body odor complaint by my employer

reply to post by nobodysavedme


Maybe an MD can help pin point a problem.

I use a THAI mineral water spray under arm--best stuff ever found. I used to have rather significant under arm odor problems. I get the stuff at a health food store. It's absolutely fantastic. I haven't had even a slight problem since I started using it. Maybe I can get the exact name . . . OK HERE IT IS:

THAI CRYSTAL DEODORANT MIST

WWW.DEODORANTSTONES.COM...

One bottle lasts MUCH longer than any other product I've ever used . . . months.

It says it is also for feet but I haven't needed to use it for that.

I think the stuff is incredible and healthy in ways other stuff is not.

I would encourage you to be cautious about the bleach etc.

reply to post by nobodysavedme


I forgot . . . you might need to change clothes washing detergent--about every month or two.

Detergents evidently interact with body oils and odors and odors build up over time.

Changing detergent brands every month or two tends to solve that sort of problem.

I also wear a T-shirt year around under my regular shirt.

reply to post by nobodysavedme


There are various natural substances you could INGEST, good things, that could help you with your problem.

Search for them. You will find them.

I'm fortunate. I don't stink!



Nor does my s*&t.

Seriously, there could be lots of things to consider. Pherenomes, for one. Some people can recognize differences very well between on person or another.

I have three daugthers. One of them is not a racist. well, none of them are. But this one, in particular told me, she has this adverse reaction to the pherenomes of those of a certain race. Hmmph.

I was aghast at this confession from her! You're saying what?\

This could go much deeper than I really am prepared to go in this discussion.

Okayyyyyyyyyyy...........so I had a kidney transplant years ago. And I was prescribed certain medicines to take to make sure I don't reject this foreign object inside my body. One of these drugs smells like I just walked over the corpse of a skunk. And when it gets hot, I exude the smell of this medicine out of the pores of my skin. Yuck!
Most people don't notice it. I certainly do. And there have been a few others in the past 14 years who have detected this odor.

The only way I can stop this smell is not to take the drug.

Maybe there's something in your diet that causes this odor. Maybe it's a food that doesn't metabolize itself in others the way it does in you.

Search.

And hire a good goddamn lawyer, as well!

reply to post by nobodysavedme

did not read everything yet, so maybe I repeat something already said : but before that event at your boss office, did your wife tell you about your body odour ?? your kids if you have ?? your friends ??
is it the first time you hear about this ??
I think you just have to change some things in your life if you already didn't before : change your clothing every 2 days, but wash them frequently !! you need natural tissues like coton or linen ( flax ), no synthetic tissues, shave your body under your arms and you know where also, wash your HAIR every 3 days or so, change your socks every day !! put special carbon insoles in your shoes, wash your teeth every day !! do not eat too much spiced food ( garlic etc .. ), try to use natural deo you find in body shops ....
but the most important is to see if this is really a problem or if they just try to take you down !!
how long do you work there yet ? never problems before ? new personnel did arrive ? something changed at your work ?? do you work with special products that can give you a special odour ??
ask, ask the people you like if this is true, NO SHAME, everybody sues, everybody sometimes has body odour, how could it be otherwise ??
if nothing helps go see your doctor because yes some dysfunction of the body can be the reason !!
Peace.

Sorry to hear about your situation. Don't panic, stay calm. I also advise you visit your GP to make sure that you are physically healthy and nothing is wrong.

Also, when you shower, dedicate an extra minute or two to washing under your arms. Take deodorant with you to work (in a backpack) and reapply it whenever you get a break. Don't use an excessive amount, but use it generously.

If these things fail, go to your boss and explain your situation. Tell your boss you are taking the complaints seriously and you will do what is necessary to to ensure other employees are not bothered by smells of B.O.

Good luck, hope it all works out for you.

Your problem might not be about "you" perse. You see, you can bathe every day and still stink if you aren't washing your clothes regularly. Even if a clean person showers well, changes underwear, yet puts on clothes that have gone, shall we say, "stinky," then you will stink at work as if you had not showered at all.

So, you might not be changing your clothes enough. It is smart to wear the same pair of pants or shirt for 2 through 5 wearings before rewashing. But, after that, and depending on food stains, sweat, etc., you should wash more often. Again, a clean person wearing fresh underwear in pants and shirt that have become stinky from overuse, will stink like a stinky person even though he/she is actually clean.

The clothes are smelling it up for you, is my guess. Now, if your clothes are clean, and you wash, yeah, I'd see a doctor because that just isn't right. If you can't afford to see a doctor, then change soaps. Go anti-bacterial, go exotic, go orgainic... Change it up. And if that doesn't work, then try adding a little cologne.

Lastly, why don't you do the "smell test" every day before work. As in, "Hey honey (wife), how do I smell!? ---And please tell me the truth!" If you smell fine in the morning and stink by the end of the day, then consider packing a toiletry kit along with your lunch. The kit should include: foaming hand soap, wash cloths, and whatever else you need to give yourself a small clean-up in a bathroom stall. Hey, suds it up in a stall, wash your armpits and crotch and anything else that has become "dirty." Then, after a 10-min sponge bath kind of thing, you'll be back to normal for the rest of the day. This is a reset button for your stinkage.

Just somet thoughts. If these things haven't worked or helped, then I can only deduce THAT YOU ARE SLOWLY DECOMPOSING BECAUSE YOU WERE BITTEN BY A ZOMBIE AND ARE IN TURN BECOMING A ZOMBIE. If that's the case, then EVERYONE WHO KNOWS YOU SHOULD FLEE.

First of all, you are taking this way too hard on yourself and may need to go talk to someone about depression and see what options you have to help you get over that ordeal. It also sounds like you are suffering from social anxiety.

As far as washing with bleach, where did you get that idea? That sounds more like desperation than a good idea.

What you want to look into is mixing some baking soda with some lotion and putting that under your arms or anywhere you may thing you have body odor, that usually does the trick, do it each day. I actually find you can go a full 3 days with just baking soda and lotion under your arms after a shower before any odor even remotely occurs, it is amazing.

Many of you are forgetting, most people that do suffer from BO actually do not even realize it, because you get used to your smell, even family members can if you are around them enough, to the point that you cannot tell. However, baking soda should solve the issue if there is not a more serious issue that is causing the odor.

Not sure if anyone has brought this up yet, but have you considered your diet and what you are eating may be the cause?

I used to work in an office building and each night we had a Korean man who would come and clean the offices, and every night we would all dread his arrival and prepare for it because, apparently unbeknownst to him, his body odor was horrendous and unbelievably loud and overwhelming.

The reason, or so I later learned, is that he ate a Korean dish called Kim Chi every day, which is rotted garlic pickled cabbage, and it stank through his skin and pores and radiated off of him like a cartoon skunk.

Consider what you eat as a culprit. Also as said before, maybe someone has it in for you. Good luck.

Shave!

Thats right, shave yourself in all the right places Plus the missus will love it

I also use a womens rollon stick: Rexona cotton dry. Ive noticed this stuff for women is a whole lot better then the mens stuff and the rexona keeps me smelling good for up to 12 hours a day.

Shower everyday and chnage your clothes everday as well!

Originally posted by kyred


Okayyyyyyyyyyy...........so I had a kidney transplant years ago. And I was prescribed certain medicines to take to make sure I don't reject this foreign object inside my body. One of these drugs smells like I just walked over the corpse of a skunk. And when it gets hot, I exude the smell of this medicine out of the pores of my skin. Yuck!
Most people don't notice it. I certainly do. And there have been a few others in the past 14 years who have detected this odor.

The only way I can stop this smell is not to take the drug.

I bet you were taking cyclosporin. I have an allergy to my own blood. I get treated like a transplant patient - and I read that, and I'm like, I bet that poster has been taking cyclosporin or neoral. lol
I couldn't take it, so I just take prednisone. In addition to making me look pregnant, ug, it makes me stink. My husband says I don't stink, but the thing is, it changed my body odor and ***I*** can't stand it. It's not me. It's like having someone ELSE's body odor.

Everyone has a smell. The worst, to me, was when my friend would come in after eating a lot of kimchee(sp?) the night before.

I have noticed though, IMO, that our society in general is getting more and more intolerant of people's differences- including people's SMELLS. Heck, in my social group, 90% of the women I know will claim to be 'allergic' to perfume. It gives them a headache. lol
From my experience, living on steriods, stinky cyclosporin, and blood transfusions, they don't know what an allergy is.

Hi, I'm new to this forum and I stumbled upon this thread.
I suffer from the same thing as yours, but a bit different in a way.

Nobody told me that I smell bad, but you can clearly see it from their reactions.
People who would pass by me would suddenly rub their nose, some would sneeze, some would cough or clear their throats. Argh.. it was so humiliating! I can only keep my head down!

I'm hygienic. I take a bath everyday, put on a deodorant and wear clean clothes, etc.
People at my back would always say things like someone didn't take a bath, and that they smell an onion, and other stuffs that just break my heart every single day. It's really mean of them, but I also know that it's because of me that's why they're also suffering from work. Because throughout my stay in the office, most of them would cough non-stop, sneeze, sniff, etc. Though I wanted to quit, I can't. I'm the only one working in the family now and I really need this job.

What kind of doctor should I go to? Thanks a lot!

Originally posted by Ophiuchus 13
reply to post by nobodysavedme

 

Dont bleach yourself......... Just get you some tide wash all your clothes and some oldspice deodorant and some oldspice body spray use both and you should be cool, mabey wash your hair or something and you will go in smelling fresh. Hopefully you know how to clean yourself well and if not then make sure you try a bath instead of shower and see if that helps. If it carries on you may have a health issue within your skin that may need looked at. good luck

It usually is your clothes, not you. When you wash your clothes be sure to put them into the dryer immediately after they are done being washed. No sitting overnight wet and fermenting. Put less clothes into each washing session. Try soaking them in Borax AND washer soap for 30 minutes before continuing the 1st wash cycle. Use scented dryer sheets and dry until absolutely dry, close-to-dry is asking for mushrooms to grow in your clothes and you'll smell like it.

reply to post by kyoya


Can I ask, does anyone in your family tell you you're smelly? It would be quite odd if they can't smell a thing yet folk at your work do.

And to clarify, is it just people at your workplace who are reacting like this or people elsewhere too?

Is there a chance that the folk at your workplace are just misbehaving and you've gotten so paranoid about it that you THINK people elsewhere are reacting to an odour?

And be honest, when you go home from work and you open the front door, is your house whiffy?

reply to post by wigit


I told my mom about this but she said that she can't smell me.
Everyday I would experience all those kind of reactions.
I would just pass by and then I'd suddenly hear someone cough, or would rub their nose.
Right now, I experience this everyday in the office. They would cough so loud.
I really don't know what's wrong with me.
i know when I smell bad, cause I can smell it too.
But most of the time, I can't smell anything. That's why I don't know why people would cough non-stop when I'm around. even though they're like meters away from me.
I think I have what they call TMAU, I joined a forum about people who suffer from it as well.
but I'm not really sure since I haven't did the test yet.

reply to post by kyoya


It could be a number of things, even diet like an abundance of onions, garlic or curries. My bf is not a heavy sweater (even though hes covered in hair and 180 lbs) and doesn't have an odor which i find weird (maybe he's a robot lol), However I sweat just by waking up (im 120 lbs and have next to no body hair) and can get very ripe after a days work.
Human bodies are very similar but our chemical make ups and body types can be unique depending on our environment and im sure can produce a wide variety of smells (ever smelled little kid sweat? *gag*). People will obviously smell others that aren't natural to their home environment in a neutral setting like work or a grocery store.
I actually worked at a place that banned fragrances of any kind because of one supervisor being severely allergic. I tell you some took it to far and wore nothing all day but clothes and smile and after a day in the office we were all holding our noses.

Personally I wear antiperspirant (Mitchum brand has worked well for me), and keep one with me if I am out for more then a day doing something since it doesn't keep the sweat away all day long. I also try to avoid any extra fragrances, cause they sometimes seem to carry more then just their scent alone (a nice light aftershave for men or a light scented lotion for gals helps but not overdone and try to avoid putting it on places you sweat the most).

We live in such a prudish society now, we forget often that we are still animals on this planet.

reply to post by nobodysavedme

I have had the unfortunate experience of having to discipline an employee for body odor. She said the same thing as you about showering daily, and I believed her, because she always came to work with wet hair. The problem wasn't her showering, it was mostly her clothes, her smoking, and her pet odor.

Don't shower with bleach, just use good hearty soap and water. Nothing with perfumes, just regular old, good soap. Make sure to use a washcloth or sponge, don't just wipe the bar on yourself. If you have a lot of body hair, get rid of it. If you want to be really die-hard, get some old-fashioned lye soap from an organic store.

Make sure your clothes are washed, and immediately dried and not allowed to mildew. Don't wear them more than once.

Always wear a T-shirt under your regular shirt, and bring a spare or two. Change them on break or at lunch.

If you smoke, wear a smoking jacket and take it off when you are done. Don't let the smoke smell get into your clothes.

If you have pets, keep them in their appropriate area. Outside, or in their own bed. Don't let them climb around on your dirty or clean clothes, and don't let them in your bed.

Change your bed sheets at least weekly.

As a last resort, see your doctor. Get a Doctor's note for your condition, then you will have FMLA coverage. The doc may also give you some pills or prescription deodorant.

Changing your eating habits will probably help as well. Good clean water, no soft drinks or sugary drinks. As with general health, whole fruits and vegetables, and limited amounts of fish and chicken, and the very rare serving of red meat will help your body cleanse itself.

Good Luck!

Your foul odor can be caused by many things. But since it's obvious it's due to something other than hygiene, you need to go see a doctor that specializes in BO. If a doctor can't help you, go see an acupuncturist. They might have an alternative solution.

reply to post by nobodysavedme



Alot of great info already.

While you implement some of the above suggestions

USE THESE PRODUCTS DURING THE WORKDAY

SCENT KILLER

AMAZON.COM

I am a bow hunter, and normal human scent is a huge issue when hunting.





I have a friend that smells like sour milk.

I used this spray on some of the equipment he uses (fabrics) and it chemically destroyed the odor.

Give the body soaps and deodorant a try as well.


I would also look into clothing with Silver Ion technology.

reply to post by kyoya



If you think it's TMAU then get a diagnosis fast but trying these things might help in the meantime. From wiki -

Ways of reducing the fishy odor may include:

Avoiding foods such as eggs, legumes, certain meats, fish, and other foods that contain choline, carnitine, nitrogen, sulfur and lecithin
Taking low doses of antibiotics such as neomycin and metronidazole[6] in order to reduce the amount of bacteria in the gut
Using slightly acidic detergent with a pH between 5.5 and 6.5

Additionally, at least one study[7] has suggested that daily intake of the supplements activated charcoal and/or copper chlorophyllin may improve the quality of life of individuals afflicted with TMAU by helping their bodies to oxidize and convert TMA to the odorless N-oxide (TMAO) metabolite. Study participants experienced subjective reduction in odor as well as objective reduction in TMA and increase in TMAO concentration measured in their urine. The study's success rates varied:

85% of test participants experienced complete loss of detectable "fishy" odor
10% experienced some reduction in detectable odor
5% did not experience any detectable odor reduction

--"85% of test participants experienced complete loss of detectable "fishy" odor"-- That sounds promising, doesn't it?

You could also tell the sniffers and coughers at work about TMAU and they might start being more polite. Take a few print-outs of that info and pass them round.

I used to work for a nut. She would accuse people of stinking, being drunk, being high; what ever. She would send people over to them to back up her "claim" and being the brown nosers they were, they simply piled on.

Those people were fine. She was just nuts. When I made it clear I wasn't getting involved, she started to complain about my performance.

So I just up and quit. And then she calls me 5 times in 24 hours wanting me to come back. I saved every message. She left messages like "swallow your pride" and "stop ignoring my calls."

I was within a hair of calling the police. I sent her a text advising her that I quit, I'm not changing my mind, and giving her a single warning to stop trying to contact me.

The end.

Point being, it might be you. But it might not be you. If you stink, you know. If you stink, others outside that work place have told you before. You already know the answer.

You may want to get a second opinion from those you know. And from a doctor. If they agree that your okay and your job continues to pester you, you might want to get an opinion from a lawyer. that's not the direction I went but I was certainly within my right.

Jobs are a dime a dozen. A change of scenery might put your mind at ease.