Do people ever test you to see if you are lying about it by farting in your office at work or leaving things that smell around you to see if you react?
Dinsdale
So, just to make sure I understand, you’re saying you smell bad?
Yes, exactly!
Rysdad
Y’know, there are probably more times that I’ve wished I couldn’t smell something than the times when I wished I could’ve smelled something better.
Yes, I’ve noticed that people complain about bad smells more than they seem to enjoy the good ones.
Peter Morris
so, do you have no sense of smell at all? Do you get no sensation at all when you sniff?
Nope, just clean fresh air. 
pbbth
Do people ever test you to see if you are lying about it by farting in your office at work or leaving things that smell around you to see if you react?
Nope, most people don’t even know it, and the family members have seen enough proof.
I think the way in which it has affected me the most is that I’m hypervigilant about being clean. I’m terrified of smelling bad and not knowing it. But I never wear perfume, because I don’t know if I would like it!
Interestingly, my mother has a very sensitive nose. I think when she was pregnant with me, she somehow stole my smelling ability.
My dad lost his sense of smell when he was in college from a head injury. We do use his non-ability to our advantage sometimes, like when there is a horrible smelly mess somewhere. But as others have pointed out there can be problems, once my mom came home and smelled gas, when my dad was cheerfully going about his day.
He seems able to taste just fine, but he is not what I would call a discriminating person when it comes to food. I mean he can tell the difference between foods and all, but I would guess a gourmet chef or someone who was a picky eater might notice a bigger difference than he does. He does notice strong fumes, like when we sprayed wasp killer nearby he noticed that. I don’t know if he smelled it so much as got the slight burning sensation you get with strong fumes.
Yeah, I’m always amazed when my husband tastes food and can identify that it contains cilantro or something.
I lost my sense of taste for about 6 months once. I could smell things (as well as a smoker can, I guess) but couldn’t taste anything. I have no idea why it left or came back.
I guess if you never had it, you wouldn’t miss it. Too bad you have a memory of cigs and booze, though. Those aren’t at the top of my list of things I want to smell.
Actually, I liked it. But then, I liked Grandma Kit and Mom didn’t.
I’m an anosmic too (didn’t know there was a word for it…) Dung Beetle’s responses are spot on for me. Especially the one about the stink bomb. So many times, I’ve been riding in the car and everyone will go EWWWW. Skunk or pig farm or whatever. I just look up and say “what?”
I’m all the time asking family members to smell something if it is ok, mayo, lunch meat, leftovers.
I lost mine about 1985, about 23 years old. I think in my case it had something to do with a Grateful Dead concert wink wink nudge nudge I explain it to people by comparing it to eyesight. It’s not like i’m 20-40 or 20-80, it’s like someone plucked my eyeballs out. There is just no sensation there.
CalMeacham asked about particularly strong odors. We used to have an old blueprint machine that used a PARTICULARLY strong ammonium nitrate (or sulfate or something). You had to be really careful to make sure the door was open and you had some ventilation. I couldn’t smell it, but it burned my nose and lungs. I definitely could feel it.
Question for DungBeetle, it sounds like you became anosmic at an early age. You sound resigned to it and almost pleased with it. Do you miss your sense of smell? I certainly do mine. I think of all the smells I used to love, perfume, cut grass, certain foods.
Another question. I get smells in my head. It’s hard to explain. It very much seems like a real smell, but it’s not. I call them “bastard smells”. They last for days, sometimes a couple of weeks. The same thing, constantly, for days. 
The 2 most common ones for me are a burnt smell and a soapy smell. Does this happen to you?
if6was9
Nah, I don’t miss it. That grandma’s-house smell is the only one I remember; I don’t get the “bastard smells” either. People sometimes feel sorry for me that I don’t know what a rose smells like, or cooking bacon or something, but then I remind them that I have never smelled a fart or burned popcorn or B.O.
Did your sense of smell go very suddenly?
This is why I eat a lot of peanut butter sandwiches…
My excuse for anosmia seems to be that my sinuses are completely filled with… something. They did a CAT scan of my head and were surprised to see that all the passages that were suppose to be filled with air had either fluid or swollen tissue or something in them. They had me on steroids and antibiotics for a few weeks to see what would happen, and my sense of smell started to come back. They took me off the drugs because they weren’t too good for me, and the sense of smell went away again. Then they wanted me to hose my nose out twice a day to try and clear the sinuses (sinii?), but that didn’t have any effect.
Have you ever read the book “Perfume”? If so, did you like it, and/or could you not identify with the characters?
Yeah. Probably within a month or so. Like I said, I think it was some really bad tomfoolery that caused it. And I was not completely… focused… at the time. AND I was facing DUI charges at the time. Ah stupid youth. Still when I look back, it was really just in a couple week period that I lost it, in 1987. And it never has come back.
I have a minor incident which doesn’t deserve its own thread, but I would like to ask y’all about it:
Last night I was shopping with my daughter and I bought some of those little detergent-packs you put in the dishwasher. I noticed they were citrus-scented, so I asked my daughter why on earth they would do that. Does it make your dishes smell like oranges? What if you’re eating something that doesn’t go with oranges?
She told me it does make your dishes smell just a little, and the reason for it is to mask other odors that dishes get when they’re used. The example she gave was a coffee cup. She says it gets a coffee smell after a while, even when it’s clean. True? If so: Weird!
I’ve never noticed dishes having any smell after coming out of the dishwasher. So it seems sorta irrelevant to me. But yeah, things do hold onto scents. I’ve used unscented detergent, and discovered that even when my clothes were clean they apparently weren’t perfectly clean, and a slight funk clung to them. So I went back to covering it up with scented detergent. And my travel coffee mug is plastic; it’s certainly never going to smell like anything but coffee.
I used to work with a woman who had no sense of smell. It used to gross her out when we were in an elevator - or some other confined space - with a particularly, ummmm, fragrant individual and she realized she was deeply breathing in all that odiferous ickiness while I was prudently holding my breath. Sometimes I used to tell her people were really smelly just to freak her out…
Ack! Paranoia strikes again! I must avoid people until I can find out if my clothes soap is scented!
Surly Chick
I never thought of it like that. In fact, sometimes (at home) if someone farts, I will attempt to “save” the family by vacumming up the stinkiness with my broken smeller. Anyway, I see you’re new here, so welcome to the SDMB!
Thanks! After several years of eavesdropping, I’ve finally decided to delurk.
Dung Beetle, I’m reasonably sure we’ve never known each other, but I think I got your smeller!
I have a hypersensitive nose. Always have. I can smell things that, when I comment on them, have other people scratching their heads and saying, “Huh?” I can identify most spices in food easily and can even spot (smell?) some additives, such as Nutra-Sweet (which smells different than Splenda or Equal). I can smell the underlying scent of lilacs (which ranks, in my opinion, right there with rancid doggy doo - not a happy thing, since I live in the Lilac City); I know it’s something to do with the actual flowers and not the scent itself because lilac-scented perfume or shampoo doesn’t bother me, but the real deal makes me want to gag.
I passed through a city with a rendering plant one time and had to pull over, it was bringing tears to my eyes. My roommate at the time couldn’t figure out what my problem was. “So it stinks, big deal. What’s the matter with you?”
Let’s not even discuss personal hygiene (or the lack thereof) displayed by some of my coworkers or J. Random Stranger. Ugh!
I think you got the better end of the deal!
–sofaspud
I’m like your hubby…My smeller and taste buds are hooked together. I can smell and taste individual ingredients
On that thought.
If it don’t pass my nose it ain’t passing my lips.
Another congenital anosmic chiming in.
I actually had my sense of smell tested by someone doing research. They opened some bottles that had them sucrrying from the room, and only explained it to me later why they had to leave.
I can’t tell if something has garlic in it–to me, that means salty, because that usually goes with it. I can’t tell between different berry flavors in candy, or that some things even have flavoring added–like flavored waters, a lot of those are apparently smells.
On the other hand, that old science experiment of holding your nose and eating a piece of apple or onion, well, I’d know the difference. I suspect I’m more sensitive to textures. And, yes, unfortunately, I’m able to be very fond of food. Beer, wine and tea, not to mention exotic coffee, are all lost on me.
I find that I like things that other people like when they have colds, like mint and hot flavors.
There is also a nerve in the nose that lets you feel things like ammonia and fumes, and I cry like a baby cutting onions, but it isn’t from smell.
I also get a little paranoid sometimes, throwing food out, and wondering if I, personally, smell or not. I use Mitchum deoderent (‘so strong you can skip a day’), for example, just…in…case. It makes me feel sorry for blind people, not knowing what they look like and wondering what other people see.