If you’re like me, it means you visit the toilet every day of your life without breaking that routine once. If the toilet is squeaky clean, you must have caught yourself wishing you could spend some more time there emptying your bowels. Well, that’s possible when you’re taking a shit without discomfort. Now, the trouble is that this is a rather infrequent happening. On some days, getting to settle down in your toilet might seem a most outrageous luxury. On such days, you would find yourself scurrying out of the booth (if you use one), before the last vestiges of poop had managed to escape your anus.
You might have wondered, peering out of the toilet window, eyes glazed and nostrils burning, what in your uncle’s name makes poop stink to high heavens. You’re probably reading this after one of those terrible sessions, perhaps in a bid to find a solution. While I wish I could categorically assure you that I’ve got a one-size-fits-all solution, the possibility of that is however specious, so to speak. But there’s some buckets of good news anyway. The smell of poop is determined largely by your diet, then on several other factors. Experts believe that the commonest cause of foul-smelling poop is the malabsorption of digested food in the gut.
The smell of poop depends on the substance causing it. Shortly, we’d discuss some factors which may contribute to it. Well, if your poop reeks of sulfur, possibly you’ve been bingeing on certain sulfur-containing foods, or even drugs with significant sulfur content.
Causes of Stinky Poop
Drugs and Medications
Antibiotics function by upsetting the balance between different types of bacteria in the gut. Normally, certain bacteria in the gastrointestinal tract regulate the activities of some of the harmful ones. When drugs are taken to kill these ‘helpful’ bacteria, the balance is disrupted and the harmful ones may attack the gastrointestinal lining, which may be an underlying cause of diarrhea, or some other gut problems, in addition to giving your poop a foul smell. Studies have indicated that some people notice the strong smell of sulfur in their poops when they take certain sulfur- containing medications, which recedes after the medication is stopped. [1]
