Samantha Walsh
Samantha Walsh has lived with type 1 diabetes for over five years since 2017. After her T1D diagnosis, she was eager to give back to the diabetes community. She is the Community and Partner Manager for T1D Exchange and helps to manage the Online Community and recruit for the T1D Exchange Registry. Prior to T1D Exchange, Samantha fundraised at Joslin Diabetes Center. She graduated from the University of Massachusetts with a Bachelors degree in sociology and early childhood education.
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When you take an insulin injection or fill your insulin pump with insulin, do you notice a certain smell associated with your insulin? Cancel reply
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It’s the preservative. My son even knows what it smells like – surprised me one day when he asked if I spilled my insulin.
It’s very handy for checking whether you’ve got a leak from a bent cannula or bad insertion at your infusion site!
I barely notice the smell, though it has a distinctive. Metallic scent. My husband can’t stand the smell (so I make sure i don’t change my infusion sets near him. And I’ve had patients who can taste the insulin when they inject!
Oh god. Taste it?! That sounds awful.
My husband and I always joke that we’ll have to cut off our hand if we get insulin on it because the smell won’t wash off easily!
No in 73 years of taking insulin.
Aging brings olfactory degradation, visual degradation, audio degradation, and haptic degradation.
But the really good news is I can still relish the umami, habaneros, red peppers, and horseradish flavors intensely with intensity. 🙂🙃🙂
Insulin smells like bandaids!!
Yes, and it stinks!
I do not notice the odor of my insulin, but I have used insulin for 78 years. Maybe that is the reason I do not detect an odor.
Hey Richard. Fancy meeting you here :-).
Of course. Smells like bandaids, always has (I was dx’d in 1983). I’m told it’s the preservative. Guess they use the same chemical.
I don’t think it is strong or aromatic so I barely notice it, but it does smell like Band Aids if I really try to take a whiff.
I can smell it when I prime my pen before an injection. Bandaids was a good description of the smell to me!
Are they running out of meaningful questions. Is there a hidden purpose to this question?
I smell like it as well.
Yes. It’s a strong bandaid smell!
Yes and I hate it. I associate it with being diabetic and it just makes me hate it more. I do agree that the smell helps to alert me to a leak.
Yes. Insulin smells like a dentist office, or a doctor’s office, or a hospital. Something like that. I don’t mind the smell at all. It is the smell of life!
Really dislike the smell of insulin.
Really? To me it’s like “Apocalypse Now”; “I Love The Smell Of Insulin in the Morning, It Smells Like Victory!!”
Not all the time do I get a smell when drawing up insulin . More time I get the smell when I replace my insulin pump sensor
I have never noticed a smell, but, of course, next time I will try to smell it.
The smell of life? Unfortunately my sense of smell left me about 10-15 years ago, wonder if a byproduct of my diabetes?
One of my cats *loves* the smell of insulin and likes to be around when I change my pump infusion set. I have to stop him from trying to lick it – yuck!
I didn’t realize the smell was phenols until I read through this, then I googled “cats and phenol” and it says the smell is pretty bad for cats. I had no idea 🙁
I notice the smell when the pen has gotten too warm and that is just the worst!
I smell it when I shoot my 2 units in the air to be sure no air bubbles in the pen. My daughter walked by one time after I did that and asked, ‘What smells like bandaids?’ I thought that a good description of the smell – ha!
It does indeed smell like Bandaids. I ad a friend recently tell me it reminded him of the plastic they mold Barbie out of.
My understanding the smell comes from phenol which is used as preservative and sterility agent.
I understand that it is phenol, and I’ve always wondered why, if it is sufficiently concentrated for me to smell it AND for it to potentially kill bacteria, that it doesn’t sting more to inject. To me it smells like crayons — a good smell.
I never really paid any attention to the smell but once when my grown kids were home visiting and I was filling my pump, one of my daughters said “oh I like that smell. The smell reminds me of you mom, and so it is a comforting smell”, and my other daughters agreed.
No, not anymore. After 68+ years of taking various kinds of insulin, the alcohol swab and insulin smell are so much a part of my daily life I’m no longer aware of it.
Smells like life 🙂
Of course. lol
My cat loves how insulin smells.
Of course! Everyone in my house knows what insulin smells like. Sometimes if they smell it they ask me if I have a leaking site. One time they were right! Good catch!
Funny all the different reactions to the smell. Like Anneyun’s comment my daughter also loves the smell as it reminds her of me and she also smells it on other diabetics in public.
An interesting question! Sometimes, yes… but not constantly enough that I can easily define it. Sometimes immediately after injection of the huma-log, I also get/got a brief flavor in my mouth, very rarely now, but initially, originally more so.
Yes I notice the smell, even after 45+ years of using insulin. In university I did some medical research where phenolic preservatives were used. My insulin smells much like the lab did.
I marked “Unsure” because I do not smell the insulin unless I spill some out when filling the insulin cartridge or when preparing a manual injection. Insulin has a DISTINCT odor when exposed to air.
Yes .. to me it just smells like insulin … it is what it is probably because I am so used to it.
Yes, I like the smell of insulin.
My husband hates the smell!