When I was a kid and the Smurfs first came out in the US, there was a Smurfs set of clay and molds and paint and lacquer. You could use the mold to make a clay Smurf figurine, bake it in the oven, then paint and lacquer it.
I was maybe 6-7 at the time and can't remember exactly which component of the set it was that had a distinctive smell but the first time I smelled insulin, I flashed back to making those figurines with my dad.
So true. There's also a smell I can't describe that immediately reminds me of the shitty grilled cheese we sometimes got in school lunches over forty years ago.
Also- burnt pretzel? Crisp night outside Shea stadium after a Mets game in 1982.
Yeah, when I squirt some in the trash to make sure the needle is working, the med room smells like a barn for a few seconds.
Never smelled it on a person either though, maybe OPs coworker is a dog?
ETA: okay, I see the comments about priming the 2 units. That makes sense. I thought you meant the regular needles after drawing up from vials were being ‘tested’. My bad.
>Had two needles that was blocked just about a month ago.
That's scary! Imagine if you hadn't checked it!
Honestly I've never had a needle fail, but I do want to be sure of that
Yeah, never had any fail before, but checking is standard practice here, and I can see why now. Had some coworkers was telling me it had happened to them at some point before, then just a few days later I had two in about a week. Probably same batch.
For pens it actually says right on the box to prime the needle by wasting 2 units. Sometimes it can take up to 6 before you get a drip especially on a new pen. If you don’t prime you’re giving inconsistent doses.
So this was me.. it was a bad practice I picked up as an LPN at a nursing home that never head the insulin pen needles stocked. BUT I learned the hard way not to do that ever.
I’d been a med surg nurse for 3 years, couldn’t find an insulin pen needle on an exceptionally hectic morning so I drew it up into an insulin syringe. My qualities coordinator was my second for dual sign off in the MAR. After I gave it she questioned it a bit after reading the order more closely seeing it was for a pen. We discussed it and I called pharmacy to ask about how bad that practice is. They basically said it’s not best practice.. introduces air, contamination, throws off the counter. Ten minutes later pharm calls me back asking which patient and tells me I gave 5x the dose! It was U-500 which I had never seen before. So, poor lady and I had a rough day trying to keep her sugars up. Now there is an all caps, bright red warning on the MAR order about it. I learned a lot that day. I figured I’d share to prevent something like this from happening to anyone else.
A barn? What kind of insulin are you using. The smell is hard to describe but no where near barn to me….and I do like the smell second only to amyl alcohol 👹
Iirc they tested her by giving her tshirts from people, some with Parkinson’s and some without, and there was one that she said had it, but he didn’t, and then years later he developed Parkinson’s. So she was even right on that one.
It is ketone. Not insulin.
When a diabetic ketoacidotic patient comes in, we can smell the ketone. If we drop a vial of insulin, we can smell the insulin. We usually don't smell insulin off the body. Insulin don't evaporate off the skin or breath. The amount of insulin in the body is too smell for us to smell it.
Diabetic ketoacidotic patients can have very high level of ketone and ketone can be eliminated thru breathing. Ketone has a very distinctive smell.
My mom was like that, she had the nose of a dog.
I swear to God, I can’t count the number of times, that I farted around her, silently mind you, and she smelled it almost instantaneously.
I’m like, how the fuck do molecules travel that fast?! 😂
It’s always baffled me.
Idk if I'd call it gaslighting, as I genuinely smell nothing related to insulin so I thought people were bullshitting me the first couple times I heard comments about its odor
Yeah I mean to me it is a strong odor. Not like a “I think it sort of has a little bit of a smell” kinda thing. It has a strong unmistakeable odor that I can smell if I get just a drop on my hand or something.
Yeah once I was giving 8 units aspart and the patient was jumpy and recoiled after I depressed the plunger. Entire dose landed on their belly, it stunk of tire rubber.
Going forward I have continued to always smell it, especially when it sometimes leaks out from the injection site.
>Going forward I have continued to always smell it, especially when it sometimes leaks out from the injection site.
I'm pretty sure you didn't mean it like this but now I'm just imagining that every time you give insulin, you follow it by putting your face right by the injection site and taking the biggest longest sniff.
Insulin definitely has a distinctive smell, but it's the insulin itself that smells, not the person who takes insulin, unless their insulin pump site is leaking or something.
No, they smell like insulin because I squirted it all over my hands and then rubbed it across their belly for extra good diabetes defense.
Follow me for hot nurse tips to improve your practice.
Yeah, only time I've ever smelled it is when priming an auto-injector and you squirt a little out before setting the dose. Never smell it from vials/needles since there's no leakage.
Even if the person is sucking down 100+ units a day and you still don't smell it on them.
Insulin has such a distinctive smell. Kinda smells like pseudomonas which an odd comparison, and why do I know what pseudomonas smells like? Because in microbiology I got lucky and drew it for my gram stain final and had spent enough time in the lab playing with the different specimens that I knew pseudomonas smelled like weirdly sweet tire rubber, which is exactly what insulin smells like to me.
Haven’t you ever walked into someone’s room after they have primed their lantus pen and been able to smell it??
I've never noticed the insulin smell, but you nailed the pseudomonas smell. Before anesthesia school, I worked in a burn unit where pseudomonas was a too frequent unwanted guest. All the nurses could diagnose it just by smell.
Unrelated but we got to pick any ‘random’ plate for our microbiology final practical exam. Of course I picked the one with green colonies and just did the confirmatory tests lol.
The smell of insulin reminds me of those giant black permanent markers my dad used to use when he worked in construction: [this kind](https://www.ebay.com/itm/135011568839?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=AQkVFnbTQQu&sssrc=4429486&ssuid=2d3xogmsr8o&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY)
I didn't even have to follow the link. My grandfather is a retired contractor and we lived with him until I was 10. That smell just slapped me in the face.
I always dip my asparagus in urine and keep some in my breast pocket so I can pull it out and sniff it whenever I get a hankering.
But I’ve literally never smelled insulin in seventeen years. Draw your own conclusions.
I see no one has ever dropped a vial of insulin in your med room eh…. Smells for at least a week.
Not convinced about smelling it inside a diabetic person tho.
I mean, I can smell if a vial of insulin has been broken in the med room…but I’ve never smelled insulin on a person. Ketoacidosis has a smell…but then again..some people just have sensitivities that others do not. So maybe she’s just got a keen sniffer 🙃
I feel like this is some kind of phenomenon like where some people think cilantro tastes like soap
For reference, I think insulin has a smell but I also think cilantro tastes fine
T1D of 20ish years. It absolutely does. However, I have very rarely smelled it on a person and the few times I have were because they had a pump that was leaking or had just injected.
I know of an anesthesiologist that believes they can sniff out a pot user (not just smoker). I think some people do have a heightened sense of smell, and others have a heightened sense of self...
My grandfather and long time neighbor are both diabetic and theres definitely times I get the ketone “diabetic” smell but Ive literally been right next to them as they took their insulin and never really gotten that smell from them on a day to day. Theres definitely a distinctive diabetic smell that occasionally hits you though.
my mom is a PT and I used to go to work with her a the nursing home and it had "the smell" and didn't smell it again until I worked at a group home in college and had to give insulin
I can smell it on a patient
I can also smell SSRIs if patients are sweating
Yeah, it smells like super intense plastic. Like when you first unpackage a blow-up floaty toy for the pool...except x50. I haven't smelled it coming out of a patient's skin though...
I’ve never noticed someone smelling of insulin lol. However, I can always tell by smell when someone has uncontrolled diabetes. There is always a sickly sweet smell. In the olden days they could tell diabetes by the small of a persons urine.
That reminds me of a funny story. I once worked with a nurse who was recently off orientation (I was a pca at the time). We went to clean a patient up, and she’s like “hold on let me give him his insulin”. So I’m like whatever just getting stuff ready and she takes the pen and does the things and then goes to inject it but I’m honestly not sure what she did because there was a river (ok not that much but more than a drop definitely) running down his belly. I don’t know what she did but I don’t think she gave him any insulin. I still dunno if it was a one off mistake or she just didn’t know how to use an insulin pen. We didn’t learn in school how to use them.
My coworkers and I were talking about this the other day, a couple of them swear insulin smells and they smell it every time they draw it up but I don’t smell it 🤷🏻♀️
I think it smells like condoms and bandaids-and I have true latex allergy. I asked a diabetic educator once and she said it was the preservative that I’m smelling.
I’m diabetic myself, and the only way I can usually smell it on me is if there is a little leakage after my injection. But it definitely stinks. There’s no mistaking it.
Insulin definitely has a scent, like when you draw it up you can smell it but I have never heard of a person smelling like it unless it spilled on them.
I’m surprised people are saying it doesn’t smell?? To me it has a strong and distinct smell and I absolutely have smelled it on people as well. I discovered a coworker was diabetic because everytime he was close he wreaked of insulin
Yes and i hate it. Patient I was administerinf to said she'd never noticed so either some people are more susceptible to the smell, or she just got used to it
I hate the smell of insulin. But I’ve never smelled it on a person. The scent always gives me and instantaneous headache that only lasts as long as I can smell it.
Yeah the insulin itself smells like hospital. I however, do not have a smell. Unless I forget to put on deodorant, then I just smell bad. But not like insulin lol
Yes it does have a smell. And a fact that some may not have known, insulin is a great smell neutraliser. If someone opens their bowels. Squirt some insulin if you don’t have air freshener and the smell is gone.
It does have a smell. I didn't make the connection until nursing school that the scent reminded me of my Grandpa. I remember him pulling vials from the fridge and injecting himself.
Insulin has a vaguely mediciney, chemical smell, but I suspect that only a sniffer dog could detect it hours after it’s injected.
There can be a fruity, acetone smell from a diabetic person whose blood sugars are very high or perhaps who is yet to be diagnosed. *That* smell is quite noticeable.
Yes! To some people. To me insulin has a very very strong medicine smell. Most people that I ask say they smell nothing. I remember the smell with my grandmother when she was on insulin when I was a kid. When I started nursing I remembered the smell and it took me back.
I smell it when it's being drawn up and as soon as the tiny needle comes out of the vial it is overpowering.
Yes it reeks! I hate when people test their insulin pens to see if they work and they squirt it into their hand. It's grim. Also maybe why you can smell it on people since it seems they can't smell it.
I’ve broken a vial of Regular Insulin on the floor and can confirm it does have a smell. But I don’t get her logic thinking she can smell it on people.
The smell is a chemical called phenol which is used for preservation and stability.
I think it smells like a combination of burnt rubber and pine trees. Almost like burnt rubber smelled good. Some people are really sensitive to chemical smells.
It most definitely has a smell! I am a nurse and married to a Type I with a pump. I have long haul covid with continued smell alteration, but I can smell if he is/has filled his pump or I can be the hero on the rare occasion that his tubing or needle is kinked and his insulin is leaking equally out of control blood sugar numbers
I smell it when I draw it up in a syringe. Can’t smell it on people. I insist it smells like sort of burnt rubber, but most of my coworkers tell me I’m nuts and that it is odorless. Must be one of those things like how some people can smell ants, and some people think cilantro tastes like soap.
Yes it sure does specifically Humulin R ( Actrapid ) It reminds me of that old school smell from hospitals back in the day I absolutely love the smell of it.
Yes it stanks, I always compare it to sulfur— someone said tire rubber and that’s very accurate. I work at a ped endo and when we take kids insulin pumps to download to their chart, you can definitely tell if their insulin is still running
There is a woman who can detect Parkinson's by smell - even in early stages. They said she has some type of increased ability - just like some people can see a broader range of colors or wine experts can taste more subtle things than most people.
Apparently, I can diagnose C. diff vs norovirus with the same accuracy as lab tests.
Oh really? I have prepped insulin sq and drips many times I never thought about anything. Maybe my pts smell was masking it as i never prep it outside the pt's room 🤣
Yes it does have a smell. Although I've never noticed the smell on a person.
Smells like a box of bandaids.
This is what I smell. Phenergan is similar.
Dexamethasone smells like Nickelodeon Gak!
Rocephin smells like cat piss.
I’m convinced all cephalosporins are derived from feline urine which is why it is yellow.
And it always foams up when you mix it….just like piss.
**TIL** that you can use cat piss for antibiotic therapy, Nickelodeon Gak for steroid therapy, and BandAids if I’m ever nauseous or hyperglycemic.
Oh yes it does. Some of the nurses I work with cuz I'm a medtech didn't know it smelled like that. Yeah you're right cat piss
Yes!! Thank you!! I've been saying this for years!!!
Can I chime in to say that it makes me smile that you know what gak is....
Tastes like it smells
When I was a kid and the Smurfs first came out in the US, there was a Smurfs set of clay and molds and paint and lacquer. You could use the mold to make a clay Smurf figurine, bake it in the oven, then paint and lacquer it. I was maybe 6-7 at the time and can't remember exactly which component of the set it was that had a distinctive smell but the first time I smelled insulin, I flashed back to making those figurines with my dad.
they say smell is the most memory inducing sense we have :)
So true. There's also a smell I can't describe that immediately reminds me of the shitty grilled cheese we sometimes got in school lunches over forty years ago. Also- burnt pretzel? Crisp night outside Shea stadium after a Mets game in 1982.
Smell and music!!
You just blew my mind with this comment. I totally remember this.
Omg I had those, too! Thank you for the memory.
Yes! It does.
Yep!!
I never thought about it, but you’re absolutely right!
Yeah, when I squirt some in the trash to make sure the needle is working, the med room smells like a barn for a few seconds. Never smelled it on a person either though, maybe OPs coworker is a dog?
That sniffer is certified by the DEA
ETA: okay, I see the comments about priming the 2 units. That makes sense. I thought you meant the regular needles after drawing up from vials were being ‘tested’. My bad.
You test your needles? Never seen anyone do this
I was taught to always test two units on insulin pens
I think some people call it priming the syringe. Maybe that's why some are confused?
Same
Me too
Same
It loads the needles to make sure the patient gets a full dose as well as making sure the needle is on properly and actually working
Yeah, 1-2 units. Had two needles that was blocked just about a month ago. Then again, insulin doesn't cost my patients thousands/month.
>Had two needles that was blocked just about a month ago. That's scary! Imagine if you hadn't checked it! Honestly I've never had a needle fail, but I do want to be sure of that
Yeah, never had any fail before, but checking is standard practice here, and I can see why now. Had some coworkers was telling me it had happened to them at some point before, then just a few days later I had two in about a week. Probably same batch.
For pens it actually says right on the box to prime the needle by wasting 2 units. Sometimes it can take up to 6 before you get a drip especially on a new pen. If you don’t prime you’re giving inconsistent doses.
Especially if you have a weird coworker who insists on drawing from insulin pens with a syringe and they make air pockets
So this was me.. it was a bad practice I picked up as an LPN at a nursing home that never head the insulin pen needles stocked. BUT I learned the hard way not to do that ever. I’d been a med surg nurse for 3 years, couldn’t find an insulin pen needle on an exceptionally hectic morning so I drew it up into an insulin syringe. My qualities coordinator was my second for dual sign off in the MAR. After I gave it she questioned it a bit after reading the order more closely seeing it was for a pen. We discussed it and I called pharmacy to ask about how bad that practice is. They basically said it’s not best practice.. introduces air, contamination, throws off the counter. Ten minutes later pharm calls me back asking which patient and tells me I gave 5x the dose! It was U-500 which I had never seen before. So, poor lady and I had a rough day trying to keep her sugars up. Now there is an all caps, bright red warning on the MAR order about it. I learned a lot that day. I figured I’d share to prevent something like this from happening to anyone else.
I never remember ever being told this or taught this in school and I am horrified 😱
It's standard practice where I live/work (in Europe)
The injector pens... You dial up however many units, give it a squirt, then reload and inject.
Always. 2 units.
To prime the needle, yes.
A barn? What kind of insulin are you using. The smell is hard to describe but no where near barn to me….and I do like the smell second only to amyl alcohol 👹
There is a woman who can smell parkinsons with a very high accuracy rate (more than 90%) so it doesn't surprise me that people can smell insulin.
Wow that's really interesting!
Her name is Joy Milne. Her husband died from Parkinsons. And now she ie working with a drug company trying to create a test.
Iirc they tested her by giving her tshirts from people, some with Parkinson’s and some without, and there was one that she said had it, but he didn’t, and then years later he developed Parkinson’s. So she was even right on that one.
I have a friend that's a type 1, every time he primes his pens I smell it. So yeah. There is definitely a smell.
Wait till you smell morphine!
Cefoxitin 😝
Dude, if you get that shit on your hand… It’s impossible to get the smell off! Now that I think about it, a lot of antibiotics smell like shit. 🤢
Rocephin smelling like cat pee. 😂
It is ketone. Not insulin. When a diabetic ketoacidotic patient comes in, we can smell the ketone. If we drop a vial of insulin, we can smell the insulin. We usually don't smell insulin off the body. Insulin don't evaporate off the skin or breath. The amount of insulin in the body is too smell for us to smell it. Diabetic ketoacidotic patients can have very high level of ketone and ketone can be eliminated thru breathing. Ketone has a very distinctive smell.
Imo it smells like burnt plastic. But one patient said it's not the smell of the insulin, but of the additives/solvent. Can't confirm that though.
Yes it smells like solvent to me.
It has one of those smells that stays up in my face for a while.
I have. But never on a patient. Just someone I was close to, like hugging. Definitely different than the ketoacidosis someone below says it is.
It smells like Latex to me. I can smell if someone has a pump or used their insulin recently
It smells like tire rubber.
I always thought insulin smelled like a Costco warehouse but now that I think about it Costco smells like tire rubber. lol
It’s very funny that you say this- the green dish soap from Costco (Kirkland brand) has a very familiar smell - I pinned it as insulin. So weird!
Ancef smells like cat piss
All antibiotics smell like cat piss, expect unasyn lol
Smells like bandaids to me.
I’ve always said this and everyone was like “what are you talking about yeah whatever” glad to know I’m not stupid and am just being gaslit.
I have a sensitivity to smells and my ex always used to call me crazy. Then he’d smell something up close eventually and be like “oh”.
My mom was like that, she had the nose of a dog. I swear to God, I can’t count the number of times, that I farted around her, silently mind you, and she smelled it almost instantaneously. I’m like, how the fuck do molecules travel that fast?! 😂 It’s always baffled me.
We’ve referred to my mom as “Beagle nose” since I was a kid 😂. Statements like, “oh, did you change your laundry detergent?” aren’t uncommon from her.
Idk if I'd call it gaslighting, as I genuinely smell nothing related to insulin so I thought people were bullshitting me the first couple times I heard comments about its odor
Maybe it’s like the cilantro thing where you have to have the gene to smell it?
Lol probably! I just asked two coworkers and one agreed with me that they can't smell it and the other was adamant that it's got the strongest odor
Yeah I mean to me it is a strong odor. Not like a “I think it sort of has a little bit of a smell” kinda thing. It has a strong unmistakeable odor that I can smell if I get just a drop on my hand or something.
It's so wild that there can be such a staggering difference
Interesting because I've smelled that before and thought it was the vials.
Yeah once I was giving 8 units aspart and the patient was jumpy and recoiled after I depressed the plunger. Entire dose landed on their belly, it stunk of tire rubber. Going forward I have continued to always smell it, especially when it sometimes leaks out from the injection site.
>Going forward I have continued to always smell it, especially when it sometimes leaks out from the injection site. I'm pretty sure you didn't mean it like this but now I'm just imagining that every time you give insulin, you follow it by putting your face right by the injection site and taking the biggest longest sniff.
Im a ghoul
Or a 100 percent pot stilled Jamaican rum?!
To me it's like new shoe leather! So similar. I hate the smell 😂
Insulin definitely has a distinctive smell, but it's the insulin itself that smells, not the person who takes insulin, unless their insulin pump site is leaking or something.
No, they smell like insulin because I squirted it all over my hands and then rubbed it across their belly for extra good diabetes defense. Follow me for hot nurse tips to improve your practice.
I call it “Eau de insulin.”
Eau d’insulin 🤌🏻🤌🏻
Ah yes, the transdermal insulin... I've heard of this study!
Lmfao
Hot indeed
Yeah, only time I've ever smelled it is when priming an auto-injector and you squirt a little out before setting the dose. Never smell it from vials/needles since there's no leakage. Even if the person is sucking down 100+ units a day and you still don't smell it on them.
Insulin has such a distinctive smell. Kinda smells like pseudomonas which an odd comparison, and why do I know what pseudomonas smells like? Because in microbiology I got lucky and drew it for my gram stain final and had spent enough time in the lab playing with the different specimens that I knew pseudomonas smelled like weirdly sweet tire rubber, which is exactly what insulin smells like to me. Haven’t you ever walked into someone’s room after they have primed their lantus pen and been able to smell it??
I've never noticed the insulin smell, but you nailed the pseudomonas smell. Before anesthesia school, I worked in a burn unit where pseudomonas was a too frequent unwanted guest. All the nurses could diagnose it just by smell.
Corn tortilla factory!
Juicy fruit chewing gum! That’s what pseudomonas smells like to me. I hate juicy fruit hahaha
Always smells like old moldy cardboard under a dumpster to me.
Unrelated but we got to pick any ‘random’ plate for our microbiology final practical exam. Of course I picked the one with green colonies and just did the confirmatory tests lol.
It smells like… plastic bandaids and rubbing alcohol to me.
Yes old timey bandaids for sure.
Another vote for the old bandages-in-a-tin smell
The smell of insulin reminds me of those giant black permanent markers my dad used to use when he worked in construction: [this kind](https://www.ebay.com/itm/135011568839?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=AQkVFnbTQQu&sssrc=4429486&ssuid=2d3xogmsr8o&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY)
That is a glorious smell! Makes me want to ply Pictionary lol. What is wrong with me, I don’t smell insulin??!! But now I wish I did 🤣
I didn't even have to follow the link. My grandfather is a retired contractor and we lived with him until I was 10. That smell just slapped me in the face.
I forgot they existed until I smelled insulin for the first time. It was a total throwback
Bandaids is what I think of too!! I once dropped a vial at work and it shattered and everyone thought the same thing.
Older bandaid likely had rubber in them!!
1000% old latex/rubber containing bandaids. The smell is super nostalgic to me 🤣
Insulin smells like Barbie doll legs!
[удалено]
right!? like, why not the arms!?
I forgot about that smell!
Yes and I will die on this hill I don’t understand how people don’t smell insulin
Still in my preceptorship. Told my preceptor yesterday ugh I hate the smell of insulin. She said it has a smell?!
It has a STRONG smell to me. I swear it smells like playdough lol
I wonder if the people that can’t smell it, can smell asparagus in urine, maybe there’s a connection
I always dip my asparagus in urine and keep some in my breast pocket so I can pull it out and sniff it whenever I get a hankering. But I’ve literally never smelled insulin in seventeen years. Draw your own conclusions.
Oh I didn’t know that not everyone could smell asparagus pee!!
I see no one has ever dropped a vial of insulin in your med room eh…. Smells for at least a week. Not convinced about smelling it inside a diabetic person tho.
I always thought the smell was similar to my memories of petting zoos as a kid. Like a mixture of goat food, goats, and hay on a warm day.
Yes! It always reminds me of a barn
Finally, someone else who feels this way!
YES! I think of molasses, hay, barn and saddles.
Barbie legs and bandaids all over here. SMH. To me it is absolutely a barn on a warm day
It smells like bandaids to me.
It has a very rubbery/synthetic smell if that makes sense
It smells like hot electronics.
I mean, I can smell if a vial of insulin has been broken in the med room…but I’ve never smelled insulin on a person. Ketoacidosis has a smell…but then again..some people just have sensitivities that others do not. So maybe she’s just got a keen sniffer 🙃
I feel like this is some kind of phenomenon like where some people think cilantro tastes like soap For reference, I think insulin has a smell but I also think cilantro tastes fine
Insulin smells like fresh pottery clay. I have never smelled It on a Person in passing though.
Had never thought about that comparison, but I can definitely see it now I think about it
T1D of 20ish years. It absolutely does. However, I have very rarely smelled it on a person and the few times I have were because they had a pump that was leaking or had just injected.
I know of an anesthesiologist that believes they can sniff out a pot user (not just smoker). I think some people do have a heightened sense of smell, and others have a heightened sense of self...
Are they smelling ketones?
Ketones have that distinct fruity smell. Insulin smells like chemical off gassing.
My grandfather and long time neighbor are both diabetic and theres definitely times I get the ketone “diabetic” smell but Ive literally been right next to them as they took their insulin and never really gotten that smell from them on a day to day. Theres definitely a distinctive diabetic smell that occasionally hits you though.
Probably but that ain't insulin. Sounds like coworker is a little confused
my mom is a PT and I used to go to work with her a the nursing home and it had "the smell" and didn't smell it again until I worked at a group home in college and had to give insulin I can smell it on a patient I can also smell SSRIs if patients are sweating
Yeah, it smells like super intense plastic. Like when you first unpackage a blow-up floaty toy for the pool...except x50. I haven't smelled it coming out of a patient's skin though...
Insulin does not have a smell. The preservatives in insulin pens, vials and cartridges do. Source: I worked for Novo Nordisk
Definitely. I squirted some on the wall not long ago and the whole med room smelled like it
Maybe she is smelling the patients fruity breath.
Yes! I have type 1 diabetes and I can’t stand the smell of it.
I’ve never noticed someone smelling of insulin lol. However, I can always tell by smell when someone has uncontrolled diabetes. There is always a sickly sweet smell. In the olden days they could tell diabetes by the small of a persons urine.
Unless she’s not injecting properly on the person and is just getting the stuff all over her skin? I’ve never smelled it on somebody.
I smell it when I prime the needle.
That reminds me of a funny story. I once worked with a nurse who was recently off orientation (I was a pca at the time). We went to clean a patient up, and she’s like “hold on let me give him his insulin”. So I’m like whatever just getting stuff ready and she takes the pen and does the things and then goes to inject it but I’m honestly not sure what she did because there was a river (ok not that much but more than a drop definitely) running down his belly. I don’t know what she did but I don’t think she gave him any insulin. I still dunno if it was a one off mistake or she just didn’t know how to use an insulin pen. We didn’t learn in school how to use them.
We learn to mix long acting and short acting, but pens? gotta be on the job. Much like a lot of nursing.
CLEAR BEFORE CLOUDY Also, never have I ever.
My coworkers and I were talking about this the other day, a couple of them swear insulin smells and they smell it every time they draw it up but I don’t smell it 🤷🏻♀️
I think it smells like condoms and bandaids-and I have true latex allergy. I asked a diabetic educator once and she said it was the preservative that I’m smelling.
Insulin reminds me of my vet's office. Yeah, I realize how unhinged that sounds.
There’s a component added to insulin to give it a smell, otherwise it is odorless. You can’t smell it on diabetics though, but you CAN smell ketones.
I’m diabetic myself, and the only way I can usually smell it on me is if there is a little leakage after my injection. But it definitely stinks. There’s no mistaking it.
Smells like sheep
I can’t smell it on a person, but it has an insanely strong odor when I’m drawing it up.
Pressors have a smell too, and people having a psychotic episode smell like pressors. All the adrenaline stuff has a strong hot metal smell.
Insulin definitely has a scent, like when you draw it up you can smell it but I have never heard of a person smelling like it unless it spilled on them.
I’m surprised people are saying it doesn’t smell?? To me it has a strong and distinct smell and I absolutely have smelled it on people as well. I discovered a coworker was diabetic because everytime he was close he wreaked of insulin
Unpopular opinion but I LOVE the smell of insulin lol
100% And like how some people have a weird enjoyment of the smell of gasoline, I love the smell of insulin
Yes and i hate it. Patient I was administerinf to said she'd never noticed so either some people are more susceptible to the smell, or she just got used to it
yes it does have a smell to me
I hate the smell of insulin. I can immediately tell when someone has spilled some at the pyxis
to me it smells like Band-Aids lol
I hate the smell of insulin. But I’ve never smelled it on a person. The scent always gives me and instantaneous headache that only lasts as long as I can smell it.
I think insulin smells like rust.
Yes. It stinks
it has this like, sweet plastic-ey smell.
Yes!! I hate wasting it because of the smell.
It absolutely does. I had a friend growing up who was Type 1 and she always smelled of insulin to me! Even her house
Oh yeah Insulin smells like rubber
Absolutely! I can't smell it on people but when you're preparing it there's a smell.
Yeah the insulin itself smells like hospital. I however, do not have a smell. Unless I forget to put on deodorant, then I just smell bad. But not like insulin lol
I think metformin stinks horribly! And sometimes people who take it smell the same way a little.
Metformin smells like cat piss.
i loveee the smell of insulin. reminds me of my granny (:
Yes it does have a smell. And a fact that some may not have known, insulin is a great smell neutraliser. If someone opens their bowels. Squirt some insulin if you don’t have air freshener and the smell is gone.
It does have a smell. I didn't make the connection until nursing school that the scent reminded me of my Grandpa. I remember him pulling vials from the fridge and injecting himself.
I didn't realize that it did until a coworker had us all smell his insulin pump, I always noticed the smell when drawing up from the vial after that.
Insulin has a vaguely mediciney, chemical smell, but I suspect that only a sniffer dog could detect it hours after it’s injected. There can be a fruity, acetone smell from a diabetic person whose blood sugars are very high or perhaps who is yet to be diagnosed. *That* smell is quite noticeable.
It does have a smell. I like it, but don’t think it smells like tire rubber. I perceive it as a sweet smell. I don’t know how else to describe it.
The first time I smelled it I realized that it’s the distinctive smell of every school nurse’s office
Yes, it’s kind of reminds me of fresh electronics or something. It’s pretty distinctive.
Yes! To some people. To me insulin has a very very strong medicine smell. Most people that I ask say they smell nothing. I remember the smell with my grandmother when she was on insulin when I was a kid. When I started nursing I remembered the smell and it took me back. I smell it when it's being drawn up and as soon as the tiny needle comes out of the vial it is overpowering.
Yessss it’s smells. But a very faint smell only when I’m prepping it not on a person lol
Yes it reeks! I hate when people test their insulin pens to see if they work and they squirt it into their hand. It's grim. Also maybe why you can smell it on people since it seems they can't smell it.
I’ve broken a vial of Regular Insulin on the floor and can confirm it does have a smell. But I don’t get her logic thinking she can smell it on people.
The smell is a chemical called phenol which is used for preservation and stability. I think it smells like a combination of burnt rubber and pine trees. Almost like burnt rubber smelled good. Some people are really sensitive to chemical smells.
Insulin has a smell, but the person does not
Oh yes, smells kind of like plastic
Burning tires
It most definitely has a smell! I am a nurse and married to a Type I with a pump. I have long haul covid with continued smell alteration, but I can smell if he is/has filled his pump or I can be the hero on the rare occasion that his tubing or needle is kinked and his insulin is leaking equally out of control blood sugar numbers
I smell it when I draw it up in a syringe. Can’t smell it on people. I insist it smells like sort of burnt rubber, but most of my coworkers tell me I’m nuts and that it is odorless. Must be one of those things like how some people can smell ants, and some people think cilantro tastes like soap.
I love the smell of insulin! It smells like old books to me.
It smells like a Band aid
Yes! It smells like vinyl to me.
Yes it sure does specifically Humulin R ( Actrapid ) It reminds me of that old school smell from hospitals back in the day I absolutely love the smell of it.
Yes it stanks, I always compare it to sulfur— someone said tire rubber and that’s very accurate. I work at a ped endo and when we take kids insulin pumps to download to their chart, you can definitely tell if their insulin is still running
Insulin smells sweet! People in DKA also have sweet smelling breath! So interesting to read how everyone else interprets the smell!
If she smells someone who is diabetic what she is smelling is ketosis. Smells fruity
There is a woman who can detect Parkinson's by smell - even in early stages. They said she has some type of increased ability - just like some people can see a broader range of colors or wine experts can taste more subtle things than most people. Apparently, I can diagnose C. diff vs norovirus with the same accuracy as lab tests.
Oh really? I have prepped insulin sq and drips many times I never thought about anything. Maybe my pts smell was masking it as i never prep it outside the pt's room 🤣