This Morning viewers sympathise with woman who smells like fish as she works nights to avoid co-workers
Kelly Fidoe-White, suffers from Trimethylaminuria – a disorder more commonly known as ‘fish-odour syndrome’
A WOMAN who suffers a genetic disorder that makes her smell like rotten fish says she works night shifts to avoid making both her and her colleagues uncomfortable.
Kelly Fidoe-White, who suffers from Trimethylaminuria – a disorder more commonly known as ‘fish-odour syndrome - appeared on This Morning to discuss her condition.
Speaking to Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield, Kelly described the odour as a mixture of fish and onions.
But it has nothing to do with personal hygiene and using scented shower gels can exacerbate the problem.
She said: "Personal hygiene has nothing to do with it. It is my body not being able to break down food properly."
Kelly revealed she tried everything to cover up the smell including having up to four showers per day and changing her work uniform but nothing worked.
Eventually Kelly, who works as a radiographer, decided to move to the night shift for her own sake as much as that of her co-workers.
She said: "Besides the smell itself, there are very few other symptoms at all and of course you have the side effects of anxiety, social isolation - it's hard.
"As far as I know, this condition affects 300 to 600 people worldwide - it's not very well known."
Her husband Michael, who Kelly met online, said it's tough hearing how she was bullied about her condition as a child and how people still say mean things to her.
He also said that he "didn't notice" the smell when they first started dating.
"I got a whiff of it, but it didn’t seem strange to me."
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Kelly said she realised something was wrong as a child and would pretend she ate finger paste sandwiches for lunch as an excuse for the smell.
She said: “I wasn’t the sort of kid who fitted in anyway. If I had a chance to get on stage and do something daft to make people laugh that was me.
“I was anxious because it did crop up quite a bit at school.”
Viewers at home sympathised with her condition with many taking to Twitter to send her messages of support.
One wrote: "Poor woman, it must be dreadful to live with."
Another added: "Oh gosh, poor woman. There was a girl at my school who did constantly smell of fish and thinking back she may have had this..."
A third said: “Read about this story about this women's diagnosis online. I feel so sorry for her. Can't imagine what it must be like.”
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