Hello,my name is Channie.im from San Jose Ca.I am 19 years old.I saw your article about TMAU.my question is "Is the smell coming from your skin or your growings?"I need to know because I have body oder as well.It started when I was 15 years old.my oder is coming from my skin.I smell like feces the moment I get out the shower.My growings don't smell.im really starting to think its the skin on my face because my arms don't stink nor does any other part on my body.I have no friends because of this,I don't even want to go outside.I even droped out of school because the people were making fun of me.I hate my life now.a weeker person would have killed them self by now.I don't know how im going to live like this!they say that there's no cure.please e-mail me back and let me know where your smell is coming from.I am a 19 year old female and im adout to go crazy!my email is alsupdekharn@tmail.com please email ASAP.THANK YOU

Hi TenaciousMe

Great that you are getting tested. When I got the urine TMAU test I was told to eat greasy fish and chips the night before. I did the 24 hour urine collection on a Sunday and had been out the Sat night before and had alcohol too. What a great excuse to enjoy yourself and eat and drink all the wrong things, hope you enjoy it. The next day my urine was of a much darker color and not very much of it. I guess I was dehydrated. That test came back positive.

Then I was giving Antibiotics metronidazole neomycin etc and was tested again after taking them. This test I didn't load up on choline. That test came back negative. The 24hour urine collect had nearly twice the amount of urine and much lighter colour.

I complained the odor had not changed so they gave me another course of Antibiotics and tested again. I didn't do the choline load and the test came back negative. Again lots of urine and light colour. The docs said that I didn't have it and couldn't test me any more. i.e the notes showed anitobiotics had cured me as on paper it looks that way. Many years later I now have fbo which I didn't have before. One gastro doc looked very sad I had taken metronidazole as it apparently strips out your whole gastric system. Killing all good bacteria everything. They now know Antibiotics are not good and that your good bacteria are closely linked to your immune system. One reason breast milk is so important for babies is that it sets up the probiotic balance in their guts that gives good immunity for life.

Lastly you can't live without a certain amount of Choline in the body or you would die. Therefore the body makes it from scratch no matter what you eat. So if you cut out all choline from your diet your body will make a certain amount to keep you alive. Obviously cutting down could stop excess choline.

So my 1st test said that I had secondary TMAU due to gut bacteria, that either gives off too much trimythlamine or the liver being too slow in detoxifying the trimyythl. Excuse my spelling he he. So the docs where getting at something.......something wrong in gut flora or liver detox. It doesn't matter if the name is TMAU or not, if that is the underlying problem. Also I guess it doesn't have to be bacteria that could be giving off too much trimythlamine, or amonia or sulphur. It could be a mold or any number of parasites not just bacteria. Lastly the docs didn't ask WHY the gut was giving off odorous compounds or WHY the liver wasn't detoxifying quickly enough like a normal person who doesn't have odor.

These are the questions I am asking myself. Obviously the other two times when I was tested negative my liver was managing to convert Trimythl. But the odor was still there. WHY? Because maybe my liver was not able to convert amonia or sulphur or another substance at that time. Which wasn't tested for. That would also explain why my odor wasn't fishy, more normal B.O. and then after antibiotics it changed to fecal and garbage and the food I had eaten. I think docs giving out antibiotics for every silly disease under the sun is kind of ridiculous. Are antibiotics all they have? Seems to be! Antibiotics only made my odor worse in the long run, be very careful.

So it would be interesting if your lab could test for the liver detox of other substances like amonia and sulphur too. No harm in asking, maybe they will be just as excited. I know I would be really excited to find out.

Other tests I had with a hollistic practicioner revealed leaky gut, (many people with leaky gut don't smell) and a problem in the detox pathways in the liver. So all tests are showing pretty much the same. Makes sense to me. Something is wrong in the liver and gut needs to be cleaned out and repopulated.

So whatever you do don't just get tested once and leave it at that. TMAU is fairly new and many docs haven't even heard of it. So you are best to do a lot of research yourself and get to the bottom of what is the cause behind the disease. There have been many people that have had negative and positve TMAU results at different times, not just me. Good luck and please post and let us know what your results say. I for one would be very interested.

im 29 years old I've had this embarising problem since I was 18 but diagnosed a year ago I hate it ! screw the diet didn't work for me nothing does! so now what? I want somone to talk too that shares this same problem id be happy to here from u

Make sure you keep us updated however I've known people including myself who does the low choline diet and still no luck with the odor this is a On going night mare I just want it to be over 😢