It is not that your feces have a pleasant smell, but foul smelling stools with unusually strong, putrid smell can be a lot of inconvenience to you and the people around you. In most cases dietary changes and simple home remedies will stop the foul smell of the stool, but in some cases the bad odor may require investigations.
It is not unusual to have occasional bad odor coming from your poop. This is generally due to specific food items that don't go well with your digestion system. You avoid eating the food and your feces begin to produce normal odor.
What Causes Foul Smelling Stool?
Foul smelling stools are stools that emit really very bad odor. In most cases, particularly when the other health symptoms are normal, the smelly poop is caused by diet.
Sometimes the diet itself may be the cause. Though, there are some foods that reduce stool odor. In serious cases, the malabsorption of the food may be the cause of bad smell. This kind of malabsorption happens when there is an infection or a disease that is stopping the food to get properly digested and nutrients from the food are not getting absorbed by the intestine.
Medical conditions such as Celiac disease, Crohn's disease, Chronic pancreatitis, Cystic fibrosis, Intestinal infection, Malabsorption and Short bowel syndrome can also cause foul smelling poop.
Bacterial infections such as Escherichia coli or Salmonella and viruses and parasites can also cause foul smell in the stools. These kinds of infection may also give you stomach cramps and runny stools or loose motion.
Certain medications may also cause gastrointestinal discomfort and diarrhea with foul smelling poop. Even if you take more than the daily recommended doses of multivitamins, then they can also produce foul smelling stools.
If you have blood in the stool or black stools, fever, abdominal pain, chills or weight loss along with the foul smelling stools then you must consult a doctor.
Foul Smelling stools in toddlers can be an indication of infection. Check with pediatrics.
Home Remedies for Foul Smelling Stools
There are many simple home remedies that can help in stopping the foul smelling stools. We are taking for granted that you have eliminated all the possible medical causes of the foul smell in consultation with a doctor and you are otherwise healthy.
Normally when the stools are foul smelling, you may also suffer from bad breath. Chewing green cardamom is a good home remedy for bad breath.
1. Diet Control
Make a note of what you have been eating lately. If there is anything that is added to your diet and the symptoms of bad smell has emerged after that food item then you need to stop eating that food item and see if the bad odor stops in a couple of days. In most cases it should stop. Unpasteurized milk sometimes is the cause of foul smell.
2. Handle Food Properly
Food items like beef, poultry, pork and eggs need to be handled properly. These food items must be cooked at certain minimum temperatures. Also do not chop these animal meats on the same chopping board as the vegetables. Any bacteria in the meat can enter the vegetables.
3. Eat More Yogurt
Yogurt has good bacteria. If the cause of your foul smelling stools is the increase of bad bacteria in the stomach due to unhygienic food conditions then eating organic yogurt daily will help to bring back the good bacteria bad bacteria balance.
Add 250 gms of organic yogurt to your daily diet.
If all these remedies do not solve the problem of foul smelling stools then consult your doctor.