All,

I suffered from what this community calls "fecal Body Odor " from the age of 15-18/19. I actually think I found this message board all those years ago. I'm now 26 and 100% cured and never once have had a reoccurrence. I remember how my life was back then and how it is now and it is a complete turn around. When I finally figured out what my problem was and got to a place where I could sit in a room and have a normal conversation, be treated like a normal person, I literally cried of happiness.

Story:
Around 15 years old, I started to get comments about odor. I wasn't sure if it was caused by me at first, but then after I kept hearing the comments, I became aware that it was me. Strangely enough, I couldn't smell it myself.

As you can imagine or have experienced, the mental torment is almost unbearable. As a kid in high school, I was frequently in close proximity of a group of kids. After about a year of suffering through this, I became well known as "the kid who smells like shit". I had a small group of friends, who never really commented on it, but the signs were there - opening windows in winter, keeping a distance, etc.

Since I couldn't prove it myself, I pleaded with my parents to go to the doctor. It wasn't till I was older that we actually started going to the doctor, and even then I think they didn't believe me. So I was stuck with it. After reading through a couple of these posts, I see all the same patterns. OCD about cleanliness, charcoal, strange rituals, enemas, colognes/perfumes, etc. I even remember trying to use bleach to clean myself. Dumb idea.

I nearly always had a little bit of gas. Since I was afraid of the smell getting worse, I would hold it in and go to the bathroom to release whenever I could. I would never have any stains or actual shit/liquid, so I was perplexed as to what was happening to me. When I started going to the doctor, I got all sorts of random diagnoses - even one doctor said it might just be me growing up. What the f*** does that even mean?????

I remember one especially humiliating day in my life, my Science teacher called a random seat reassignment. Everyone got up, and she called kids to their seats one by one. I started getting worried it was about me. When I was one of the last 5 or so kids, I got so ashamed my face turned beet red. To make it even more humiliating for me, she left one seat open in front of me, one seat open behind me and then put the class trouble maker in the very last seat. A kid in the class asked why they changed seats, The teacher didn't answer. One of the kids said "It's because x smells like shit". It was agonizing. Since it had been a while suffering through this, and being publicly humiliated was a common occurrence at that point, I felt like I needed to escape. I went home and was ready to kill myself. I went to the bathroom, filled up the tub, and got in with the knife. I sat there for hours. I couldn't do it.

The most tormenting part of this period of my life was the psychological torture. Since I couldn't smell it myself, I began to try to confirm or disprove with friends and only the closest of friends. All I wanted was to know. When I was working with a good friend of mine, at the end of the shift, he openly said "Dude, you smell like ass." He told me about it and how everyone knew. He said it wasn't all the time, and sometimes it was much worse and sometimes it was just a little bit. I finally had someone be upfront with me about it after over a year of dealing with the issue.

My symptoms:
Odor - described as "shit", "farts", or "it stinks in here"
Inability to detect own odor
Gas/Bloating
Foul smelling stool
A weird bubbling in my lower right gut after eating
Constipation

My (self found) cure:
At the end of it all, no doctor was able to help. I tried all sorts of diets, but it was one in particular that cured me. For 6 weeks straight, I ate nothing but boiled chicken breast, white rice with no seasoning, egg whites, and green pea pods (low in fructose). My symptoms slowly decayed until they were completely gone. I started reincorporating things into my diet, and noticed them come back. Through the process of elimination, I had nailed it down to gluten. two years of suffering - all because of gluten. After completely eliminating gluten from my diet, I was cured. This is much more difficult than it appears, and it can't be half-assed. If you want to be free of this - it has to be 100% adherence without any slip ups. I'm sure if you went through what I had to go through, you won't have trouble finding the motivation to do this.




My life is on the right track. I moved as soon as I could, and began a new life. I graduated near the top of my class, and I'm now working in NYC at a top consulting firm. This wouldn't have been possible with the debilitating and strange disorder I had when I was younger. I don't think I would be alive today had I been suffering this long.

Please, if you have not tried it, and the above story/symptoms sound familiar to you, you need to try a 100% strict gluten-free diet. I would also suggest following the "zero-chance" diet I followed above to maximize your body's ability to heal.

I felt the need to share my story and my cure. I don't expect it to be the cure all for all of you, but I know for a fact it will be the way for some of you. Good luck.