Do you prefer to contend with the smell of stool or the smell of Glade?

[RNdynamic]

Hospitals employees have many different ways of combating offensive odors produced by patients' bodies. The odors may be due to infectious diarrhea, necrotic infections, or excessive body fat. We've all been in that situation many times, and we've all dealt with it one way or another, whether it be through machines which suck in the odor and expel neutral smelling air into the room, or potpourri, peppermint spirits that you can sprinkle about, essential oils, or chemical products that you can spray such as Glade.

However, when do these measures become offensive to use? One time I was washing up an incontinent patient who had c-diff and although it smelled rather gross, the situation was worsened when another nurse walked over to the doorway and started spraying Glade into the room as I was washing up. Because of that, I had to contend with an extremely unpleasant smelling combination of cinnamon and ****. I would have rather just dealt with the stool.

What is your experience in these matters? Does your hospital have the machines that suck in the odor? Or do you spray or sprinkle substances around? What is your preference?

[nars_wannabe]

I usually open the window to let the bad smell out and put a cup with coffee beans or coffee on the window sill while performing my task.:)

[Bob Loblaw]

Yeah, they put out coffee filters filled with ground coffee. now every time i drink coffee I relate it to poop- a pavlov's dog reaction. I use a pinch of old school Mentholatum under the nostrils.

[FurBabyMom, MSN, RN]

Some of my coworkers have essential oils and sometimes folks smear some on masks (peppermint, etc). Other timess it's just mastisol or benzoin. Some of my coworkers really love the smell of both mastisol and benzoin. There are times though that you really need it... Another alternative is essentially decorating the room with packing gauze coated in iodine - seems to neutralize odors plenty.

[brownbook]

I had taken an elderly gentleman to our morgue after cardiac arrest in our ER. His family had left. I got a call that his adult granddaughter was here and really wanted to see his body.

I explained that he was in our morgue, it was an old hospital, and the morgue was not very attractive, etc., but she said she was okay with all that and really wanted to see his body. So I went ahead of her to see that he was somewhat decent looking and he smelled of urine/ammonia. I got some air freshener that smelled like apples and sprayed it around.

To this day I wonder if every time she smells apples she is reminded of our ugly morgue and her poor dead grandfather.

[RNdynamic]

What do people think of the machines that sucks in foul smelling air and exchange it with neutral smelling air into the room??

[martymoose, BSN, RN]

RNdynamic said:

What do people think of the machines that sucks in foul smelling air and exchange it with neutral smelling air into the room??

we dont have such a machine. just the air vents.

[flying_ace2]

Rose_Queen said:

But when we have a particularly smelly surgery, where it's either dead bowel or a really foul-smelling abscess, we'll break out the peppermint oil. Couple of drops on a towel in the hallway clears up the smell for everyone except those in the OR. They usually go for the benzoin smear on the mask.

Or for something particularly nasty/stinky, the benzoin smear AND peppermint oil on the mask! BLEH!

[CountryMomma, ASN, RN]

My hospital doesn't allow glade or related sprays. We use m9, a hospital - approved odor neutralizer. Thankfully it works rather decently and doesnt hide one stink with another.

I use a tinted Vaseline pot for my lips. It has a very faint, mild floral scent to it. (And no, I am not sure about the paraben content.) Anywhoo, I got roped into an emergency lactulose code brown - it was just everywhere and it kept coming! My younger coworker was gagging and looked pretty peaked...so out I popped my Vaseline pot and dabbed a little under her nose and mine. I had her breath through her mouth a bit, and as more coworkers came to assist the Vaseline was passed around. It surely did the trick that day. I felt so darned bad for her!

As a token fat person, fat itself doesn't stink, RNDynamic. As a nurse, you should know that. Perhaps that's one nursing fact you've lost to your previous hypoxic hobby.

[Julius Seizure]

The other day, a consulting doctor poked his head out of my patients room because he was concerned that it smelled like something was burning. (It seemed to be interrupting his doctoring duties..."I'll get your nurse"). Well it smelled out in the hall and nearby rooms too. Apparently our hepa-filtered air vents are connected to those in the family waiting room, and someone had burned popcorn.

[Been there,done that, ASN, RN]

I do not deal with either. I breathe through my mouth and turn off my nose.

[CountryMomma, ASN, RN]

Janey496 said:

The other day, a consulting doctor poked his head out of my patients room because he was concerned that it smelled like something was burning. (It seemed to be interrupting his doctoring duties..."I'll get your nurse"). Well it smelled out in the hall and nearby rooms too. Apparently our hepa-filtered air vents are connected to those in the family waiting room, and someone had burned popcorn.

We had a house a block north of us burn down, and our air intake vents are, of course, north-facing. It didn't take many frantic "I can smell smoke but not find the fire" calls to maintenance before they house - wide announced the hospital was NOT on fire, and please, PLEASE, stop calling.

[TheCommuter, BSN, RN]

A former clinical instructor taught me a trick for dealing with the smell of poop: place a peppermint tea bag inside your mask. It worked wonders for masking the stench.