r/self • u/Calm-Cucumber-252 • 5d ago

I can smell when people have cancer

Believe it or not, I can smell when someone has cancer. It is the most pungent smell ever, and only gets worse the stronger it is. As a child, my grandpa started smelling funny, and after a while he was diagnosed with cancer. The smell got stronger as his cancer did, until he passed away. I thought nothing of it until my Nan on the other side started smelling the same way, and it got stronger until she eventually got diagnosed and passed away too. That’s when I started thinking wait maybe I can smell cancer (or maybe it’s just a coincidence). I started smelling the smell at varying strengths for people in public, and always kinda thought in the back of my head oh man I think they’ve got cancer. However, it wasn’t until my OTHER granddad got cancer and had to stay in hospital and at 17 I got to go visit him in a hospice specifically for cancer patients. I could hardly walk in the building. There it was again - that SMELL! Do people secrete certain chemicals when they have cancer? I have a strong sense of smell so I could possibly pick up on it. It’s definitely not when they’re going through chemo, because I can smell it on people who haven’t started chemo yet. I am genuinely going crazy trying to find an answer. This smell is horrendous and I just don’t understand why I can smell it when nobody else seemingly can??

Edit: on a long car journey rn, feeling a bit car sick so won’t be replying to any more comments for a while. This isn’t an April fools, I’ll repost it tomorrow if u really don’t believe! Will be contacting more research places too :)

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u/VirtualWear4674 5d ago

in the good world we would ask you to explore that and help us

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u/Calm-Cucumber-252 5d ago

I actually tried contacting some researchers locally, because I live near a university hospital that does a lot of research into testing for cancer. They basically said it was impossible and to stop wasting their time… like damn okay sorry

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u/Zealousideal_Star252 5d ago

Honestly, I would keep reaching out to other researchers outside your area. Even if this isn't what you think it is (and as other commenters have pointed out, it's possible that is IS, weirder things have happened) something unique is definitely going on with you. Best case scenario, we have discovered potentially a new research weapon in the fight against cancer. Worst case scenario, you have a bizarre unknown condition yourself that causes you to experience these smells.

Either way, it's scientifically fascinating and potentially medically important, and someone will want to study it. Don't let one group of researchers being dismissive make you give up. If nothing else, you deserve the chance to find medical answers for yourself and the symptoms you're experiencing, as it's causing you concern.

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u/lemelisk42 5d ago

Dogs can smell cancer - and preliminary research is ongoing on that front. So certainly someone would be willimg to look into it

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u/Max_Beezly 5d ago

What if op is a dog that typed up this post?

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u/Nico777 5d ago

"On the internet, nobody knows you're a dog"

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u/lurkishdelight 5d ago

It's an old meme, but it checks out

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u/Its_c0mplex 4d ago

This is why I love reddit

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u/Tylerama1 5d ago

Dog = goD

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u/Want-to-be-confident 3d ago

Dog with a blog

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u/GWAndroid 2d ago

Iconic New Yorker gold!

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u/Relevant-Stage7794 5d ago

Or a human with a canine olfactory transplant

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u/high_while_cooking 5d ago

Op is Dolph Lundgren

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u/Sherlocat 19h ago

Why Dolph Lundgren? Did he play a character with super olfactory ability?

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u/high_while_cooking 19h ago

It's an always sunny reference.

They write a movie ablut a totally jacked scientist who can sniff crime. Played by dolph

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u/Sherlocat 15h ago

I didn't know Dolph Lundgren was in It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia . Heh.

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u/high_while_cooking 13h ago

He's not lmao, just mentioned

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u/Sherlocat 1h ago

LOL, oh okay!

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u/mongrel_breed 5d ago

I'm certain OP is not a dog - I can smell dogs.

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u/winged_skunk 5d ago

Is it the same dog from LinkedIn?

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u/pockette_rockette 5d ago

Then they're a very good boy/girl!

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u/Caleb49 5d ago

"Anyway, can't answer right now because they threw me a stick."

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u/Eager_DRZ 2d ago

Got a squirrel to chase!

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u/AdjustableGiraffe 5d ago

If OP were a dog they would be enjoying their car ride more.

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u/Shoddy_Audience261 3d ago

Fucking hilarious

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u/jack1729 4d ago

Not sure which would be more impressive human cancer detector or dog that can type?? Just kidding - obviously human…

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u/Shoddy_Audience261 3d ago

You never saw Dog with a Blog? He was so talented! That was real right?

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u/Fun-ambul10 4d ago

A dog that writes and detects cancer, I want to adopt him when I see how stupid mine is 😁

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u/Jennafurlamb 4d ago

LMFAO I just spit out my food. Thanks for the laugh. I will now proceed to TikTok

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u/InvestigatorGoo 4d ago

Omg mystery solved.

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u/screwswithshrews 3d ago

Has anyone asked OP if they want a treat or what they think of the mailman?

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u/Interesting-Octopus 2d ago

Well they may not be gorgeous, but to call them a dog!

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u/minasmom 1d ago

Then the smelling cancer thing is only the 2nd most interesting thing about the OP.

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u/Herpderpyoloswag 5d ago

Yeah I thought this was known. Why would they tell him it’s impossible.

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u/2punornot2pun 5d ago

A lot of doctors are ego driven assholes.

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u/dire_turtle 5d ago

A lot of academics are tired of explaining themselves to people who have zero credentials but think they know better. If someone told me they can smell depression, I'd be sour about it too. Like motherfucker, I commit every day to this shit. Forgive me if I don't take miraculous, science-defying claims as Gospel truth. Nor should any scientifically ethical person. If you come with claims of miracles, expect aggressive doubt. We've seen what readily believing any unfounded bullshit gets us.

In a perfect world, of course we'd like a scientific community to take those leads seriously right away. But can't do that in a world of disinformation and gullible idiots.

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u/2punornot2pun 5d ago

I'm more talking about doctors who keep refusing to believe patients in general.

Not frustrated doctors about pseudo Google knowledge.

I'd have recommended the researchers who are actually doing that research, since, you know, it's a thing (Parkinson's disease that a woman can smell, dogs can smell cancer, etc)

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u/_toodamnparanoid_ 5d ago

I'm more talking about doctors who keep refusing to believe patients in general.

I basically don't say anything to doctors anymore. They always seem to think I'm exaggerating or lying or just plain wrong.

So now it's "what brings you in today?" "my wife made me."

"On a scale of 1 to 10 how much does X hurt?" "1"

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u/mizmpls95 5d ago

The problem is when your first sentence happens because repeated exposure to your second sentence. Not saying it’s good or professional but it’s a big part of why it happens.

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u/Cynoid 5d ago

I'm more talking about doctors who keep refusing to believe patients in general.

Diagnosing a patient is very different from what people expect it to be and this confusion about physicians not listening stems from that(usually).

There is not 1 answer to a patient's problems without testing, the patient might present 5 symptoms with a few of them being vague and the physician will try to match it to the tens of thousands of cases they have studied/worked on.

Your 5 symptoms might match issue A and B but A happens millions of times a year in US while B happens dozens of times a year. So the physician will obviously try A.

Physicians then might try a new treatment option because it's more likely that treatment 1 for problem A doesn't work than it is that you have problem B. Or people then change physicians and go and complain again and are annoyed they get the same diagnosis. If you want a physician to try different things, you need to stay with the same physician, not go to someone else that will try to Treat A again even if you have said it's not A. Are they not listening to you in this case? In the physician's mind, it's probably just more likely that the first physician treated A in a way that the second physician disagrees with than you have problem B. If they don't do their due diligence, they can be fired, sued and yelled at by angry patients blaming the physician for their "alternative treatment" options not being covered by insurance.

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u/Educational_Fail_523 5d ago edited 5d ago

You know whats funny, that first sentence? Almost everyone who has an ounce of specialized experience (including what you might think of as "unskilled labor") encounters that. Yet there are still those among us who choose to be kind. I've had idiotic doctors give me batshit backwards directions for how to do my job, but I still managed to be kind to them and correct their incredibly idiotic and stupid mistakes without making them feel like an idiot, even if it really feels like there is no person more deserving of a swift and potent comeuppance with an accompanying streak of frequently recurring, and extreme public embarrassment.

Having knowledge does not give you the right to be a dick, nor does it make you immune from being a dick. Even if you are right, you can be kind.

I think many academics fail to grasp this concept and that is why we see a lot of this kind of behavior from that sector, because they have neglected these types of reasoning and therefore lack the ability/aptitude to think at that level. Science has cataloged the possibility of evolution, mutation, and changes over time. Why would it be impossible to find something out that we don't already know, or for something already known to change? It may be rare, but not impossible.

You know what would be (not) funny? If the individual who said with 100% certainty that this is impossible, ended up being the reason we don't find a cure.

I would not feel the way I do about them if they said they are 99.999999% sure it is impossible, but saying 100% is an affront to the concept of science, and is basically like a crime as far as I am concerned.

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u/LiveLearnCoach 5d ago

Well, you can smell depression!

It smells like, like someone who hasn’t showered in two weeks. 

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u/natchinatchi 5d ago

It’s not science-defying though? It’s been proven that some dogs and humans can smell diseases.

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u/BadAtStonk 5d ago

But any scientist also knows for certain that genetic mutations happen in every single human, and the idea that a few of us out of the billions of humans on earth would have supersmelling ability is a near 100% certainty.

I think the way to go would be to get connected with someone with a big social media following and let them use their pull to get someone with the right credentials to try doing some research.

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u/Loose-Ad7696 5d ago

We don’t need research. This is not even invasive. Let people decide if they want to be sniffed and hand over some cash. I don’t believe this will be used for the greater good otherwise. All the OP will get is poked, prodded and likely banned from using a rare ability to save lives. If you don’t think so, look at how triggered the responses are from “scientists” and “researchers.”

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u/Worth_Inflation_2104 2d ago

Anti intellectualism at it's finest.

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u/DaggumTarHeels 5d ago

Eh, I don't think that's it at all. Most academics I know are moderately incompetent, extremely egotistical, and not nearly as smart as they think they are.

Personally, I'm tired of seeing academics behave as if their PhD confers the entire knowledge of mankind upon them. It just means you have an extremely narrow set of expertise in a specific field. Nothing more. It's a great accomplishment, but stop acting like a degree puts you in some sort of higher social caste.

I haven't been surprised in the least to see fields more centered in practicum drift away from universities over the years (CS/engineering/etc).

Having taken multiple CS courses at both Duke and UNC, which are 'top' programs supposedly, the faculty at either school are categorically outclassed by the average principal developer at the company I work for now. And funny enough, quite a few of those devs posses PhDs. You wouldn't know it though, because they don't demand people call them "Dr", are capable of basic communication with others, and generally happy with their lives.

I don't know man. I'm jaded. I learned more about CS in the first six months after graduating than I did from any 'professor'. I put that in quotes because none of the faculty charged with teaching the courses I took seemed like they have even a slight interest in doing so. They were all focused on 'research' - none of which was meaningful, or even novel.

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u/dire_turtle 4d ago

I'm with you in general. PhD types are exhausting when they are in academics professionally for any amount of time. Like running research trials is saving mankind lol

We all need the humility to admit we aren't the expert. I make that clear with my doctor, my mechanic, my barber, my accountant, everybody. Academics need to come down off their high horse as much as anyone though.

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u/DaggumTarHeels 4d ago

Agreed 100%

I think higher ed has created an environment where complacency and laziness are allowed to fester so long as you're able to publish slop with any frequency.

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u/No-Debate-8776 4d ago

It's not a science defying claim, it's just empirical evidence you haven't looked at yet. In fact I think it's unscientific to refuse to look at evidence that contradicts your established model!

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u/tibetje2 3d ago

There is No such evidence yet, only a claim. The scientists are not at fault for missing a potential truth hiding in millions of false claims of People that think they are peers of scientists.

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u/Minute_Chair_2582 5d ago

You can just see Depression though? Probably not 100% accurately, because there might be other shenanigans going on with their eyes, but you can definitely tell from the way their eyes behave

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u/pharmakos144 5d ago

There's a reason "doctor" and "indoctrination" have the same root word

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u/Psychological-Ad7053 3d ago

A lot of doctors are assholes.

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u/Rock_Strongo 5d ago

This person might be telling the truth, but 999 times out of 1000 when they hear an outrageous claim like this it's just someone trolling or someone with a disorder who wants to feel important.

It takes a lot of resources to look into claims like this. Maybe they were too quick to dismiss it, but it's not very surprising.

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u/bocks_of_rox 4d ago

It's interesting you assumed male, and I assumed female.

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u/whatupmygliplops 5d ago

The vast majority of scientists are ridiculously close minded.

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u/kwumpus 5d ago

Cause they took our jobs

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u/GDRaptorFan 2d ago

I feel like I’ve heard this before about other people as well? Maybe it’s just dogs that I read about but I thought it would at least be believable to researchers.

They might get all kinds of weird people calling them though, so op should keep trying.

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u/LaLechuzaVerde 5d ago

I was thinking this. Contact someone who is researching cancer sniffing dogs. They might be more interested.

My ex husband was able to smell pregnancy. He knew my sister was pregnant before she knew. Just from her walking past him in my mom’s kitchen.

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u/throwaway4rltnshp 5d ago

that's fascinating about your ex husband. I don't know if I can smell pregnancy but I can definitely smell ovulation/period, the latter for a couple days before any symptoms begin (I'm a man, didn't have any idea as a kid why my sisters would have distinct, subtle scents for several days every few weeks. finally made the connection in my 20s when I had my first serious relationship).

ovulation scent is almost exactly the same as the scent of cats in heat (I realized this a few months ago the first time I witnessed a cat in heat).

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u/dbenc 5d ago

OP should tell the scientists that his dog can smell cancer, and once they confirm it's real he can say PSYCH it was me all along!

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u/Equal-Jury-875 5d ago

I find it amazing how they can tell someone's blood sugar dropped in the next room. It's like idk that's a super power

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u/Equal-Jury-875 5d ago

And yet with that super power. They would choose trash

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u/Wandering_aimlessly9 5d ago

I’m telling you I’d totally go for a mammogram if the machine is a cuddly dog.

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u/Rude_Jellyfish_9799 5d ago

Maybe you were a dog in a past life!

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u/swollama 5d ago

There is a woman who can smell Parkinsons, and she struggled for several years to find a willing researcher.

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u/chicago262 5d ago

My old dog kept sniffing my moms right breast and my mom found it to be so strange. Turns out that’s where her cancer was.

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u/surfrocksatan 5d ago

I was searching for a comment like this. My parents Pomeranian started obsessively smelling my uncles leg when he would come over. Turns out he was diagnosed with cancer that caused a tumor in his leg. I’ve always wondered what she could smell that (most) humans cannot.

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u/GreenTfan 5d ago

Yes, a colleague had a kid who came back from college after one semester and the previously devoted dog was acting differently. Turned out several months later the kid had cancer, did the dog know?

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u/Ok-Needleworker-419 5d ago

I have a medical condition and when it flares up, my dog sits next to the bed, stares at me, and pants all night when I sleep. I thought it was a coincidence the first few times but then he’d only do it when I’m having issues, and every single time I flare up so I’m pretty sure he can tell and is worried about me.

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u/ohitsjustmike 5d ago

Sherlock Holmes dealt with exactly this topic in Elementary episode 18 season 2: "The Hound of the Cancer Cells"

Watson says that the cancer cells release different gasses or something

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u/introvert-67 5d ago

But dogs being able to smell cancer is not new. This has been known for years.

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u/Nearby-Bookkeeper-55 4d ago

Cats too. Or bad inflammation. My mom always knows that there's something wrong if her cats get too interested in sniffing some point.

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u/TXQuiltr 4d ago

I was also thinking that OP might get in touch with some of those researchers.

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u/Own-Association4742 4d ago

Yes! My dogs kept obsessively sniffing at what felt like a wart on the back of my leg. I couldn’t see it and I live alone so I couldn’t ask anyone to take a look. I decided to ask my doctor about it and it turned out to be skin cancer. Thanks doggies! 💜

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u/JTG___ 3d ago

I’ve also seen a case of a dog being able to smell when its owner was about to have an epileptic fit. It would alert them so that they could quickly lay down on the ground to avoid the possibility of fitting while standing and cracking their head.

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u/ducksdotoo 3d ago

cats, too

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u/GlassHalfSmashed 3d ago

Yeah the difference is that dogs can smell all kinds of shit - most likely a lot of them can smell cancer but have no idea what it is.

Humans aren't generally that sensitive so if OP has a specific genetic mutation it may be more specific than what the dog researchers have to work with. Plus it's already adapted for humans, which is a further plus.

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u/Comfortable-Suit-202 3d ago

Yes dogs, not humans

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u/Admirable-Whereas204 3d ago

I can smell when I got UVI. So I think it is possible to smell other illness also

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u/metered-statement 2d ago

Dogs can also smell Covid, even from asymptomatic patients.

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u/BuffyTheKat 2d ago

Cats too. There was a cat who lived in a nursing home in R I. She would walk from room to room. If she chose to sit on a bed, the staff immediately called the family and said "come right now" Hard to remember the details exactly but I think she lived there about nine years and identified imminent death hundreds of times. She was never wrong.

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u/PandaB0dy 1d ago

Yh and they are human so they actually can communicate which would be amazing! Imagine the lives that can be saved!