Can adrenaline make your armpits stinky?

“Sweat itself doesn’t smell, but when the bacteria on your skin mix with your sweat, it causes an odor. Body odor can smell sweet, sour, tangy or like onions. The amount you sweat doesn’t necessarily impact your body odor. That’s why a person can have an unpleasant body odor but not be sweaty. ”

https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/symptoms/17865-body-odor

Except, @Tropical_Willie, sweat can carry the residue of chemicals in the body. Medications, hormones, traces of what has been consumed. Dogs are outstanding at smelling various from-the-pores excreta.

@Tropical_Willie This sounds kind of weird, but my sweat usually isn’t that smelly.

Even when I’m profusely sweating, I don’t smell as bad as I did earlier.

The smell has since subsided and gone away. Which is partly why I found the whole thing to be rather curious.

It seems like it did!

@janbb Would be interesting to hear if anyone has had a similar incident…odd!

Whoa interesting…apparently we have different types of sweat glands.

The ones triggered by adrenaline and cortisol release a thick sweat full of lipids and proteins (that bacteria loves).

Whereas the gland triggered by exercise secretes mostly water.

Like mentioned above, sweat doesn’t smell regardless of why you are sweating. The bacteria on your skin, mixed with sweat, can smell horribly offensive.

You might find this interesting. Anecdotally, I rarely smell sweaty – and when I do, it means that I’ve been crying and/or very nervous.

I’m sorry you witnessed something scary. Hugs.

@longgone Really interesting! Thanks for sharing!

And thanks for the hugs too. :)

@SnipSnip Actually if you do a quick Google search for different types of sweat glands (eccrine vs apocrine), you will find that they are triggered by different things. And the actual sweat is different.