2007-09-25T00:14:00.000-07:00

She's a former model and a Phi Beta Kappa with a master's in education. There's a part of her, though, that's not so perfect. She smells like spoiled fish. Camille says when she taught, students wouldn't come near her.

"They would say things like, 'Ew, this classroom stinks like dead fish.' They would call me 'Miss Fishy.'"

She asked that her last name not be used because telling her story was difficult for her. Camille described the odor as "a very heavy, intense, dark, deep smell."

"I didn't know why I was emitting such a strong odor. I mean, it can fill an entire room. Recently, it filled an auditorium," Camille said.

Her job as a teacher became excruciating.

"I was so focused on 'Do I smell? Do I smell? Are they saying things? Are they whispering? Are they laughing about me?'"

Smell Can't Be Covered

No matter what she does, Camille says she can't cover the smell. Neither showers nor perfume helps.

Camille has a medical mystery that she's struggled to understand for nearly 30 years.

"I would open windows. I would leave the door open. I'd put fans in my classrooms. I mean the whole nine yards," Camille said.

Her childhood was no easier because Camille's ordeal began in first grade.

"One of my teachers asked me if I was showering every day. From that point on, she kind of sat me in the corner of the classroom.

"I had an incident in middle school where a bunch of kids cornered me in the cafeteria and threw tuna fish sandwiches at me," Camille said.

When Camille got older, the insults continued. One of her first jobs was as a teller in a credit union.

"My supervisor would come by and spray my area with perfume, Lysol, and they put me in the drive-through section, which is separate from the rest of the teller area," Camille said.

Camille found her answer on the Internet.

"All I did was type in 'fishy body odor,' then this one thing came up, trimethylaMinuria. They're saying that this chemical, trimethylamine, comes out of your body, and smells like dead fish."

In these people, a faulty enzyme causes the buildup of a chemical called TMA, which smells like dead fish.

"It's a volatile chemical. It will come out through the lungs. It'll get into your sweat, your spit and other body secretions. So that's how it imparts its odor to the individual who has this disorder,"

"I wash with several different products, and I scrub very hard. I use two different kinds of deodorant and a lot of perfume. Before I actually leave the house, I spray all of my clothes with Febreze just all up and down, and I also spray my feet and my socks with the deodorant for my feet," Camille said.

FishyGirls