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  • BDD Moderators: Keif’ Richards | negrogesic

The ability to smell drugs inside your blood

freskafreska

Greenlighter
Joined
Sep 27, 2018
Messages
12
I am writing to see how common it is to be able to smell drugs from inside your blood. For myself, I can identify the drug that has been administered after it reaches a certain concentration in the blood plasma. For example, if I take methadone, about two hours later I would be able to smell it when inhaling and exhaling. Methadone, Oxycodone, Morphine all have similar smells, but Tramadol is very different. Paracetamol has a distinct smell that comes on after about 15 minute post oral administration. B-D Posiflush Normal Saline syringes also have a chemical odour although its only supposed to be salt water and that can be smelled within seconds of the flush going thru the IV while the Normal Saline drip bags have no smell at all. Aspirin and ethyl-alchol smells somewhat like vinegar and ibuprofen has no detectable smell. For alcohol it makes sense as one of the metabolites is acetate. The smell can be very strong and overwhelming for some of these drugs at peak plasma, but at the same time can bring a bit of comfort by telling me the drug is working.

Has anyone experienced something like this and how common is it? Any medical term for this? Can't find anything relevant on Google, and doctors and pharmacists scratches their head when I ask them.

Thanks
 
Can't find anything relevant on Google, and doctors and pharmacists scratches their head when I ask them.

*scratches head*

Not sure, to be honest, but a very interesting idea/discovery.

Anyway, welcome to Bluelight :)

I hope you find the answer you are looking for, but it may very well be that you just have a unique talent. Or maybe my nose is that bad from putting drugs up it.
 
Perhaps it's a form of synaesthesia? Do you experience specific odours when in other states of altered or impaired consciousness such as illness, fatigue, stress etc. ?
 
Not at all during impaired/altered conciousness. As far as I know it is only related to the medication. You could blindfold me and shoot posiflush into the IV line and I would be able to tell you it is posiflush, or you could shoot diamorphine and I would be able to tell you just gave me some sort of opiate just from the strong smell, especially when exhaling thru the nose. I have even taken a wrong pill orally once since they look similar and when it didnt smell right after about 30minutes that was when I realised. Another time was when I was in the hospital where they gave me 2 tablets that I didn't know what they were, but after taking them it smelled like Tylenol and after confirming with the nurse, that was exactly what they gave me. Only I can smell it no one else around me.

Could it be due to the drug molecules in the blood somehow interacting with the olfactory nerves?

I was seriously so shocked to learn that many other people don't experience this, but I can't be the only one.
 
I can point specifically to study on methamphetamine conducted at University of Illinois in 2011 with fruit flies and their metabolic changes at the cellular level documenting 32 I believe in the fly alone. Also, feeding them sugar slowed the meth affects. Changes at the cellular level could support your hypothesis. I have provided the link below. Second study of support would be out of England. It proved we pass our preference of drug to our children threw our blood. Forgive the movie quote: "the blood knows". I posted findings feom Univeraity of Utah as supporting data. I could go on to state that possible support from medical science would be their own DNA testing for individual drug metabolism itself, of which I have taken. Example: For my entire life,Tylenol has not worked for a fever yet ibuprofen breaks it in hours. My testing proved I was correct. My receptors do not absorb nor metabolize acetaminophen.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.livescience.com/13815-flies-meth-toxicity-sugar.html

https://news.illinois.edu/view/6367/205346

https://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/addiction/genes/
 
It's not rare at all, some people may be more attuned to it than others; but this is a well-known phenomenon among IV drug users. When I first experienced it I thought, as you did, it was from the blood coursing through my taste buds containing the drugs...but no, it's from how your body removes waste through your lungs, the drugs are literally on your breath. There was recently a thread in PEDs where we talked about this in the context of testosterone apparently sending BBs into coughing fits if they nick a vein(its intended to be IMed).
 
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It's not rare at all, some people may be more attuned to it than others; but this is a well-known phenomenon among IV drug users. When I first experienced it I thought, as you did, it was from the blood coursing through my taste buds containing the drugs...but no, it's from how your body removes waste through your lungs, the drugs are literally on your breath. There was recently a thread in PEDs where we talked about this in the context of testosterone apparently sending BBs into coughing fits if they nick a vein(its intended to be IMed).

Yes IV drugs definitely produce a taste sensation, but the OP was talking specifically about smell.
 
Thanks for all the responses!

but no, it's from how your body removes waste through your lungs, the drugs are literally on your breath.

This might make a bit of sense as in heavy drinkers, people would be able to smell alcohol on your breath due to how the gas exchange works inside your lungs.

Maybe with drugs, what I am experiencing is happening thru a similar mechanism, just more subtle since others cannot smell it? My theory is some of the odour molecules gets exchanged from the blood and gets passed out the lungs, and when you exhale those molecules goes up the airway and start striking the olfactory receptors in the nose, which would also explain why I don't get the odour when inhaling as it is in your breath.

If this was true if I exhaled my breath into a drug detector dog after taking some morphine, it should trigger a response provided that the dog was trained for detecting morphine. If I can detect the odour then the dog with their incredible sense of smell would definitely be able to!
 
Maybe with drugs, what I am experiencing is happening thru a similar mechanism, just more subtle since others cannot smell it? My theory is some of the odour molecules gets exchanged from the blood and gets passed out the lungs, and when you exhale those molecules goes up the airway and start striking the olfactory receptors in the nose, which would also explain why I don't get the odour when inhaling as it is in your breath.

That's exactly what is happening, you can even taste impurities often, like heroin having an acidic vinegary taste that morphine lacks, or suboxone shots tasting like citrus. Z-drugs are the worst though, nasty metallic taste that lingers forever.

If this was true if I exhaled my breath into a drug detector dog after taking some morphine, it should trigger a response provided that the dog was trained for detecting morphine. If I can detect the odour then the dog with their incredible sense of smell would definitely be able to!

Probably so, but the dog isn't necessarily trained to detect specifically what you are exhaling, I don't know exactly how different a molecule can be before a dog would no longer recognize it. For example, if a dog were trained to detect one salt and nothing else would it recognize the freebase or another salt? The dog could already pick it up on you just from you handling it anyways.
 
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