High amounts of flatulence in Psych

[funnypharm]

I have worked nights on and inpatient Psych. ward for 3 years. Mostly Psychitzo effective. I have noticed a large amount of these people have extreme amounts of gas (flatulence). Now I'm not saying that I hear or smell an occasional fat. I'm saying the whole room is gassed up and travels out into the unit from over half the rooms. I have worked in Hospitals before and I know the smells from medsurge. I have never experience this type of horrible gas smells in any other field. This population has (to me) an extreme flatulence problem.

Now, please take my post in the most serious way. This is so obvious to me that I've been even trying to find information about it on the internet. All I can find is information about gut bacteria and the gut microbiome. I did read that Psych meds only work on the brain but most of our mental health actually comes from the gut.

Has this been researched? Does anyone have a personal experience or something to add to this? I would really like for this to be researched. I think there is something to this.

[vintagemother, BSN, CNA, LVN, RN]

I notice it too but a lot of ours are homeless or basically always institutionalize do and seem to eat a lot and almost hoard food if they can so maybe a mix of that and the meds??? Some rooms hit me like a brick wall of funk when I open the door to do a Q15 round.

Are you sure that the smell isn't simply Body Odor due to the negative symptoms of schizophrenia (i.e. Refusing to bathe) or the side effect of the meds -- fatigue-- causing them to not have much interest in hygiene?

I ask because the psych unit I worked in was quite odorous, but it was body odor, not flatulence.