Getting rid of the insulin smell

My son has T1D, and lately everywhere I go – whether I am with him or not, whether I’ve just washed my hands or eaten some very pungent finger food – I constantly smell insulin. His pump does have a faint insulin smell to me, so I’m wondering if every time I give him a bolus a small amount rubs off on me and I’m just very sensitive to the smell. I guess the other possibility is that it’s some sort of weird olfactory hallucination, an “olfactory” memory that sticks around in my nose somehow, or even some kind of embodied metaphor for how pervasive diabetes is.
Assuming that it’s just a residue issue, I’m wondering how you remove the smell? I always wash my hands with soap and have even taken a shower when I notice it, but I’m wondering if there’s a particular product, or particular counteracting scent that does best to mask the smell of insulin? It’s just a very unpleasant odor for me.

I believe what you smell is actually the preservative, not the insulin itself (smells like band aids, right?)
Still, your dislike of it is real, I get that. Maybe think of it in terms of the insulin being the thing that keeps your son healthy – that won’t make the smell go away, but should at least make it marginally happier.

If you’re smelling insulin that often, I’m wondering if your son’s pump is leaking.

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of course you could be really sensitive to the smell, but I remember the last thing my endo showed me before my hospital discharged me over 25 years ago getting my first pump was he made sure I actually smelled insulin. He said “if you smell THAT, you have a problem somewhere along the line. It could be HERE (infusion site} or HERE (luer lock connect of infusion set to pump)” So smelling insulin makes me check things.

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Yes, we’ve checked the Luer lock and the tubing and the reservoir before, they always seem fine. Seems there is always a faint smell at the seal that keeps the reservoir in, but we’ve checked that the seal seems intact and the reservoirs themselves seem fine. So if there is a leak it could be from the pump itself, which would suck because that’s not replaceable. I also always smell it at the site where it’s attached to my son though. So I think I am extremely sensitive, though there might also be a leak.

I’m also wondering if the smell, if it comes from the preservative, might also be present in other things that I never noticed before. I actually smelled it while my son was away with his grandparents and I hadn’t handled it for a few days.

So may I am just going crazy.

I hear that band-aids smell the same because of the preservative. I suspect other things do for the same reason.

I’ve read about insulin pump infusion site failures where the insulin, instead of being absorbed by the tissue near the tip of the cannula, wicks along the outside of the cannula and back up to the skin surface. I have witnessed this a few times myself but very seldom.

Another failure I had was at the luer-lock infusion set connection. The plastic must have cracked when I screwed the infusion set into the reservoir at the luer-lock connection. My first indication that something was wrong was a steadily rising blood glucose level that did not respond to any pump delivered corrections. I looked at the luer lock connection closely and did not see anything amiss. I finally decided to put the corner of a kleenex down alongside the luer-lock and then saw liquid wicking up into the kleenex.

Your nose must be much more sensitive to the smell of insulin than mine. That’s a good thing when it comes to detecting an insulin leak.

What you’re smelling is metacresol, the principal preservative used in insulin. I use MDI, not a pump, and once in a while I will have a tiny drop left on the skin. The smell always alerts me, and I note “lost some” in the log to record the fact that the bolus was slightly short. That’s an occasional occurrence, definitely not the norm.

If your sense of smell were that hypersensitive, I would expect other smells to be intruding on your awareness, too, not just the one. I’m inclined to concur with the earlier comments—if you’re smelling it frequently, there’s a leak someplace.

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Thanks everyone, while it’s possible I’m a super-smeller, I’ll take a closer look at the pump. Really hoping the pump itself is not leaking as we’re using openAPS and it’s an older model that is not easily replaceable. Sigh.

“I LOVE the smell of insulin in the morning…”

[Soundtrack - Ride of the Valkyries]

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Insulin also smells like Band-Aides to me, but I prefer to think of its aroma this way:

Insulin smells like LIFE! :heart:

To me Insulin smells like a rancid Mint leaf…My pump smells like it whenever I take out the resevoir to change out…could this be a leak???

Yup, bandaids–it’s always been bandaids. Even when I was first dx’d back in the 80s, with R/NPH animal-derived stuff. Guess they’ve been using the same preservative for a long time.

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