Tasting blood....Can this be true?

[PopeJane3rd]

I have been telling people that I actually experience this but no one believes me. Can someone please shed some light on this. I work in a blood lab and when I open alot of Tiger top serum tubes to pour/aliquot off, though I'm wearing my face shield, I'm getting a blood-like taste in my mouth that I believe is coming from all of the serum that I'm pouring off. I swear I can taste the blood only subtle though. What chemistry could be causing this phenomenon?

[netglow, ASN, RN]

OP, I have to say I as well was smelling/tasting blood after taking care of a massive GI bleed pt. Even in the car I was tasting and smelling it. Had to use my favorite scented lotion (a lot) to xchange scents. Not a drop of blood on me. IDK, maybe its Shakespearean?

[GeauxNursing]

That would never happen with bedpans. First, pouring serum and changing bedpans are two totally different things. Blood and Feces are totally different with different chemical makeups. They are also handled totally different from each other in labs. Pouring serum is much closer to your face than actually changing a bedpan or handling feces. And I pour off tons of blood on my job as much as 4 or 5 hundred tubes a night!

i think it was meant as a funny!

[Be_Moore]

i think it was meant as a funny!

It was definitely a joke. BUT it's a joke based on reality, I promise you. Granted that I don't empty bedpans next to my face, you don't have to...feces and urine tend to smell stronger than blood for the same quantity, therefore they taste stronger too! If you are inclined to tasted all of your smells. Luckily, I'm not.

And to the post about GI bleed smells...that lingers and sticks. Forever. Or so it seems. Could be psychological, but after dealing with a GI bleed all night I feel like I smell like a slaughterhouse worker.

[netglow, ASN, RN]

"And to the post about GI bleed smells...that lingers and sticks. Forever. Or so it seems. Could be psychological, but after dealing with a GI bleed all night I feel like I smell like a slaughterhouse worker." -Be Moore

I'll send you some of my L'Occitane Cherry Blossom hand lotion, or my new one Honey and lemon!!!

- just kidding :wink2:

[Meriwhen, ASN, BSN, MSN, RN]

The sense of smell and the sense of taste are very well connected. Likely you are smelling some of the plasma during transfer, and by proxy tasting it.

There's truth in that: many flavored cosmetics (lipsticks, glosses and balms particularly) aren't actually flavored but scented--but it's enough to trick your senses into thinking you taste the flavor.

[AtomicWoman]

My educated guess is that you are detecting the smell of the iron in the heme groups. Iron is one of the only metals I can think of that has a distinct smell. And it oxidizes rapidly on exposure to air. As another poster noted, it's quite possible that your brain smells the iron and recalls the metallic taste of blood. In fact, sitting here typing this, I can recall the taste and smell of iron! The sense of smell is the sense that is most closely associated with memory, so the memory can trigger the smell, the smell can trigger the memory, and of course taste is so wrapped up with the sense of smell.