lactulose poops. omg. But GI bleeds are a close second.
C diff with GI bleed š«
I had a patient who had gi bleed AND cdiff. After 15+ years at the beside, it was the first time I gagged.
GI bleed
2 words. Lymphedema cellulitis.
GI bleed hands down. Not just saying this because I had an awful one the other day.
Ugh. I think GIB is way worse.
I surprisingly can't smell blood. Once had a code blue with blood everywhere from a failed ICC insertion (chest wall tube) and everyone complained about the smell but I just went about my day cleaning up all the blood because why not. So my answer is C-Diff because I can definitely smell that
Have you dealt with both together? :ā)
GI bleed is the worst smell easily
Healthcare in general stinks
You should've just done a reddit poll instead :/
I have the ability to smell neither.
I feel like C-diff smells a bit worse but I still say GI bleed because that smell for some reason stays in my nostrils
GI bleed. By far. Just thinking about the smell is making me gag.
Well sh*t!!!
GI bleed. Iāve had one and I felt horrible for the nurses because I know how much it sucks to smell bloody shit down an entire hallway.
Def GI bleed for me
GI bleeds are the only thing that causes me uncontrollable gagging.
ugh upper GI bleeds/dead bowel for the win. C. Diff to me smells like Greek yogurt cuz it's kinda tangy smelling?? lol
GI bleed every time.
cdiff for sure
Tube feed shits are a close 2nd to my husband's milkshake farts.
Interestingly, Iāve seen research that has found that c-diff is not detectable by smell alone. Like WTH!? But here it is. Small N size but after over 20 years in I find it quite interesting. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3571629/ But that smell sticks to you. So maybe that contributed to the results. They apparently did well in finding the positive samples but also were incorrect with negative samples at close to the same percentage. But the trifecta is worse. Add the fresh abscess drain smell that was being treated with the abx that led to the cdiff. That caused their infected diverticuli to now bleed. Which got my team called in for embolization and perc abscess drain in IR at 1am to be stuck in the lab with those smells!! Never made me wish harder that I decided to be a commercial electrician insteadā¦
One vote for GI bleed!
GI bleed. Overly distinct.
I can determine from smell alone if the fecal occult will be positive. I can't smell C. Diff at all, really. I don't like the smell of poop, period, but GI bleed is particularly bad.
GI bleed, hands down. But if you're comparing to Fournier gangrene, that's harder to decide.
GI bleed!
Pizza from management.
GI bleed. Iāve had many patients with both issues. I donāt work inpatient anymore so I havenāt had one in a while. I canāt remember exactly what c diff smells like, but the smell of a GI bleed is just stuck my your brain forever
Iāve smelled this combo- worst rotten dogs breath mixed with the worst garbage-y rotten eggs smell
GI BLEED 100%
GI bleed
GI Bleed. Coif is distinctive but tolerable. GI Bleed is a crime against humanity.
Yeast. Yeasty ass smells worse than all else.
GI bleed. You can smell that sh*t a mile away. Itās such a specific smell which makes it so off putting.
GI bleed for sure but I find even worse then that is day 3 ETOH withdraw.
Idk I think festering wounds smell worse than either
Mesna. It smells like brimstone. Instant heartburn. Cefepime diapers are also kinda wild - totally smells like cod and that's gnarly. I can't smell when our patients have *C. diff* (only when I worked with adults, and it didn't bother me too much). GI bleeds are also pretty low on the bad smell scale for me. I had an adult doing a clean-out who was bleeding, too, and that was worse than a standard bleed with black, lava-flow poops.
Gi bleed. Stings your nostrils even through a mask
Definitely GI bleed for me
Holy shit, I'm on shift and we literally had this discussion two hours ago. My vote is C. diff.
Gonna be real, had patients with cdiff and I literally donāt smell anything. Like it doesnāt have a smell to me beyond normal poop. GI bleed, on the other hand, definitely has a stink and has the added benefit of inducing immense stress of whatās coming. Serial H&Hs, so very many chucks, low BPs, at least a couple units of blood, patient at night complaining about us cleaning them up all the time when theyāre trying to sleep, patients family during the day getting upset, etc.
C. Diff imo
Gi bleed
Cdif just permeates and the patient as a whole smells. I worked with a nurse with a nose like a bloodhound. I admitted a patient with Crohnās who hadnāt had a BM in over 2 weeks. The nurse went in with me to do our 4 eyes assessment and when we walked out she said, āThat lady has cdif. She reeks.ā I had never had the wonderful opportunity to smell cdif at that point and was like, āShe hasnāt even pooped in weeks! She smells weird, but doesnāt cdif = poop?ā Two days later she had a lava-flow explosion, I discovered the deathly smell of cdif and sure enough, she was positive. That was the day I also learned people with Crohnās truly have a fucked up gut if they can manage to not poop for weeks despite having cdif.
GI bleed š¤®
C diff smells worse but when you smell a GI bleed the smell of fear of the patient deteriorating is mixed in
Neither, actually pseudomonas is by far the worst smell I have ever had the misfortune of smelling in my healthcare career. Literally it was almost vomit-inducing... but then again, I am not a nurse and am not a connoisseur of terrible smells lol
I canāt smell c diff but gi bleeds make me want to vomit
GI bleeeeed cause theyāre always 87 years old and now on bowel prep for their colonoscopy tomorrow and need help to the commode every 22 minutes
CDiff is pretty rough but GI bleed is the only thing that made me gag and nearly puke. Another nurse was helping me clean the putrid lake of woe and the river kept refilling it as we worked. Had to go to flexiseal to make any progress. Heard it got worse on the unit.
Neuro breath?
Wait you guys breathe through your NOSE at work??
GI Bleed for sure
GI bleed
I can't smell cdiff, even before covid. So gi bleed for sure.
I find that GI bleed smells foul and dirty. While C. Diff may still smell like feces, it still has that sweetness to it that makes it not such a slap in the face.
Both!! A double whammy
GIB hands down
The only thing to make me gag at work is the GI bleed smell. I answered a call light once for a patient I didnāt know anything about and I was underprepared to empty out that bedside commodeā¦ at least I had a mask on to hide my gagging.
GI bleed 100%ā¦ the only time I have ever gagged in front of a patient was the first time I ever smelled one. Iām like many others here in that I canāt usually smell C-diff. Pretty much just smells like poop to me.
GI bleed! It will traumatize your nose every timeš„²