Does Death Have A Smell?

[AngelfireRN]

Just wondering if anyone else has experiences like this?

I first noticed it when I was in nursing school, and we were orienting on the floor. We would go in a room with a patient, and I would smell this sicky-sweet odor, and around a week later, the patient would be dead.

It continues to this day. I have smelled Lord knows how many smells, but this one almost defies description. The only way I can compare it to anything is to think of really concentrated Swish and Swallow, that nystatin stuff. I love the way it smells, but this other smell is like S&S overkill.

I finally started piecing it together when I noticed a pattern with the smell and the demise. My instructors never could understand why I would walk into a room to help, and get a weird look on my face. My co-workers later could not understand it, they just knew something was up by the look on my face. It was especially sad when the patient was thought to be improving.

It happened with my FIL. DH knew that SOMETHING happened to me when a person was about to pass, and I had already told him that I was not going to tell him if I sensed anything. The last time I saw FIL was the only time I did not hug him. I would have bawled, and given it away. I regret not hugging him, but not like I would regret giving my MIL and DH 4 days of a deathwatch. Afterward, as we were headed to the funeral home, DH looked at me, all teary, and said "You knew, didn't you? You've been weird since we saw him the last time."

Smelled it with my Grandmother, and squalled for 3 days solid, before there was really anything to squall about.

And I smell it still, with patients I see in the hospital. I hate this. It's as bad as getting that gut feeling to pull the code cart outside the lady's room. There is no more helpless feeling than knowing what is going to happen, and knowing just as well that you're powerless to stop it.

Anyone else gets this, or get an inkling as to the demise of a patient? I've heard about bad patients asking to have a BM, and nurses knowing that that was it, we've all heard about the "last turn", but does anyone else smell anything beforehand?

Or am I just a freak?

[onepowerfullady, LPN]

This is interesting. I am a nursing student and will be doing my clinical starting in April, however, I do remember when my Dad died and he had this sweet sickly smell on him several days before and the day before he died.

[onepowerfullady, LPN]

nurse441 said:

aw i'm touched :heartbeat

Wow! that is very touching! I have thought about dialysis or geriatric care once I am finished. Hospice sounds promising. When are you going to finish?

[nursingisacurse]

Some of these "death smell" posts are very eerie. Can't say I've noticed this before and equated it with death.

I find this interesting because of a health condition one of my horses has. In the summer, this particular horse is eaten alive by flies....he is literally covered with bloody lesions where the flies attack him. The other horses at the stable aren't having this problem. Fly spray doesn't prevent this problem. The vets say he's "allergic to flies" and to just give steroids. (Standard medical cover up....but I'm interested in fixing the problem, not damaging the horse with steroids!) It's funny, that I've noticed this horse has a peculiar sweet odor the other horses don't.

I've tried every internal and external, herbal or nutraceutical product out there, nothing helped. I eventually came across a website called Vitaroyal which is a program for humans and horses who have all sorts of metabolic problems including autoimmue diseases. The program consists of feeding a special grain base consisting of linseed meal, canola meal and rice bran with Vitaroyal's special pharmaceutical grade supplements added. The point is to detoxify the body of environmental toxins so the body can heal itself. The program has a guarantee, and supposably the only horses not helped are those that refuse to eat the stuff. Same goes for humans, many of these people with autoimmune conditions are helped after standard medical care failed.

The thing that ties this into the death smell posts, is that the Vitaroyal folks claim the skin condition is not an allergy, but instead the horse is a fly magnet because he is giving off the odor of death, which attracts the flies. I said before the horse has a sweet odor other horses don't.

I'm giving this program a try for 7 months per Vitaroyal recommendation. Come spring, we will see if it works! The horse looks immensely better in terms of overall health, but since there are no flies right now, hard to say if it's the smell of death causing this problem, or an allergy to flies!

[PBAJS]

Oscar is in a book, "Making Rounds With Oscar: The Extraordinary Gift of an Ordinary Cat." by David Dosa, released Feb 2010

[Jeenah11111]

I am a hospice nurse and most the patients have that smell the last couple days. It helps to give bed baths and use a nice smelling lotion.

[leslie :-D]

Jeenah11111 said:

I am a hospice nurse and most the patients have that smell the last couple days. It helps to give bed baths and use a nice smelling lotion.

I'm a hospice nurse as well, and I just cannot wash that smell away...

On my pts or myself.

I do crack a window open in the pt's rooms.

Sometimes that has helped.

leslie

[duygu]

I think smells have special pieces in brain like emotions or memories. it might be the situation of losing some relatives who were very close or not. there might be a smell which is remembered in that time then person can remember the situation with that smell. for example a scent can make you remember somebody, an odour can make you feel anything that you had felt before.

It could come true in the situation of death.

I also lost my relatives and show many death patients. So i dont think there is a smell of death, but i am believed in the smells of emotions.

thanks....

[nunnurse1]

I too can smell an odor, but usually not until they turn the corner of no return, but I can usually tell when someone is going to die. So much so alot of my collegues ask me how much longer they will linger. I just say they and god are the only ones who know.

[tencat]

Nope. Can't smell it most of the time. Do I think it can be smelled? Yup. I have noticed differing odors on dying patients, but my sense of smell is not reliable or well-tuned enough to be consistent. I can only predict death within 48 hours out. And even then I use other criteria such as mottling and breathing patterns.

[FranEMTnurse, CNA, LPN, EMT-I]

shmily914 said:

I actually read an article in Reader's Digest that addresses this subject. It was talking about the cat at the nursing home who always knew which patients were going to pass away. The doctor said that when cells in the body die they release ketones, much like a diabetic, so that may explain the sickly sweet smell of death. Some people just have a more keen sense of smell then others. Now on the other hand, I've had some patients dying from cancer and their smell was not the sickly sweet smell. It was a whole other scent entirely.

I have also had the cancer experience with several patients, and each one smelled like rotting flesh. :barf01:

[onepowerfullady, LPN]

Jeenah11111 said:

I am a hospice nurse and most the patients have that smell the last couple days. It helps to give bed baths and use a nice smelling lotion.

Is this because their body is shutting down?

[oncalllorraine]

yes, there is sometimes what i call the smell of death. i am hospice nurse. i have never known it to be anything but pungent, and one of the nicest things i have ever learned from a loving aide was the value of 'covering up that smell', so it does not become a lasting memory of someone's loved one. thats where febreeze or cologne, powder....whatever you can find,is a God send.and vanity being what it is, i hope and pray someone is there when i am near death, to make sure 'i smell like a rose'.